Tutorial: Painted Peace Flags for the New Year

Here's an homage to Tibetan prayer flags that my girlies and I put together over the last couple of weeks. It involved several pleasurable Project Mornings and Project Afternoons in our homeschool, some more reading about Tibet, some more reminiscing about the snow lion, and some happy sewing for me while Matt had the girls out watching football on TV somewhere in the city (one of the nice things about not having TV channels is that must-see football games equal alone time for the Momma).

You can do this project a couple of different ways, either by freehand painting or by freezer paper stenciling--I did the same project both ways, because that's how I roll, so I'm happy to show you both options. The colorway is meant to invoke the color order of the Tibetan prayer flag: blue, white, red, green, yellow. It's your flag, though, so do what you like.

To paint the flags, iron flat some nice, plain, white fabric--

 --and cut it into identical rectangles. Ours are approximately 8"x10".

To stabilize the flags for painting, iron them onto freezer paper. Then, with your favorite fabric markers or paints, go to town!

For this particular project, the girls and I spent some more time talking about peace, what it means to be a peaceful person, and how to keep peace in our hearts and our words and our deeds (my, I'd like them to embrace that one!). Then I asked them to each draw a picture of something that reminded them to be peaceful or that represented peace to them. Willow drew a scene of the Peace Pole outside her former Montessori school--she has many happy memories of the children's peace ceremonies there.

Sydney drew a picture of a beautiful bunch of flowers growing in the dirt. She says that looking at pretty things makes her feel peaceful:

We used Tee Juice markers that I bought in a limited color palette at 70% off on a Joann's Black Friday sale, just to try out. We liked them so much that I bought some more colors and widths last weekend. I think we'll get a lot of use out of them.

The girls wanted to use the remaining fabric that we'd cut out to draw pictures of dinosaurs, and unicorns battling other unicorns, so I made do with the three rectangles that we had painted, and so here's where you get to learn about freezer paper stenciling peace flags, too!

I knew that I wanted the Tibetan prayer flag color order of blue, white, red, green, and yellow, so I pulled printed cottons in those colors from my fabric stash and layed them out to see how I liked the look of them:

Pretty well indeed, I say! Three of the flags have a peace painting on one side and a printed cotton on the other side, and two of the flags are made from printed cotton alone.

To cut out a printed cotton peace flag, cut your fabric at your desired width + two seam allowances and twice your desired length + one seam allowance. Fold it in half with right sides together, sew up the two sides--

--and turn, then fold and press the top edges inside and sew closed. You can insert a ribbon loop in the middle of this top seam, if you wish.

Your painted peace flags will be backed with printed cotton, and finished with a back-to-front mock binding. Pin the painted fabric to the printed cotton, wrong sides together, and cut the printed cotton a half-inch wider than the painted fabric on all sides:

Turn twice and edge stitch on all sides:

Add ribbon loops to the top edge, if you wish.

The printed cotton can easily be freezer paper stenciled even after you've sewn it. I know that you're worried that the paint will bleed through, but it won't. Simply iron your stencil cut from freezer paper to your fabric--

--and then paint!

My best advice for fabric painting is to use the best fabric paints that you can afford. When in doubt, I choose a limited palette of high-quality paint over a large assortment of the cheap stuff. The paint that I used above is Jacquard Lumiere in bronze--this is the current go-to color for pretty much all our projects these days, but one little bottle does last a looooong time.

Heat-set your fabric paint according to the manufacturer's instructions:

Then thread a nice, long piece of twine or ribbon through the hanging loops:

Our peace flags are double-sided. One side faces the front yard and the street, and on that side reads the message that our family would like say to the world at large, and what we would like to have said by others when thinking about our family:

The other side of the flag faces our house, and can best be seen from inside it:

This side is more personal, I think, to be seen just by us and the loved ones who visit us (and our mailman). Here are our personal visions of peace, and some gentle reminders to us to be peaceful as we leave our home and venture out on our daily business.

And if the girls can somehow internalize that peace means that you shouldn't just walk up and smack your sister and then run away, well...that would be so great.

Little Pumpkinbear Links

Do you see it up there? It's a new-ish addition to my linkbar, and I've finally finished futzing with it (for a while).

My girlies are NOT allowed to surf the internet yet, and they're not allowed to visit web sites that contain external advertising, and they're not allowed to browse youtube unsupervised, and they're not allowed to visit most web sites that promote toys and other mass-market consumer culture products.

