3rd December 2008
MixTape arrived in the nick of time yesterday. Amelia was having a no-school day due to a heavy cold but of course around 9.30am she was bored out of her mind, and driving me out of mine. Our friendly parcel postman left a delightful package on the front deck and it was opened to reveal MixTape zine’s Kids Issue. Inside we discovered a quick and easy, super cute tutorial for making Yumstie Felt Brooches and Amelia, with her very rudimentary sewing skills (but only a little help from me), immediately whipped out three. Her favourite bit was choosing the buttons to coordinate with the felt flower and then her next favourite bit was presenting them as gifts to people with great flourish.
And there’s lots of other awesome stuff in this MixTape issue – The Crafty Lady profile is of Amber Carvan who is one of my heroes – (20,000 subscribers Amber?? Holy MOLEY!) (and who is selling her newly revised for 2008 Christmas Craft book which is totally worth buying and downloading), I want to make the Naughts and Crosses Pouch, and put together a nature table, and grow some grass hair, and make puffy paint… and all that!
Nichola and Justine have sent me five copies of The Kids Issue to give away to five Loobylu readers (because I did the cover!) so leave me a comment letting me know what your favourite Christmas craft or activity for kids is and I will randomly pick five lucky recipients. Comments will be closed on Friday afternoon at 2pm (Melbourne time).
** Comments are now closed! Thanks! **
27th October 2008
We had such a perfect, gentle weekend. It’s always hard waking on a Monday and feeling that wrench as the realisation of the upcoming rush-to-get-out-the door kicks in. This morning we woke late and got to school just before the second bell but we somehow managed to keep things cheerful.
This is the list on the door inside one of the kitchen cupboards which Amelia refers to almost every day when getting ready and packing her bag for school. She kicks around all morning; drawing, playing the piano, constructing elaborate plans for tree houses or performances, gazing into the plastic container where her pill bugs live, slowly getting dressed in unbelievably drawn-out stages while all the time chat chat chatting. Thankfully, when we hit the urgent, last minute race to get away, there is this list for making life easier. As Meg (who is an old friend and author of my new favourite blog) wrote, the world can be divided into those who keep lists, and those who don’t. Amelia has most definitely inherited my keen love of all things list-like.
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Speaking of kids – Mixtape – The Kids Issue is now available for preorder at the Mixtape online shop. I did the cover illustration and if the content is at all like that of the previous issues, it will be a rad read.
7th August 2008
I have always loved Dover books – their colouring books and paper doll books reach far back into my childhood. Do you get the Dover sampler emails? If not, take a look. It’s free to subscribe, and while it’s mostly just a clever marketing campaign for their books, each week you are sent some free clip-art samples which I often find interesting and pretty inspiring. Take this week’s Mondrian painting (above: Broadway Boogie-Woogie by Piet Mondrian) – imagine that as a quilt!
Speaking of subscriptions, a month or so ago I subscribed to Mixtape Zine, Justine and Nichola’s awesome craft zine which is always packed full of good stuff and chatty, very readable articles, reviews, columns and interviews. My latest one just arrived and, as usual, it’s great. I am this months’ Crafty Lady Profile – and I always love Simmone’s pages (because, honestly, ever since I read Notes from the Teenage Underground, I would read anything Simmone wrote, even if her target audience for literature is a good… hmmm… 20 years younger than me ), and Gemma’s Sunny Buick interview is cool and makes me want to be a beatnik and live in paris and become a tattoo artist… and then I remember I am me and I turn the page and there’s an article on greening your child’s birthday party, and then an article on Tupperware and LOTS more… so you can’t beat Mixtape! And it’s cheap!
And have you checked our your house on the street view in Google Maps? It’s SO weird. And our fence is SO ugly. They must have been around our area in the middle of Summer because everything looks horrible and dead and dry. Weirdness.
