put a bird on it

It seems that I can’t stop putting a bird on things (watch hilarious video here). I was asked to create some auctionable artwork with my daughter’s class for a school fundraiser. I made a diptych of painted and collaged birds and flowers. The two-year olds helped me place and glue all the little fabric flowers onto the stems I had already painted. This exercise was certainly like herding cats. Two-year olds have an amazing lack of understanding about what is up or down or here or there which made the finished pieces so much better. Adult minds are so limited by comparison. I made sure not to edit or correct their choices—they all put the hearts sideways and the flowers not on stems. It was awesome. I must try harder to let go of my understanding of pictorial space in my normal adult life!  🙂 read more

we’re in a little museum show

So, I was asked about six months ago if my husband and I would like to be included in a show at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art called Artists and Their Children. I thought it was nice that they included us. My husband is an artist too. We didn’t come up with a plan and just figured it would evolve. Which it has. And because this is a fun opportunity to showcase the beautiful mess that is our family’s creative life, I wanted it to just be playful. So for six months I silently curated the flotsam and jetsam of creative offerings that churn out of the day-to-day. Most things are not actual art objects but instead are creative solutions to homemade toys, which is to say—weapons. I think necessity is the mother of invention and if you don’t give your five year old a light saber he’s gonna make one himself. read more

Ladybug Stuffie




Today was one of those dreamy marathon playdate days. We had six hours of peaceful goodness involving one trip to the grocery, a house relocation, swimming and pre-dinner popsicles. Perfection.

Now you know that there is nothing I like more than a kid who wants to sew something and I basically rope every child I can find into making a stuffie of some sort these days. After a year of it, the big boy has grown weary of sewing cute pillows and stuffies, but he occasionally obliges me. read more

Makedo




I just found this jaw-droppingly cool company, Makedo. They sell little connector kits for assembling sculptures and creatures from leftover cardboard, yogurt cups, etc. I see hours and hours of fun for my family when I look at these little plastic bits. Their product is one part genius and one part no-duh! In fact, I have used little brads for similar purposes with the big boy, but they aren’t nearly as effective as these humongo plastic brads. The little accompanying saw tool looks like it cuts through cardboard so easily. Watch their cute video here.
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Sockies!

The Original Sockie

Lately, we have been making Sockies in our house…that is our made-up name for sock stuffies. There is nothing perfect about a Sockie. They are down-and-dirty, cheap-and-easy fun! All you need is a sock, a rubber band to close it, a marker and some polyfil (or rice…or sand…or crumpled newspaper!) read more

Valentines surprise


from Mer Mag

I was fairly excited to drop-off the big boy today at school because it is Valentine’s Day. He picked out some cute valentines cards at Target and he signed each one by himself. His classroom was all excitement with bustling mamas everywhere. Tables were covered with pink & red hearts and decorations. I asked where I should put our Valentines and the teacher instructed me to put my bag “over there on that table…with all the other bags.” Umm. What bag? We just have this tiny stack of two inch cards. Wait, weren’t we given a mandate to not bring candy? read more

Pin-cushion swap




I attended a fun pin-cushion swap today hosted by the Phoenix Modern Quilt Guild. Look how pretty they all are. I made one of Cindy Taylor Oat’s little cupcakes. It was sort of crooked so I just added some beads and hoped for the best! The last time I made these cupcakes I was in labor. Really. I made nine cupcakes to give to each of the women attending my baby blessing– but I was running late so I sewed late into the night the night before the shower. It was a few weeks before my due date but I was already in that altered state of birth the day of the blessing…and little Lu was born the next morning. read more