Strocel.com | Kid Activities

I am an Artist

Amber on October 21, 2009 12 Comments

Last weekend Jon and I loaded up the kids and attended a Family Day event at this really great local arts centre. The point of the day was to expose everyone of all ages to art in a fun, interactive and non-threatening way. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what it would be like to bring Hannah the non-stop-talker and Jacob the non-stop-mover into an art gallery for the afternoon. Hannah, on the other hand, was stoked. As we were driving there she told me, “I am a great artist!”

Hannah had to do the princess pose with the bear before we went inside

The event opened with an interactive portrait-painting session. Local artist Eleanor Hannan was on hand, while professional portrait model Monique posed for us all. Let me tell you, I had no idea how much skill is involved in portrait modeling. Monique held poses and dramatic facial expressions for more than 5 minutes at a time, not moving a muscle. It was pretty amazing. Eleanor created a portrait of Monique using a sewing machine (so cool!) and we all created portraits using paint, crayons and pencils. I haven’t done anything like this in a long, long time. I bet that it’s been in the neighbourhood of 20 years since I tried to draw a portrait. I really enjoyed it.

Monique is on the left, and Eleanor’s on the right

Hannah and me, creating art

Hannah hard at work

Here is our family’s little photo gallery. If you click on them you can see the full-size, including the embellishment Hannah added to my portrait. I love that kid’s sense of style, she’s all about colour.

After the portrait session, we headed into the dance studio for theatre games. This is something else I haven’t done in well over a decade. As an earnest 13-year-old with theatrical aspirations, though, I loved this stuff. Sadly, Jacob was losing some patience and he and I played in the hallway while Hannah and Jon pretended to walk through pudding. But the bits I did see were great, as these little kids threw themselves full force into performing.

Michael Fera leads theatre games

Finally, to round out the day Hannah created a puppet with a lot of glitter. When she was done she gave me a little performance. More drama, but the good kind, for sure.

Hannah’s puppet show

I came out of the day feeling empowered. I encourage my kids to explore their creativity. I know that Hannah loves to paint and draw and needle felt. I would hope that she doesn’t stop doing those things that she loves, even if she’s not a professional artist. Because they’re great things. And yet I don’t extend myself the same courtesy. So what if I can’t really draw hands? Does that mean I can’t take pencil to paper and make my own art? Not at all.

What about you? When’s the last time you drew something just for fun? Join me in raiding the crayon box, won’t you?

PS – I am now contributing very couple of weeks over at 5 Minutes for Going Green! You can read my first post today, Returning Food Packaging for Reuse.

Tagged With: Kid Activities, Kids, Navel Gazing, Parenting

Watch Out, I’m Needle Felting!

Amber on October 10, 2009 11 Comments

Back in March I shared my adventures in creating felted Easter eggs. First, I tried and failed. Then I re-tried and (sort of) succeeded. At the time, I only tried wet felting, for a few reasons. I didn’t have the special tool required for needle felting back then. Plus, it seemed more kid-friendly to me. Because, hello, scary needle felting tool! However, as it turns out, I was wrong.

Although, when you see the first felting tool I purchased you can understand why I felt it was definitely not suitable for preschoolers.

Close-up of the scary Waldorf-inspired needle felting tool I originally bought

My good friend and inspiration in all things fibre-related, Kirsten, assured me that needle felting could be done by 4-year-olds. And then we set up a needle felting session with a few of our mutual friends at my house. Kirsten brought her fabulous hand-dyed supplies along, so we had a wonderful woolly rainbow of materials to choose from. My friends all bought felting tools at the local yarn store, along with handy felting mats, and I discovered that theirs were both less scary and much easier to use than my tool. But even with my tool needle felting was much simpler than I expected – it only took me a few minutes to complete my first project, a felted egg.

Commercial, not-so-scary needle felting tool with handy locking guard

My felted egg

My 4-year-old Hannah saw us all sitting there, working on our creations, and she decided she had to try it. She dove right in and made herself a butterfly. My friend helped her tie little knots in the antennae, but the rest of it was all her.

Hannah doing some needle felting

Close-up of the felting tool and mat in action

Hannah’s butterfly

As for me, I had my sights set on a pumpkin for our nature shelf. I was quite pleased with how it turned out, if I do say so myself.

My wee pumpkin

Then Hannah and I collaborated to create a fall fairy, also for our nature shelf.

Our fall fairy, from the front and back

If you want to try needle felting yourself, there are some online tutorials showing just how easy needle felting really is. I would opt for the fancy felting tools you can find at most yarn stores, especially if you’re working with children. Because I definitely seemed to stab myself rather a lot before I also ran to the store for the mass-produced version. But beyond that, dive in and give it a try, and I bet you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can create something really cool.

