Homeschool Field Trip: Musgrave Orchard

Chocolate Mint Really Smells Like Chocolate Mint



Apple Trees

Bees! (Behind Miss Goofy There)

Time to Think About Stuff

Freedom to Poke Grass Blades into Mysterious Holes

Sampling Cider

The Reddest, Most Delicious Apple Ever Eaten

We are also now experts on the workings of the cider press.

Craft Fair Tutorial: Display on a Stick

Things sell better if you don't just throw a pile of them on a platter on a table.

This has been a huge struggle for me, as I have pretty much zero design sense. It has been a lot of work, and a lot of thinking, and a lot of doing stuff wrong, and a lot of willingness to toss bad displays and make new ones, and a lot more thinking, and a lot more willingness to toss those new displays when they didn't work either, blah, blah, blah, but slowly, like YEARS slowly, my craft fair displays are starting, and I mean just starting, to come together nicely.

My main hindrance has always been a fear of spending money. Every nice craft fair display that I've ever seen seems to have incorporated a lot of purchased elements, and I am not even willing to thrift stuff to use just for a display. A lot of my display mistakes over time have come from me trying to cobble together something from what I already own that ends up looking cobbled together, or me trying to put something together as cheaply as possible that ends up looking cheap.

Ironically, a lot of the stuff that I've done that I've liked the most--the record bowl shopping cart display, the spray-painted EZ-Up, have been cheaper than those cheap-o projects. They tend to use found elements that fit my needs perfectly, and supplies that have other purposes in my art, crafting, or homeschooling, etc.

This stand-up display for any craft on a stick--flags, pinwheels, or my rocket pop crayons--came together just the same way. It utilizes an old cardboard box lid for a base, some of the plaster of Paris that the girls and I do craft and homeschool projects with, more popsicle sticks from our thrifted supply, and our artist's acrylic paints.

The first step is to fill the box lid with plaster of Paris. I wasn't sure how much to make, so I mixed up one batch at a time and poured it on top of the previous batch. Alternately, you could fill the lid with water and pour it off into a measuring cup to ascertain the volume of plaster that you'll want to mix.

As the plaster sets, you'll need to supervise it in order to make the holes that your sticks will fit into. Use exactly the same sticks as you use in your craft, although these sticks will end up with plaster and paint on them, and so they won't be suitable for your crafting afterwards.

Watch the plaster as it hardens (I brought a book, and a four-year-old who wanted to chat), and as soon as it will hold your stick upright, place all your sticks upright in it, exactly where you want the holes to be. I made more holes and closer together than will actually fit my rocket pops, so that I can rearrange my display in a larger variety of ways.

Keep watching the plaster, and when it's relatively stiff, but not fully hard, try to pull one of your sticks out. It should come out cleanly, if a little wet. If it takes a bit of plaster with it as it comes, hurry and get the rest of the sticks out, because that means that you've let the plaster set a little too long, and the last thing you want is a display full of sticks that won't come out.

As soon as the plaster is fully hard, put the sticks back in, because otherwise the holes will shrink as the plaster contracts. Every little while, pull the sticks out and put them back in to keep the holes clean and perfectly sized. Be mindful as you do this to put the sticks in and pull them out perfectly straight--until the plaster is fully cured, you can damage the holes by wiggling the sticks in their holes or pulling them at an angle.

When the plaster is fully cured, you should be able to put the sticks in and out of their holes cleanly and easily, and they should fit snugly. If any holes are imperfect, then cover them up when you paint--customers often want to pick something up and look at it and then put it back, and they'll be frustrated or worried if they can't put your craft back the way it came (if they're the kind that care about that sort of thing, and not the kind that'll just toss it anywhere. Ugh).

After the plaster has cured the amount of time called for in the instructions, put all the sticks back in their holes and grab your acrylic paints for some prettying:

And yes, I'm sorry, you do have to paint in the nude. It's sorta required.

Homeschool Science: Ack! It's Gak!

In other words, we love ourselves some polymers.

I've been wanting to make gak ever since we began having so much fun with oobleck, but even though borax lives in the grocery store, you would not believe how many months of regular shopping trips it took me to finally happen upon it. Don't be stubbon like me--just ask someone. Ask someone old enough not to look at you blankly when you say "borax" to them.

You will need:

• borax. Seriously, just ask.You only need 1/2 teaspoon of borax, but the store will make you buy an entire freaking box of it. Fortunately, borax is an excellent natural cleaner, and I've been using mine for laundry, on the bathtub, etc.
• 4 oz. bottle of Elmer's glue. I bought an absurd number of these glue bottles during the very good back-to-school sales, and they've been serving me well since.
• warm water, like warm from the tap, not warm from the teakettle.
• food coloring. It's fun.

1. Empty the entire 4 oz. bottle of glue into a mixing bowl:

The kiddos had trouble getting every last bit of glue out of the bottle, but the rest of the steps were no problem.

