One Inch World

Rebecca is 4, which means that she gets to pick out the birthday presents for her friends, and while I may retain some veto power, and can provide suggestions, it’s really her show. But sometimes *I* want in on the fun too! So I made this barrette for one of her fashion conscious friends who was turning 3.

As usual I was planning an extravagant set of six barrettes, some leaves, flowers, an apple, an ‘A’, but reality set in, and I only ended up making one, which with all the hand stitching took me at least an hour, possibly two. I’m really not very fast with my hand sewing I guess. Too much of a perfectionist. When I was gathering the lace for the back I carefully took a stitch in the 2nd and 4th holes of the lace, pulled them together with the 0th and then tacked it down with a back stitch. Please, I’m gathering lace to the back of a barrette, not counting cross stitch, but I have a really hard time going fast. I find slow and precise relaxing, but frustrating at the same time.

To make this barrette cover I traced the barrette, cut two, clipped a hole for the back prong of the barrette, and with the barrette in the center sewed them together with a running stitch. Then I whip stitched the monogram/lace stack to the edges of the barrette.

I have been doing a ridiculous amount of cooking and fermenting and sprouting rather than blogging recently. I think I have 4-5 containers of various ginger ferments, 3 jars of somewhat suspicious pickles, I made crackers and quinoa milk today for heaven’s sake. I idly think about blogging as I’m cooking, and sometimes take pictures, but I don’t really think I should diversify this blog any further, it’s already gotten pretty unfocused from where I started! And sometimes that bothers me, but not enough to do anything about it yet. Would you like my blog better if it was my crafts only or children’s activities only?

We have lots of dried out markers. We *had* lots of dried out markers. I bet you do to. I’ve tried soaking them in water, which sort of works, but what *really* works is soaking them in liquid watercolors. They aren’t the most common craft supply, but if you have some they are perfect for recharging your markers. If you don’t have any you can probably justify the cost by saying they will save you the price of buying a new set of markers every year.

To recharge your markers just put a little liquid watercolor in a paint tray or small jar and stick your markers in them, they will slowly soak them up and be ready to draw like new. Keep an eye on them, and if they suck up all the dye, add more. For a really dry marker you may have to leave it overnight with a good supply. Our liquid watercolors are washable (like most), so our finished markers stay washable, very important! Also, if you think your old colors are boring, you can even give them a long soak in a new made up color. Which brings us to activity two:

Have you seen those Crayola color mixing markers? They are basically just two markers that snap together point to point, and mix their colors through diffusion, then when you draw, the color gradually fades from the mixed color back to the original color as the dye is sucked out of the tip of the marker by the paper. Well, you can buy special markers to do this (which we technically did, my husband and daughter came home from the craft store with them, which is how I even know what they are…) but you don’t need to, you can just dip the regular old markers that you have into your liquid watercolors and get the same effect. Cool! You can do all kinds of neat washes and color fades. So go get mixy with those markers!

While we were in Vermont one of our favorite haunts on Nenny and D.Pa’s property was Hemlock Brook. On one walk there we counted twenty eight Salamanders. And Rebecca had to touch each and every one. Some of them ran away, but she got her finger on most of them. They are poisonous, so they tend to hold still and say “Hey, I’m red. It would be a really bad idea to eat me, right? Right? You know that, right?” Near the end of our visit we researched the salamanders, made a terrarium, and kept one to watch for a day before setting it loose again.

Hemlock Brook is a lovely place, with enough water to make pools to splash around in, although not big enough to swim in, lots of big rocks and sticks to move around, diverting the water, making damns, deepening pools, mucking around in the mud. Lots of wonderful moss covered fallen logs to sit and walk on too, and little waterfalls and tunnels. I really wish we could have brought it home with us. The water around us in the South SF Bay Area isn’t nearly as clean, many of the streams are contaminated by mercury from natural sources and mining in the coastal mountains. Ick.

Penelope’s favorite thing to do at Hemlock Brook was eat mud. In case you were wondering, and I know I was, the brook gets it’s name from Hemlock the tree, not Hemlock the poisonous shrub. No relation. But still, my husband and I have an ongoing debate, how much mud should you let your children eat? How much mud do you let your children eat?

‘Your picture is smaller than my hand, and a sunflower seed is smaller than a word, but I remember: you were taller than everyone. When the winter sky shivers with icy stars, I remember how hard you worked, to be like the sun.’ – to be like the SUN, by Susan Marie Swanson & Margaret Chodos-Irvine.

I love sunflowers, don’t you?

Sometimes you just need a different canvas.

Step 1: Scrounge around on trash day, someone will have tree trimmings out to be collected. Free is good.
Step 2: Slice. We used our handy dandy bandsaw, but a hand saw would work fine.
Step 3: Paint. We didn’t do any sanding, it’s all about the process! Besides, the wavy saw marks gave it some interesting texture.

The girls also used these for stamping on their paper, monoprints (or tri-prints) of painted wood. The texture and irregular shape made these fun printing blocks.

Once you are done decorating them you can add them to your block collection too! Or they can be doors for hobbit-fairy houses. There are so many things you can do with flat rounds of wood!

Sometimes you just need to take two things that you like to play with and put them together. Like rocks and blocks. This time it was water and LEGOs. Take one large plastic storage container filled with water, some LEGOs, and mix. Or the bathtub. LEGOs are great with water, because when you snap them together they capture air, which makes them buoyant. Rebecca and her friend Samuel did need to do some experimenting with base size vs height though, Rebecca’s first attempt at a boat was three times as high as it was wide, so it tipped right over which she found very concerning!

After the LEGOs, all sorts of things ended up in the water. This is a boat too, can you see the passenger?