another writing/reading activity

I’ve seen this idea many places in many different forms.  most recently, I saw the idea in Mariah Bruehl’s Playful Learning, which is awesome- so very many great projects and activities!

As I stated previously, we are on the cusp of reading here and additionally, we’ve got a serious love for all things mail related…sending, receiving and just generally stuffing envelopes!

After hunting around the craft store with an open mind…I settled for these plain flip lidded boxes.  I designed some simple postcards too.  I figure we can get some writing, some word recognition and learning our address in with this activity.  Not to mention the lovely art that will grace the other side!

I cut a long horizontal slit in each box and each member of the family decorated a box…labeling their name on the front so it could be read while stacked.  boxes can then be unstacked and open from the flip-lid top to remove/check for mail (as happens repeatedly during the day!).

As predicted, this has been a huge hit!  My older loves filling everyone else’s mailboxes through the day.  even more than that, is the thrill she gets when she checks her box in the morning for mail and finds surprises from house “secret admirer”!!!

handmade book

we’re in the throws of pre-reading here with our 5.5 yo home schooled daughter.

this idea grew out of my love of *making handmade books, my love of photographing our day to day adventures and a desire to work through memory/storytelling as an approach to reading.

* this is my first handmade book in 6+ years.  from a technical point of view, there are a lot of things I could have done better or differently…but when I get excited about a project, I tend to dive in head first and throw the review of instructions to the wind.

I used Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign to design the book.

the wine is an optional tool…but I should disclose that almost immediately after this photo was taken I spilled pictured glass of wine ON the pages I had folded, assembled and punched holes for binding in…gaaah.

we sat down together today and looked through the book.  she was so excited to see photos of herself in a book format.  and the writing prompts worked beautifully (she transcribed the story to me).

I can see many more of these in the future!

 

 

crisp

it has begun…the ubiquitous vermont fall/apple/pumpkin/harvest festival.  I’m fairly certain we could attend a different festival every day of every weekend within a 60 mile radius during the months of september and october.

 

hooks and string

the weather here in vermont has turned decidedly cooler in the evenings…a hint of fall most certainly in the air these days and glimmers of brilliance already peeking through the trees here and there.

I love the fall.  I have always loved the fall, even before I moved to vermont where the season is breathtaking.  I have many reasons for this but among the top…I start to feel like crocheting again.  I have serious issues with bringing the yarn stash out in the summer heat, it just doesn’t feel right to me, but by fall, I am jonesing for some crochet action.

so first in the line-up this season, some sweet play hats for my littles.  one photo is ridiculously blurry, but you’ll get the idea…they’ve been worn daily since completion- even to bed!

I’m already working on horned hat number three for a sweet three year old friend!

sorry, no tutorial…I basically wing it with my kids hats, crocheting in the round decreasing/increasing as I go and fitting every so often to make sure I’m not too far off base.  I filled the horns with a layer of stabilizer and wool fill.  I used Loops and Threads Cotton Club- it’s 100% cotton with a nice selection of bright colors.

so, what are you casting on/crocheting?

shape, line, color

it was another rainy day here in southern vermont, and I tried not to think much of flooding by staying busy with the kids.

looking over the days photos and projects, I am amazed at how they all echoed one another.

the geoboard made its way into play today…we made ours about a year? ago after seeing this one over at filth wizardry.  so easy (and cheap!) to make…we scored the peg board off freecycle and the ball of rubber bands at staples.  we followed her instructions pretty closely, I spray painted the pegboard to give the rubber band colors a bit more pop though.

the geoboard is stored beside the felt board…and so, the two inevitably make appearances together.  mine is just an extra piece of pegboard covered in black felt (I stapled it to the back with a staple gun in a similar fashion to stretching a canvas).  the shapes?  I took a bunch of my scrap felt and cut out circles of a couple different sizes, squares of a couple different sizes, some rectangles and some triangles.  I doubled each shape and did a rough stitch around the perimeter with my sewing machine.  this was just to give the shapes a little more heft.  a single layer of felt would work too…and cut out a big chunk of the labor/time involved here.  I’ve picked up felt shapes here and there…last year, we found a bunch of halloween shapes and I though it might make a nice storyboard, but honestly, my kids get a bigger kick out of playing with shape and color with this…

my older (5 years old) and I also did a project focused on Piet Mondrian.  we’ve been picking artists here and there and looking at their work and then making our own works inspired by that artist.  we have Discovering Great Artists by M. Kohl and K. Solga and I also have an endless supply of art history compilations via all those requisites in art school.  so, between my collection and google images, we looked at a lot of Mondrian’s work and talked about his theories and ideas (in general, pared down, 5 yo terms) and then we took to our canvas.  I had divided it into quadrants ahead of time with a sharpie.  we painted away (and had a lot of fun talking about primary/tertiary colors and mixing paint), let it dry and then used electrical tape to grid it off and neaten.

my daughter was so surprised and excited to see this finished work after having spent some time on the subject as a whole…it would have been even more awesome I think had we still lived in the city- we could’ve popped over to the art museum and seen them live…she wanted it hung up on her wall immediately.

today was a good day…now, if only this rain would stop.

small town fair time…

love the local fair.  a much needed smile after this past week.