2. Fill the bottle back up with warm water from the tap, screw the lid on, shake it like a Polaroid picture, then take the cap back off and pour the warm glue-water into the bowl with the glue.

3. Find a cup or another small container, pour another 1/4 cup of warm water into it, then pour in 1/2 teaspoon of borax and stir to dissolve it.

4. Dump the borax water into the glue water and stir like mad for the precious few seconds that you'll have until the borax causes the glue molecules to link together in long chains. When that happens, you'll want to start kneading the mixture with your hands until it's an even consistency:

And then you play and play and play:

The gak is vastly less messy than oobleck, but it's still fascinating on a tactile level. The babes squished it and mooshed it and tore it and slammed it and stuffed into containers and unstuffed it and sculpted with it and spelled with it:

And then they put it in a Ziplock bag so that they can do it all again later.

Strange Folk 2010: A Novel in Several Chapters

Set-Up

Because you can't have enough tinsel.

Rocket Pops

This is a newbie craft, developed after I figured out how to do layered melted crayon molds. I was all freaking out before Strange Folk, on account of I ran out of white crayons (still plenty of reds and blues) after making only four true-to-life rocket pop crayons, and you can't just bring FOUR of something to Strange Folk, unless it's four, like, four hundred dollar somethings. Anyway, I finally figured that I'd just make a ton of randomly-colored rocket pops, too, just to fill out the display.

By Sunday tear-down, wanna guess how many rocket pops I had left?

Four. Every one of them was red, white, and blue.

I Bet She'd Also Like a Record Bowl...

So Matt was sitting at the picnic benches over by the World's Largest Sandbox, watching the girls play, and some guy sitting near him commented to some other women that he'd bought the exact same journal that she was holding. The woman replied that she'd bought the journal for her niece, who liked to write songs. The guy told her that he'd bought his journal for his daughter, an anthropologist, because it was "kinda Indiana Jones-looking" (nota bene: Indiana Jones isn't an anthropologist).

The woman said that her niece travels around the country. "She has an album coming out this month," she added.

The guy said, "Oh, wow. That must be exciting for her."

The woman said, "You might have heard of her. Her name is Taylor Swift."

The guy said, "That doesn't sound familiar. I'll look her up tonight."

My own reply would have been: "Oh, yeah? My daughter's name is Temperance Brennan."

Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia!

Or, as one customer squealed upon sighting them, "Look! It's a cup full of happiness!"

Go Away!

Do you know what hay means at an outdoor craft fair? Rain, that's what it means. Standing outside our tents in the rain, chatting (on account of there was nothing else to do, like, you know, wait on customers or anything of that nature), I told the guy who had the tent next to me that it had rained at every single craft fair that I have done this year. Because it has.

"What?!?" He shouted.

I was about to reply, "I know, right?", when he exclaimed, "Me, too!!! I thought it was just me!" And he's full-time--he does WAY more craft fairs than I do.

It used to never rain on me. I used to never even own a tent. And now, in the midwest at least, it only rains when I have a craft fair.

Future One-Car Family?

On the way home in the middle of the night, AGAIN in Effingham, something horrible happened to the van. Matt got us home by driving 45 mph the whole way, the maximum speed at which the car would travel before the horrible things happened, and fortunately the highway's minimum posted speed limit.

We can't afford to have any work done to that car, and I mean ANY work, no new tires, no oil changes, nothing, but fortunately I come from a people who know that a non-working vehicle is just four cinderblocks away from being yard art.

Stuff!

I plan to put all the proceeds from Strange Folk toward making Pumpkin+Bear an official biz, so I couldn't do much shopping there, but I did allow myself one spree, at Circa Ceramics across from my tent:

Say hello to my new most favorite coffee mug ever! It has a typewriter on it! Because I'm a writer! Although I don't use a typewriter! That would suck! I love my new mug!

On the last afternoon of the festival, the awesome folks at Rainbow Swirlz organized a little trade. I gave them a baby bag made from a vintage superheroes T-shirt for this great little four-month-old superhero that they happen to have birthed, and they gave me...

Can you see it? In the middle, next to Miss Island of the Blue Dolphins there? Here's a close-up:

It's my new most favorite bag ever. I love it so much that I was wearing it around yesterday before it even had anything in it. Not only is it super, but it reminds me of my family. Willow is the dinosaur. Sydney is the pink. Matt is the RAR.

Or should that be RAWR?

Day 1 of 2

Strange Folk says hi!

Outdoor Girls

At the Hoosier Outdoor Experience, sponsored by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources  (the fishing folks), the girlies indeed had lots of new and precious outdoor experiences:

Bow Hunting



Pony Rides

Shotgun



Motorcycle (see the training wheels?)

Fishing

Bow Fishing

Handmade Instruments and Wood Chip Necklaces

New experiences. Precious memories. And a free coloring book!

How Does My Chia Garden Grow?

Very well, thank you.