There are, however, loads and loads of educational web sites that the girlies ARE allowed to access, of course, and Little Pumpkinbear Links is the place where I keep them. My blog is one of my home page tabs that pops up whenever a child opens our internet browser, and from there, the child is able to find her tab and then scroll through her links.

If you've got a little pumpkin or bear about the ages of mine, then you're absolutely welcome to check out our links, too. I'll warn you, though--they tend to be a bit dinosaur-heavy.

Last Day of the Year

Sewing

 

I really, really, REALLY want our homemade peace flags to be ready to hang tomorrow. Since I haven't stenciled them yet, however, and the paint takes 24 hours to cure before it can be heat-set...well, Sunday's a good enough New Year's Day in pretend time.

Painting Dinosaurs

These paintable dinos were a big old splurge for Santa stockings, but lordy, they're well worth it and I LOVE them! They're sturdy and creative and make for a toy that will be played with very often, I believe. 

Fixing the Dishwasher

See the duct tape, and the cat encyclopedia that the big kid read to me to keep me company in my labors?

Alas, it was to no avail, as the damn thing still leaks like a sieve. I'm guessing it's the water valve, which is way beyond my expertise, and I don't even need to tell you how much it sucks to have to make yet another huge, unexpected purchase (did I tell you that we blew out TWO tires on the van on the drive down to Arkansas?), especially one that we don't really "need," in its strictest sense, although I probably also don't even need to tell you how it feels to be so totally overwhelmed by just the day's regular housekeeping that it makes me feel just as sick in my stomach to not have a dishwasher as it does to shell out 600 bucks for a new one.

Fortunately, we still have

Kittens

to cheer me up, and a night full of board games, movies, pasta, and champagne/sparkling cider (for we're ALL going to stay up until midnight).

And then tomorrow, I get to get up late, drink a big cup of coffee, and go buy a bigger, brighter, brand-new dishwasher, in which I will happily wash dishes all day.

Yellow Snow Plus Blue Snow Equals Green Snow

Syd's been way into color mixing lately. She's gotten the secondary color combos down, and now enjoys mixing them up with paints on paper and colored water in clear jelly jars.

Her obvious next medium?

SNOW!!!

We're having an unseasonably warm patch just lately (hallelujah!), but due to our property's miserable lack of direct sunlight, we still have plenty of nice, thick, clean-ish white snow for painting on. I mixed up three bottles of snow paint for the girls in the primary colors (even yellow!), and sent them out to see what they could see.

Do the secondary color combos still work in the snow?

They do!

Cue much running around and mischief making and tagging snow-covered outcroppings:

 Animal tracks are fascinating when sprayed, because it brings out the definition and the depth:

By late this afternoon the temperature had climbed to a shocking 50 degrees, and there were few outcroppings of snow to paint (at least few nice, clean outcroppings--there are still lots of dirty, gross piles of plowed snow all around), but instead there were lots and lots of slush puddles to stomp in, and freezing little rivulets to follow, and bare dirt patches to hop between, and it turns out that that's pretty fun, too.

Lit up, Then under the Weather

Yep, nothing like a nasty case of gastroenteritis to finish up the Christmas holidays. Really draws a line under all those holiday indulgences, don't you think? Sure, there may be leftover peanut butter fudge and a half-bottle of red wine and the last of the devilled eggs in the refrigerator, but you're just hoping that you'll eventually be able to keep down some ice chips, and maybe a Saltine in a couple of hours if you're really feeling frisky.

Christmas night (one day before it all went to hell), Matt and I drove the girlies over to this house in Van Buren that really does the holidays up right. My Aunt Pam's directions to me consisted of, "Okay, you get to the intersection with the Walgreen's and you take a left. Pass the Dollar General, take a left at the three-way stop, and then, you can just follow the cars."

Have you ever been to a house so done up with Christmas lights that there's a line of cars waiting to drive past it every night? A house where they have their own radio broadcast frequency, so that you can listen to their own personal Christmas mix on your radio as you drive by? A house where all the lights are choreographed to dance along to that Christmas mix?

I hope you have, but if you haven't, then you can take a look-see at this one:

And sometimes? Sometimes! Sometimes, the owner of the house dresses up as Santa and stands out on the street and hands out candy canes.

Merry Christmas to All!

Wishing you a holiday filled with MANY more smiles than screams!

Tutorial: Painted Wooden Christmas Ornaments

We usually make the Christmas presents for the girlies' California grandparents after Christmas, so that we have the pleasure of giving them to them in person during their yearly visit to us in January. However, this year two of the recipients of gifts that we mail before Christmas--two little cousins, and my awesome brother-in-law--were going to be at that California grandparents' house for Christmas.