Edited to say: I have now posted my own needle felting tutorial, if you want to see how quick and easy needle felting really is. Or, if you want to hear me say ‘um’ a lot. Either way, it’s sure to be a winner!

Tagged With: Crafts, Felting, Kid Activities

Embroidering with Hannah

Amber on September 7, 2009 17 Comments

I recently read The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule. It was fabulous and left me feeling very inspired to incorporate more creative activities into our daily lives.

One of the activities that she suggests is embroidery for children. I was initially a little freaked out by the prospect. My daughter Hannah is 4 1/2 and I could see her putting an eye out. But the fabulous SouleMama said that you could use loosely woven fabric with a dull tapestry needle. And when Hannah saw the pictures of the Soule kids embroidering she was extremely enthusiastic about the idea. So I decided to give it a go. I’ve been meaning to try embroidery myself, so if Hannah didn’t like it I could use the materials and no harm would be done.

Hannah chose a pink hoop and pink thread, to no one’s surprise

I loaded up the kids and trucked off to our local craft store and bought embroidery thread and hoops. Which wasn’t a great experience. What is it with craft stores? You would expect them to be kid-friendly, but they are not. There are tons of tempting and breakable items at eye level, just begging for a small child to explore. But that’s strongly discouraged. The result is rather nightmarish if you have several small companions in tow. Luckily, I made it out alive and with the supplies we needed.

Working from the reverse, it’s hard to remember which side to put the thread through

Hannah was really eager to get started. The biggest challenge for her was remembering which side to put the thread through. She always wants to put the needle in the top, which doesn’t work so well. But she did remarkably well. She figured out how to pull the needle back out if she inserted it the wrong way. I rescued her a few times, but not as many as I anticipated. For the most part I left her to work and she did it on her own.

Checking the sharpness of the needle (it was really dull, I promise)

It did take some work on my part to convince Hannah to do it all herself. She wanted me to make it look ‘right’ – make the sun look perfectly circular or the feet just the right size. In the end I was able to convince her that everyone likes her work better than mine. Which is true. Mediocre embroidery from a 30-something doesn’t net the same accolades as early attempts by a 4-year-old. Too bad, really. Wouldn’t we all love to get rave reviews for absolutely everything we did?

That’s Hannah wearing a pink dress, with the sun at the top right

I would highly recommend embroidery as an activity for preschoolers. The finished product can be made into a pillow or framed. I think it would make a cool and affordable holiday gift for relatives, or decoration for your own home. As for Hannah’s first project, we are going to make a little pillow for her room. She’s really excited about that part, too. I love watching her become enthusiastic over her projects.

Speaking of projects …

I am working hard on a quick (and completely non-authoritative, but totally fun) guide to Canadian maternity leave. It’s a PDF and it’s being professionally designed and everything. It will be available here on this site in 2 weeks’ time. Next week I will have all the details about how to get your own copy. If you are going on maternity leave soon, check it out. You may just learn something. And even if you don’t, you’ll make me happy by downloading it. Either way, I win. So check back next Monday September 14 for more info!

Tagged With: Crafts, Kid Activities, Sewing

Paying for Complacency

Amber on April 15, 2009 12 Comments

I recently bought Hannah some tempera paint. I was actually looking for water colours. You know, the small, hard cakes that come 10 to a tray in a case with a clear plastic lid. I like those paints because they’re cheap, they’re washable, and they can’t spill. However, for some reason I couldn’t track them down that easily. Or at least not easily enough. I tried the grocery store and our local toy store, where I gave in and just bought the tempera paint. Yes, I know I could have visited one of a dozen other stores and probably found some, but when you’re traveling with two small, cranky children you want to minimize stops at all costs.

I bought the paint because I wanted to make hand and footprints with the kids as gifts. Which was probably ill-conceived. Have you ever spread paint on an 8-month-old’s hand, and then tried to convince him to open it and press it firmly against a sheet of paper? It is not easy. It is particularly not easy to get him to do it in the right spot. You find yourself speaking ever more loudly and slowly, as if that will help at all. “Jacob! Please open your hand! Open! Open! OPEN!” I sort of succeeded once. At least I tried, right? That’s got to count for something.

Anyway, I was left with 8 largish bottles full of paint. Hannah wanted to do some painting, so I set her up. At first I monitored her very closely. I poured little bits of paint into small containers. I hovered. I provided her with cloths and water for rinsing. I added a drop of soap to each little paint cup because I heard it makes it easier to wash later. And Hannah did fine. She was really careful and created a few works of art.

You veteran parents know what happens next. Buoyed by your success, you become complacent. Your child seems to have mastered the paint, and is playing happily on her own. So you leave the room and read a book, surf the web, do a row of knitting. It doesn’t really matter, you’re just taking advantage of a rare moment of peace. And then your child shows up and says, “Look at me!”