Terrific Toys

A day at the children's museum is about as lovely of a mid-week outing as a homeschooling family can get. Once or twice I've made the mistake of bringing the kiddos to the museum when it's very, very crowded (you know, like on a weekend?), and therefore I can accurately evaluate that it's sooooo nice to have such a large and wonderful place nearly all to ourselves.

We described to a sketch artist what we thought the animal might look like whose skull was on display. Hint: our sketch looked NOTHING like the tapir that the animal apparently was.

We molded brown silly putty over T. Rex skull models to make our own T. Rex faces.

We sketched horns and claws:

Willow drew a dinosaur with big red claws and gave it its Latin name--pyro-onyx. Anyone?

The girls helped a docent strip a model T. Rex of its skin and muscles, right down to its plywood bones:

We ate bread and hummus brought from home, and drank chocolate soymilk and orange juice.

We attended a lecture on the workings of the giant water clock--vacuums and siphons, okay, but I still don't get it.

The girls took turns riding Sandy, using nickels from their allowance:

We did a little bit of shopping in the gift shop, an almost unheard-of treat, on account of I had a coupon (and the saga of how the cashier didn't scan my coupon, and I didn't notice until I was home, and my attempts to contact Customer Service to get my partial refund have been ignored? That saga continues, sigh).

The real purpose of our visit, however, was to attend a homeschool class--Terrific Toys. We heard a lecture and examined numerous examples of folk toys from the museum's collections, then had a chance to build several toys of our own. We made masks--

--and wind-up toys, and a pull toy, and Sydney and I made a set of nesting dolls while Willow made a galimoto!

I must tell you, however, that the best part of an uncrowded children's museum is the ability to NOT do stuff with the kiddos. When the children's museum is uncrowded, there are benches that are actually unoccupied, and the gallery space is so open that you can actually supervise your small ones without being all up in their faces, and there are fewer helicopter parents (although there are still always some) to make you feel guilty for not micro-managing your child's play.

If you ever experience a large children's museum under those conditions, and if you're a smart parent, like I am, then you bring a book, and you sit your butt down--

--and you have yourself a lovely time at the children's museum, too.

Journey through Today

Went to dance class.

Went to soccer.

 
Will started soccer VERY grumpy, then forgot that she was grumpy and played happily for almost the entire game, then fell down and remembered that she was grumpy again.

Bought the girls some winter clothes (thank gawd for Goodwill!). Leggings + long-sleeved shirts + snow boots + heavy coat = warm little girls this winter.

 
Still must sew the long-promised flannel nightgowns and long skirts.

Watered the dinosaur fairy gardens:

Found some juice glasses at the Recycling Center that will be the basis of teeny tiny little Strange Folk fairy gardens next week. Am also thinking about creating fairy garden DIY kits.

Adopted two of our four former foster kittens--Gracie and Spots. Good thing that we'd told the shelter we were coming back for them, since as we walked in we spotted a third foster kitten on her way out, with a bright new red collar on her neck and in the arms of a very happy little girl. Fortunately, I managed to muffle the children as they squealed, "Hey, it's Bitey! Hi, Bitey!". Wouldn't want the new family to be warned about that particular kitty's particular bad habit until they were all well at home, at least.

Drank coffee.

Cleaned the living room.

Rearranged furniture until I was able to realize my dream of having the living room stereo, including the record player, in reach of the babies. Was rewarded by babies' insistence on listening to the Alvin and the Chipmunks' Christmas album several times:

Played Monopoly Junior. Skunked by Will.

I've demanded a rematch for tomorrow.

Tied Tutus for My Two, Too

The plan was to tie some tutus for my tent at Strange Folk, but somehow, amongst the GeoSafari and the gumdrops and bamboo skewers and Magic Tree House and the Mythbusters, only these two tutus for my two got tied:

Gotta have your priorities, you know.

Strange Little Busy Bees

What have I been busy doing? Why, getting ready for Strange Folk! Many, many things have to be done before next weekend.

Have to put together the chia in a cup kits.
Have to water the cups o' chia already planted.
Have to water the dinosaur garden, as well:

Have to make signage.
Have to make record bowls.
Have to find the Pumpkin+Bear business card stamp.
Have to read some tongue twisters:

Have to sew colored pencil rolls.
Have to sew an I Spy quilt.
Have to tie, not sew, some tutus.
Have to tie some tutus for my two, too:

Have to put together an I Spy quilt kit.
Have to put together the clothespin doll kits.
Have to put together the color-your-own bunting kits.
Have to color an example, so everyone knows how cute they come:

Have to figure out a Barbie dress pattern.
Have to figure out a balancing butterfly pattern.
Have to get that toy fossil triceratops out of its slate prison!

Have to bake the crayon pops.

Have to go get some geodes.
Have to drill holes in colored pencils.

Have to take pictures on a sunny day.

Have to play Quirkle when it's cloudy:

At this rate, have to have a margarita tonight after the little pumpkinbears are sleeping.