paint cut paste

are you all fans of red tricycle? it’s an awesome parenting resource that is available in several major west coast cities. red tricycle san francisco is my go-to checkpoint for all things fun for kids here where we live. i was so psyched when they asked to interview me about my blog and my family’s bay area favorites! you can check out the interview here.

i am also honored that paint cut paste is a part of their Top Mom (&Dad) Craft Blogs for Kids, too! if you’re also on the left coast, don’t forget to like red tricycle on facebook and follow them on twitter, too!

forewarning: after reading my interview, you might find yourself craving bizarre ice cream flavors… yum!

today i’m thrilled to be joined by new york times bestselling children’s book author kelly dipucchio, talking with us about her most recent (and so relatable) book – Crafty Chloe. this is a charming story about a little girl after our own hearts — an artsy d.i.y. crafter named chloe. N loved reading this book because she could see her own enthusiasm about making art reflected back to her through the character of chloe. (so important for kids!) here, kelly discusses her artsy inspiration and is generously offering a signed copy of the book to one of YOU! (see giveaway information at the end of this blog.)

jen: my daughter and i loved your book! i’ll start with a question directly from my 5-year-old: “where did you get the idea to write a book about an artist named chloe?”

Kelly: Thank you! And thank you for sharing your blog space with me today! Chloe was inspired by a couple of crafty little girls in my life; the first one being my youngest daughter, Hannah.  As soon as Hannah was old enough to hold a spoon in her hand, she was holding a paint brush in the other. She loved all things glitter and googly-eyed. Hannah is a sophomore in high school now and she’s one of the most creative, talented people I know. I also have an artsy 8-year-old niece, Julia, who loves crafts and even has her own craft room. One day I was thinking about Hannah and Julia and I wondered why there weren’t any picture books about crafty girls. So I decided to write one!

jen: we definitely relate to how chloe created a birthday gift for her friend, as we’re obviously big fans of hand-crafted presents in our household. what is your favorite handmade gift to give? to receive?

Kelly: I love to give handmade note cards and stationary. I’ve had lifelong love affair with pretty paper products. I get very excited by the different prints and textures. My favorite handmade gift to receive is anything knitted or crocheted – particularly scarves and wraps. When I was a little girl my grandma tried to teach me how to crochet, but I never advanced beyond a single strand. I’m pretty much in awe of anyone who can knit or crochet skeins of yarn into something beautiful and functional.

Kelly DiPucchio signing copies of Crafty Chloe at the American Library Association conference in Dallas.

jen: when you were a kid, what was your favorite art material? how about now?

Kelly: When I was a kid, I loved all art materials. I used to make a lot of crafts with things I found in nature. One of my favorite activities was painting smooth rocks. I loved transforming the rocks into turtles and ladybugs and faces.  Some of my fondest memories of childhood involved taking a neighborhood ceramics class with my mom. The women in the class gossiped, laughed uproariously, and bonded over ceramic Christmas trees and mushroom lamps. I’ll never forget that strong sense of belonging and joy. Today, I still enjoy working with paint, but now I love transforming salvaged items into shabby chic furniture and accessories. I’m very much a treasure hunter at heart.

jen: as a child, i wanted to be a book illustrator, and i think i have a tiny little illustrator living in my home right now. heather ross’ images in your book are captivating! how did you work with heather to have your story told through pictures?

Kelly: I worked on the manuscript on and off for nearly a year before my agent felt I had finally nailed the voice and concept.  During the writing process, he kept telling me about a new client he was representing who he thought was the perfect person to illustrate Crafty Chloe. That artist, of course, was Heather Ross. After perusing Heather’s website and looking at all of her enchanting fabric designs, I immediately agreed. It was an added bonus that Heather was the ultimate crafty girl herself.  She submitted a few sketches of Chloe and I was smitten. Heather captured Chloe’s spunky, creative spirit in a way that was so irresistibly charming. I knew we had a found the perfect marriage of text and art. It’s very exciting when that happens.

Martha Stewart and Heather Ross are seen in this photo from the production of "The Martha Stewart Show" in New York on Tuesday, February 21, 2012. Photo: David M. Russell/The Martha Stewart Show

jen: is there anything else you’d like to let my artsy readers know about your book? 

Kelly: Yes! Thank you.  I’d like to mention that Chloe has her very own blog at craftychloe.com. It’s still a bit of a work in progress, but we hope it will be a place where young, artsy readers will go to share their crafty ideas and project pictures. Crafty Chloe story time events and book signings will also be posted there.