Oh. My. She helpfully offers that if you mix red and white paint together you get pink. And if you mix more white and more red, you get more pink. She’s learning about colour and texture, and having a lot of fun.

Only, you know, she’s covered. The carpet she walked across to find you is covered. The floor is covered. Yes, there is a sheet of paper buried under all that paint, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Because you experienced a parental lapse and now you will pay the price.

Let this be a lesson to you. Do not leave a 4-year-old alone with paint. It will end very, very badly indeed. I can’t believe I was so fantastically foolish as to not foresee this inevitable outcome. I will not make this mistake again, that’s for sure.

Please, share some tales of your parental lapses. I know I’m not the only one.

Tagged With: Kid Activities, Kids, Parenting

Felted Easter Egg Re-try

Amber on March 31, 2009 7 Comments

A week and a half ago I attempted to make felted Easter eggs with Hannah, and failed. Or at least I wasn’t as successful as I hoped.

But, you see, there’s something you should know about me. I can be a tad, err, obsessive. When something almost works, but not quite, I will beat that dead horse into the ground. This is how I ended up sewing baby carrier after baby carrier until I had achieved Perfection. It’s how I program computers a lot of the time. I know I’m close, and I become relentless and single-minded until I get there.

I do, at least, usually have the good sense to not try the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. I change my approach constantly, tweaking and modifying. I ask people questions and then ignore their answers as I come up with yet another thing to try myself. And, oh yeah, I use a lot of ‘salty’ language. This is why Jon tries to avoid helping me tackle technical problems at all costs. I am maybe not the best or most patient client for him.

Lovely, lovely wool

Anyways, after my last post about the felted eggs I received a fair bit of encouragement. And then my dear friend Kirsten of Yummy yarn let slip that she had a bag of colourful wool bits that might be perfect for my project. (Her roving is to die for!) And I decided to get back on that horse, because I am nothing if not dedicated to driving myself slowly insane.

The hole that wouldn’t go away

This time I went and bought some plastic Easter eggs first. I tried using more or less the same method I used before – I wrapped bits of wool around the egg, dipped them in hot soapy water, and then massaged them with my fingertips. But it didn’t go that well. I kept getting holes that wouldn’t fill in, and the plastic halves of the egg kept popping apart. Very frustrating.

Two eggs packed inside a nylon

So I changed my approach (after using a few bad words and crying a little). As tightly as I could, I wrapped about 6 layers of wool around a plastic egg, and then stuck the whole thing inside an old nylon. I tied the end off so that it was held together pretty tightly, and then added another egg. You could probably fit six or more eggs inside a single leg, leaving yourself extra at the end to hold on to.

Into the hot, soapy water

I dunked the eggs in wet soapy water and swished them around, holding onto the extra nylon at the end so that I didn’t have to stick my hands into all that heat. Then I removed the eggs, allowed the excess water to drip off, and slowly and gently squeezed each one. Gentleness is key, or else you end up popping the plastic egg apart and the finished product isn’t quite the right shape. I also found it pretty effective to pour boiling water from the kettle over the eggs.

My finished eggs

After a couple of dozen repetitions, the wool felted nicely. Little fuzzy strands poked through the nylon, and the consistency changed. I could feel that they were holding their shape, the eggs were smaller and firmer. Then I threw the nylon and eggs into a hot dryer for about 20 minutes. After I cut the nylons off (carefully), I had some pretty decent felted eggs.

I will be honest and say that I’m not sure this is actually a great craft for kids. My 4-year-old could help me get the eggs ready to go into the nylon, but that’s about it. The hot water is just too hot, the felting requires too much care, and cutting the eggs out of the nylon without hurting them takes fine motor skills your average preschooler simply doesn’t have. But Hannah likes the finished product, so it all worked out.

Also, I got another tip from my yarny friend Kirsten. If you don’t have plastic eggs, or prefer not to use plastic, it’s pretty easy to make a wool core. Form a rough egg shape using some tightly packed wool, and wrap it with feltable yarn. You don’t need to wrap it completely, just enough to hold its shape. You will end up with a product made entirely of natural materials, and you can save yourself the time of starting from scratch.

Tagged With: Crafts, Felting, Kid Activities

Barbie on the Nature Table?

Amber on March 24, 2009 7 Comments

In honour of Spring I decided to set up a Waldorf-style nature table, with Hannah’s help of course. A nature table, or seasonal table, is a small surface decorated with natural objects to reflect the season. The idea is that you will have small toys or crafts, candles, and items collected on walks. You change your table for different holidays and festivals, as well as when the seasons change.

Hannah sets up the table

The purpose (as I understand it) is to bring a bit of the outdoors inside, and to help bring the seasons alive for children. A nature table is meant to be played with, and the kids should be involved in choosing items and setting it up. It’s not a display space for Mom, designed to enhance the beauty of the room. Although it might do that, letting the kids enjoy themselves is more important than enforcing good taste and colour coordination.