 

this moment

{this moment} – A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. – Amanda Blake Soule

muffins in place of labor

as our southern VT community pulls together and cleans up after Irene, I am so inspired.  I’ve been looking for meaningful ways to help…but also practical ways given the two small children underfoot.  I think it’s so important for them to see this act of rebuilding, pulling together and getting through.

our local farmer’s market is such a gathering place for the whole community and it was nearly wiped out.  today, farmers and community gathered to begin rebuilding in order to give the farmers who haven’t been otherwise devastated a way to sell at this most bountiful time of year.

I knew, with a 2.5 yo and a 5 yo we wouldn’t be much help in the hard labor department, and even more likely would just be in the way.  so we baked muffins…dozens and dozens of muffins to bring to the workers, with ingredients that came from many of the farmers themselves.

sorry, no photos..but these may be my new late-summer go-to muffin recipe.  I modified a recipe that has been handed down through my family and neighbors of long-ago.

zucchini-peach muffins

• 3 eggs
• 1.5 c sugar
• 1 c olive oil
• 2 c of grated zucchini or yellow squash or any combination
• 3 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 c flour (I usually mix unbleached all purpose and whole wheat)
• 1 c rolled oats
• 1 c diced peaches (peeled and pitted)

combine wet ingredients.  slowly add in dry mixture.  fold in peaches.  375 for 18 minutes.  makes 1.5 dozen muffins.  or 375 for 45 minutes makes 2 loaves.

another way to help (many farmers lost a lot in the storm):

North American Organic Farmers Association- Vermont (NOFA-VT) Farmer Emergency Fund

flood

most posts around here are fairly upbeat, but given my proximity to the devastation, it’s necessary to spend some time on it here.

this is my town.  I live 2 blocks from here.  I walk this way on nearly a daily basis.

the chatter this morning felt fairly callous and insensitive.  Irene certainly didn’t feel over-hyped to those of us in states and communities inundated by flood waters.

here in the state of vermont, 3 4 people have died in the flood waters.  260 roads have been washed out and are impassable.  hundreds and hundreds have been left homeless.  13 town are completely isolated with no way out and little provisions.

for those looking to help:

Vermont Red Cross

United Way Vermont Disaster Relief Fund

I will also be donating 10% of all sales in my shop to the Vermont Red Cross beginning today through the end of September 2011.

more ways to help will be forthcoming as I hear about them.

thank you!

knee deep in peaches

it’s all about peaches here.

they were so easy to pick…so easy to fill bag upon bag.  and then, there they were sitting on my counter, silently intimidating me…inviting hoards of fruit flies to crash my kitchen- something had to be done.

and so:

3 pints of peach salsa…I adapted this recipe from allrecipes.

• 4 cups fresh peaches – peeled, pitted and chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper – I used yellow and green
• 4 jalapeno peppers, minced – I used fresh serranos
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro – I omitted
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon grated lime zest – I also added the juice from the lime
• 1/4 cup white sugar – I omitted this
• 1 (49 gram) package light fruit pectin crystals –I omitted this
• 3 1/2 cups white sugar – I only used 1 cup

bring to a boil in an enamel or stainless steel heavy pot.  boil 1 minute.  remove from heat and stir for 5 minutes.  boil in water bath for 10 minutes.

5 pints of peach butter.  I followed the recipe for baked peach butter in Stocking Up by Carol Hupping.  you can see my helper eying the yumminess!

peach frozen yogurt.  for this batch, I used 1 quart container of stonyfield farms 0% fat french vanilla and a pint container of stonyfield’s okios greek plain yogurt.  I added in about 1/2 cup of sugar.  and several ripe peaches which had been peeled, chopped and mashed.  I used my countertop cuisine art maker and it took about 25 minutes.  yum yum yum.

I also made peach leather in my dehydrator.  and my 2 year old devoured almost all of it immediately.  sigh.  I also used Stocking Up for this recipe.

I also froze a gazillion peaches to use for smoothies…which we make almost daily.

and since I was already preserving/baking up a storm,

2 quarts of sweet and spicy pickles.  juries still out on these guys.  I wanted my grandmother’s recipe- but she couldn’t find it.  so I tried this recipe.  a bite this afternoon told me they were neither as sweet or as spicy as I was envisioning…so I added another tablespoon of sugar to each jar and am going to add some of those fresh serranos!

a dozen banana-blueberry muffins because I had some seriously ripe bananas and as I may have mentioned in the beginning of the post- fruit flies are unpacking their bags for the long haul around here.  I used the recipe for banana-blueberry-poppyseed muffins in Feeding the Whole Family by Cynthia Lair…omitting the poppyseeds because I didn’t have any and using oats for half the cornmeal called for because I ran out!

and because the kids adore making this, all by themselves, these days and because I’ve got tons of lemons hanging around,

the good news:  I feel like a homesteading champion today (I know, I know…it wasn’t THAT much).  but I succeeded in my first solo canning task and put quite a bit by.

the bad news: there are still more peaches ripening to take care of and the fruit flies are showing no signs of retreat!