Readers can find out more about me and my other books by visiting kellydipucchio.com.  Heather Ross can be found on the web at http://heatherross.squarespace.com.

see below for how to win your very own autographed copy of 'Crafty Chloe' -- we're enjoying ours!

thank you, kelly, for sharing more about yourself and this delightful book with a heroine with whom our crafty kids can identify, and for spreading the message to kids that it’s cool to make art! speaking of which, i love the tutorial on how to make chloe’s glow-in-the-dark pajamas featured on the Crafty Chloe blog!

Enter to win an autographed copy of Crafty Chloe

congrats to winner — comment #32 — nicole o.

kelly is kindly offering an autographed copy of her book to one of my lucky readers! to enter, comment on this blog post answering the question: what is your favorite handmade gift to give to others? (one entry per household, please.)

i will use a random number generator to choose one lucky winner on friday, march 9th at 9pm pacific. be sure you post your comment with your correct email address, as i will notify the winner via email on saturday morning.

for those who don’t win the free copy, you can purchase this book at your local bookstore or on amazon.

as many of you know, our family has entered the world of waldorf… and as a new waldorf momma, i realized i might need to figure out this whole needle felting thing that always looked so fabulous from afar, but seemed so out of reach for me, somehow. i think i’m intimidated by fiber arts in general, but am warming up to it. alas, i’m here to happily report that needle felting is *not that difficult!*

N and i received a really great needle felting book for christmas that captured her heart right away because of the cute little wooly animals featured throughout. teeny. baby. animals. her weakness. so i knew it was time to get a needle and some wool and get stabbing, which i attempted for the first time a couple weeks ago.

when flipping through the book, i asked N what she would like to make first. if you are a regular reader of my blog, i bet you can guess what she chose — a fox, of course! (i’d recommend beginning needle felting with animals or objects that do not have legs, but this wasn’t all that bad to get the hang of.)

it really is a cool way of sculpting with wool. i was amazing at how the material responds to the needle and changes shape and texture quite easily. i found this to be incredibly satisfying.

i did poke my finger twice with the very sharp needle while doing this, so i was glad i tried this as a momma art project first. (still sore!) however, i have learned there are kits you can get for young children who want to learn to needle felt, and N certainly does! the magic onions also provides a nice post with ideas for safe ways for children to practice needle felting. i think i’ll open it up to be a mommy-daughter activity as soon as my own comfort level improves.

the fox in progress...

N was there beside me every step of the way while making this, cheering me along, “you’re doing great, mommy!” (seriously, it kept me going.) and also gently pointing out that, “this fox is looking kinda long… more like a seal. um, but that’s okay mommy. it’ll just be a long, long fox. i’ll still love him.” haha!

regretfully, when i made this fox, i didn’t yet have that large foam pad ($6) you see just above. see, you need a piece of foam to poke into. for the fox, i just used that teeny gray square of foam that came with my needles, which you can see two photos up. it was tricky, but doable, with the small foam pad.

N is LOVING her new fox pet, and has already asked if i can now make a smaller fox “because he’s ready to have a baby.” i’m psyched, because having made this fox shows me that you don’t really need the book or a pattern to do this. you can totally make it up as you go, but for me the book helped to give me the confidence and a reference and a good look at the materials. i now have two more projects in the works (from my mind, not the book!) so i’ll just be over here, poking away. hopefully not into my fingers anymore.

this is yet another installment of things-i’ve-made-from-pinterest: the valentine edition. yes, maps are all over the place in the world of upcycled-crafts, trending much like tp rolls, paint chips, and pallets. with my sagittarian wanderlust and zig-zagging moves across the country and back, this project seemed like a fun way to say “happy valentine’s day” to my sweetie, who has stuck it out with me through all of the bubble wrap and mail forwarding involved.

i’ve seen it done with a “where met met, where we married, where we live or honeymooned” sort of theme (or some rendition of that, like this one from minimoz.) but i went with the four (so far) cities where we’ve lived together: new york city, boulder, richmond va, and the sf bay area. (in that order.)

i had an old atlas that i didn’t mind cutting up. i mean, we have google maps and GPSs for that these days, right? i cut out a folded heart on construction paper first. then i traced it over the maps where the cities where we lived were included within the heart. (that way the actual map wouldn’t have a fold, and the hearts would be identical in size and shape.)