Setting out the playsilk

Hannah picked up on the idea right away. She referred to it as a ‘spring scene’ – they have seasonal scenes set up in a fish tank in her daycare. She had all sorts of ideas, and we engaged in some heavy negotations to determine where it would be. We finally chose a spot we could agree on, and found some playsilks to use as tablecloths. I laid out some objects for her to use – a flower-shaped candle holder, a felted spring fairy, some wooden eggs, Hannah’s ‘treasures’ from a trip to the park with my mom. And then Hannah chose some items, too. A metal bowl, a pillow, a toy honeypot, and of course Barbie.

The spring fairy needs a friend, and Barbie’s just the ticket

After all, who doesn’t love Barbie?

I’m pretty sure that mass-produced plastic toys are not meant to be part of a nature table. But I decided to butt out. The nature table is not about me. It is about Hannah, and in her mind Barbie can only improve any tableau, with her eternal smile and her flowing blond hair. This is one time for me to let Hannah’s self-expression reign. As she gets older we may be able to come to a better understanding as to what belongs on the nature table, but for now I will leave it in her capable hands.

Hannah playing with the ‘spring scene’

After several permutations Hannah did remove the Barbie doll. And I was secretly pleased. Although I guarantee you she will be back on there again as Hannah plays and re-arranges. Perhaps she will even be joined by the ever-loving Barbie styling head that Hannah purchased with her allowance. Or a My Little Pony. The non-Waldorf-approved toy options are rather plentiful here at Casa de Strocel.

The ‘finished’ product (for now)

You can find more photos of our recent adventures on my photostream. And please, let me know if you do anything with your kids to mark the changing seasons. I’m always up for good kid activities, as long as no felting is involved.

Tagged With: Kid Activities, Kids

Felted Easter Egg Failure

Amber on March 21, 2009 11 Comments

I like to knit and sew. I like the satisfaction of making something with my own two hands. I enjoy the tactile nature of the yarn or the fabric, playing with colour, choosing embellishments like buttons. I especially enjoy Hannah’s excitement when I make something just for her.

In spite of my crafty turn I have been a colossal failure when it comes to kids’ crafts. I was a Brownie leader for 5 years, and in my unit the weekly craft nearly always involved drawing a picture about the topic at hand. Draw a picture about snowshoeing! Camp! Healthy food choices! I just wasn’t that good at coming up with relevant activities involving glitter glue and pipe cleaners. And now that I have my own kids things haven’t changed much – Hannah does a lot of colouring, and that’s about it.

I have tried. A couple of years ago I had my good friend and her daughter over near Christmas to make handprint ornaments. I made red and green playdough and it seemed fine. We rolled it out and wrestled two toddlers into making a ten or so handprints each. (This is not as easy as it sounds, by the way). We punched holes to string ribbon through, and etched words while the dough was still pliable. Then we baked it, and it became apparent that I used the wrong recipe.

You see, cream of tartar, which is featured in many playdough recipes, is actually a leavening agent. So our lovely ornaments ballooned and bubbled and turned colour and were a total disaster. My home-made playdough would have been great to play with, but was not suited to creating permanent objects. For that I would have needed a different recipe.

But hope springs eternal. I’ve been reading my latest issue of Mothering magazine, and there was a great article about creative moms. It was very inspirational, and I decided I needed to get back on this horse. I needed to craft with Hannah, not just for Hannah. I decided to try felted Easter eggs.

To start, we dyed some wool using Kool-Aid and food colouring. That part actually went pretty well.

Then I read some instructions on-line that suggested using a plastic egg in the core. I didn’t have any on hand, so I thought instead I could follow these instructions and just felt a little at a time in layers. And I started. But the felting was very slow-going. Hannah helped a bit, but it really needed hot water and a lot of patience so I mostly did it.

After half an hour I had made little progress. Jacob was cranky being on my back as I stood still for so long, and Hannah was asking me constantly where the eggs were at. I decided to change tactics. At this point I could have gone and gotten some plastic eggs and followed these instructions, but I didn’t. Instead, I remembered something about felting in the washing machine. I threw big wads of wool into some of my old socks, but I neglected the crucial step of tying off the ends. The result was the wool escaped and made lovely felted strands, but no eggs. In the end I got two lint-covered ball-like objects.

The rest were total discards.

Luckily Hannah likes her ‘eggs’, although she was hoping for something that would crack open to reveal a chick inside. (I love that she thinks I’m up to that sort of task). As for me, I think I’m going to try again next year. But I will follow the instructions to the letter, and skip straight to the washing machine. Because I clearly need to take baby steps to successfully craft with my babies.

What about you? Do you have any crafting fiascoes you can share? It would make me feel much better.