Well, you can't send a box full of Christmas presents to somebody's house, and there's not even a single Christmas present in it for that somebody!

We had to put in a little homemade love for Grandma Janie and Poppa, and here's how we did it.

You will need:

•  craft acrylic paints (and a metallic Sharpie, if you long for extra fanciness)
• wooden two-dimensional shapes
• drill
• yarn or twine

1. Have your little critter paint all the wooden shapes to her heart's content. Acrylic paint dries pretty quickly, so you ought to be able to paint both sides in the same session:

Don't you just love that little pot belly? Can you see where she drew on herself with markers? That's her piano, and yes, she plays her belly and sings.

2. Let the paint dry completely:

 If you like, you can add additional details with paint pens:

The narrow edges of the wooden shape are hard for a little kid to paint, so I neatened them afterwards with a metallic Sharpie along the edges:

 When the paint is all dry, they're all good to go...

 ...except they need holes! Drill a hole near the top of each shape, and then tie a nice piece of twine or yarn into a loop through the hole, perfect for hanging from a Christmas tree--

--or a cutie little finger!

Edible Chess: Food for the Mind AND the Tummy

My library copy of Candy Construction is a dangerous book to leave around when there are little readers about. We've already made the Rice Krispy Treat Christmas trees (perfection!) and the edible chocolate play dough (the messiest project that I've ever made, and it didn't even turn out that great, but I'm going to give it a second shot, anyway), and when Willow spied the edible chessboard, it didn't take long before Sydney and I were in the kitchen, mixing up a big batch of made-from-scratch brownies and a big batch of made-from-scratch blondies.

The brownies and blondies are supposed to be cut into perfect squares, then arranged in a chessboard pattern. Willow cut all the treats into (sort of) identical small squares--

--and then Matt helped them arrange the pieces into chessboard formation on our extra-large cutting board.

And then, to play!

 
Often, when Will and I play chess, Sydney wants to play, too. Sydney and I play as a team, and we take turns making the move when it's our turn. This evens out my play with Willow quite a bit, because I can guarantee you that if I have a tricky little trap set up, Sydney will sacrifice my queen or expose my king before I can spring it:

 It took a lot of persuasion to keep the girls from nibbling away the chessboard while we played just one game:

By the second game, we made up a rule that if a square gets eaten, then it no longer exists as part of the chessboard. That's a rule that's sure to liven things up! It has excellent strategic potential:

It probably wouldn't surprise you to discover that there wasn't enough chessboard left for a third game.

Best Friends

 
 
 
 
Life is especially good when you have a kitty to snuggle with on your way off to sleep.

Tutorial: Create a Custom Envelope for a Quirky Card

I have SO many envelopes in my stationery stash, and the real take-home lesson here is that the next time the girls make handmade cards, I will cut down the greeting card blanks that I make for them to the size of envelopes that I already own.

Fortunately, we have many half-used and abandoned handwriting sheets lying around (the children do enjoy copywork, correctly presented--more on that another time), and it is exactly that, or a similar large-format sheet of scrap paper, that will make you the perfect custom envelope for your own quirky card in about one minute.

First, lay the card centered on the paper, but closer to the bottom edge than I have pictured here:

Fold the sides in.

Fold the bottom up:

Fold the top down at first one corner--

 --and then the other:

Now go back and secure all the edges with double-sided tape. Also use double-sided tape to fold the top flap down over the envelope:

Ready to mail on Monday!

Poetry Speaks: "'Twas the Night before Christmas"

I have a mind that latches onto catchy verse and rhythm. Commercial television is hell for me, because I accidentally memorize every jingle--just ask me and I'll sing for you the "Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame-seed bun" song, and the Empire Carpet telephone number song (588-2300, Empiiiiiiiiiire!), and the Alka-Seltzer jingles, both old and new. I memorize every theme song to every television show, and every legible lyric to pretty much every song that I've ever listened to more than four times.

I also like to memorize poetry.

I wanted to share my love of poetry with my girls, and I also wanted them to begin early on to practice memory work as much as possible--an excellent memory is an invaluable ability, and the possession of an excellent memory will aid their lives and give them joy in who knows how many ways.

And so I've started this month with the plan to introduce to the girls one long poem each month. The poem has to be available in a picture book format (which many excellent poems are), because the key component of their memorization is the inclusion of this book every single night as part of their bedtime stories. For the first couple of weeks, Matt or I read the book out loud to the girls together. After the girls seem to start being familiar with it, we begin to do the book with each girl indepedently at bedtime, inviting her to recite the poem while looking at the pictures, and prompting her when necessary.

Driving around in the car is also a good place and time to ask a kid to recite, or to start reciting, myself, and we can all prompt each other. The girls adore this, by the way--it's very fun to show off what you know, don't you think?

With our current poem, "'Twas the Night before Christmas," I've shown the girls a couple of cartoons of the poem, and I downloaded for them an entire "'Twas the Night before Christmas" coloring book to color--both activities were nice, but not really critical. Much better was our visit to the Santa Claus storytime at the public library--one of the librarians recited "'Twas the Night before Christmas" to the auditorium full of children, and my kiddos, mistaking it for another of the sing-alongs that we'd just done to "Jingle Bells," recited the entire poem along with him. Loudly, to the amusement, fortunately, of the other moms around us.

Another nice benefit is that Willow has asked about the parts of the poem that she didn't understand, and so I got to explain metaphor with "the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow," and simile with "as dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly."

Now that both girls have the poem almost memorized, they both enjoy reciting it while I videotape them, and then watching themselves. They do this over and over and over. It's at the point now where perhaps I'm secretly getting a little tired of "'Twas the Night before Christmas," but the girls are most definitely still in the groove, so on we go!

I really had meant this project to encourage Willow to memorize each poem, and Sydney, as always, was intended to just go along for the ride. I am deeply surprised, however (and thrilled!), to discover how much Sydney has, in fact, picked up. And so, for your consideration and Christmas cheer, I bring you Sydney's recitation of "'Twas the Night before Christmas":

Next month, I think we're going to do some Robert Frost. Or do you have a suggestion for something else that we'd like?

Three Squares a Day

Breakfast

 Leftover pasta with kale and a little nub of parmesan, perfect for grating over one's plate.

Lunch

 D.I.Y. peanut butter sandwich, with an orange for dessert.

Dinner

Pizza baked from scratch out of Magic Bread (bake the pizza for only 20 minutes, instead of the 30 minutes that a loaf of bread requires), with pesto made from my home-grown basil, more kale, pine nuts, soysage, and a cheese-stuffed crust to please the kiddos.

After dinner, the girlies tend to enjoy a little quiet mental work while the dad and I flip through the newspaper and gossip:

And that's how we are nourished today.

Cuisenaire Rod Computation: Addition and Multiplication

While grabbing arms-full of books at the close-out sale of our local Borders bookstore (RIP, Bloomington Borders), Willow asked me many questions about determining the price of a book at 40% off and at 60% off.

When a child asks questions about a particular topic, I take it as my responsibility to give her the tools to know more about that topic, whether it be peanut butter or Tibet (And guess what's on our to-do list for next week? Homemade peanut butter!). When a child asks a skills-based question, such as Will's questions about percentages, I take it as my responsibility to introduce her to the skills that she needs to solve such problems herself.

And that's why we've been sitting at the living room table lately, using our Cuisenaire rods to learn how to multiply. No, Willow doesn't know how to add or subtract two-digit numbers yet, or graph, or whatever there is on the first-grade institutionalized school curriculum--she's not interested in addition, subtraction, or graphing.

She's interested in multiplication and division, so that's what's up with us.

Cuisenaire rods take a little time to get used to, but they are perfect for all kinds of computational and other math concepts. We always start, when we play with them, by putting them into their stair-steps; this helps the girls remember what color is what length, which is important:

I'd like a second set of Cuisenaire rods to add to our stash, but with the ones that we do own, and with some Montessori manipulatives we own that illustrate the tens, hundreds, and thousands, we are all set.

The idea behind multiplication with the Cuisenaire rods is really pretty easy. First, you have to teach your kid how to read a multiplication problem. I teach Willow that a problem such as 2x2 means, "Two, two times." So then Willow finds the two bar, and lines up two of them. When she sees the rods laid out like that, she can often then work the problem in her head, but if she can't, she then lines up the centimeter cubes to the length of the rod. A two bar is two centimeters long, so you can line up two centimeter cubes to exactly fit each two bar.

Finally, Willow counts the number of centimeter cubes (we call a cube "one unit"). The total number is her answer, which she writes down to solve the equation:

Sydney gets the same work, but her problems are illustrated by arithmetic, not multiplication:

Once the girls have had more practice, I'll introduce skip-counting and mathematical tables, and then Syd can start on subtraction and Will can start on division.

And then Will will be able to calculate sale prices all by herself.