then i used elmer’s glue dots to affix the heart maps to a piece of large card, gray cardstock from michaels.

i put it in an unused frame we’ve been storing in our garage, and presented it to my valentine along with a teeeeny giftwrapped compass from the world’s smallest postal service (have you seen this cuteness yet? check it out, if not. i met the artist, lea, at an art fair over the holidays, and she’s as lovely as her mini-art!) the note inside her prepackaged compass reads, “where would i be without you?”

cutesy, sure. but i’m finding it to be a fun walk down memory lane to look at our old roads and landmarks in this way. knowing us, this piece is likely to expand. we’ll probably need a larger frame at some point in the next few years. that is, if the past is the greatest predictor of the future. let’s hope not – i’m not a huge fan of cross country moves.

i decided to title the piece: “wait, they don’t love you like i love you.” because it’s pretty much the only lyric in the yeah yeah yeahs song that’s strangely titled maps.

when i was a little girl, i loved setting up a special little place in my bedroom where i carefully arranged all of my treasures (usually magical stones!) and twigs and leaves i would gather from the yard. at the time, i didn’t call this a “nature table” or an “altar” but essentially, that’s what i was making.

creating sacred space has always been a particular passion of mine, so creating a meaningful altar feels soul-fulfilling for me. an altar is a surface (usually elevated in some way) containing objects of significance and a place to engage in whatever sort of spiritual practice fits for you.

personal altar. autumn 2008

a nature table is a place where the seasons can be observed and honored. for those of us for whom season and earth intersect with our spiritual practice, these can often look similar.

as an art therapist educated at a buddhist-oriented school, who appreciates art as ritual, and has a “buddhish” husband, we keep altars for meditation in our home.

summer 2005, in our meditation room

as ellen dissanyake speaks about, art is about “making special.” she says “this aesthetic ability.. enabled us to ‘bracket off’ the things and activities that were important to our survival, separate them from the mundane, and make them special. we took the objects and practices involved in marriage, birth, death, food production, war and peacemaking and enhanced them to make them more attractive and pleasurable, more intriguing and more memorable. we invented dance, poetry, charms, spells, masks, dress and a multitude of other artifacts to make these associated activities, whether hauling nets or pounding grain, more sensual and enjoyable, to promote cooperation, harmony and unity among group members, and to also enable us to cope with life’s less expected or explicable events.” i feel like altars and nature tables are one very concrete expression of this idea of art as meaning-making or ritual.

altar i created out of scrap wood & fan blades as an art therapy & spirituality project in grad school at naropa, 2004.

in my art therapy practice, i often have something of a nature table going, usually incorporating art materials to invite my clients into the experience of the creative process.

setting in my office circa 2004

when i facilitate an art process or art therapy group, i usually create a sort of altar-like space in the center of the circle. it includes natural objects and the art materials being offered that day.

self-care art therapy group for new moms - fall 2011

my family often creates small birth altars in our home when a close friend is in labor, bringing a baby into the world… keeping a candle lit throughout the birth to send love and light their way. (by the way, i often use my own art on my nature tables, as well as lovely inspiring prints and often these amazing soul cards.)

birth altar for a dear friend. july 2007.

i’ve blogged about how some of my art therapy mentors created these fabulous portable altars in matchboxes.

matchbox altar made for me by my art therapy mentors. spring 2005.

now, as a waldorf momma, ideas about the nature table have been brought from the classroom and into our home through my little N.

nature table set up completely by N - january 2012

i am inspired by so many beautiful nature tables i see around the blogosphere. i am so fond of the seasonal beauty mary beth of salt & chocolate brings into her home. she has an amazing nature table photo set on flickr. there’s also a nice waldorf-inspired group on flickr called “the nature table” with many beautiful images.

spring nature table, 2010

do you keep a nature table or altar? as you can see, they come in various shapes and sizes. they can live at home or at work, be made with your children or alone, small-scale or large, seasonal or not. i would love to see how you express yourselves in this way, so i’ve set up a pinterest board for this purpose. if you’d like to share your altar or nature table, post the link to your blog entry, image, or pin of your table in the comment section of this post. (and i’ll repin it on my board!) let’s inspire each other!

bowl of natural materials for art

now that the birthday cards have been cleared from our mantel, we gave our hearth a fresh (and heartful) face for valentine’s day!

just a simple one, really. i created these LOVE letters like some i saw on this super-awesome crafty malaysian blog i found (via pinterest) called bloesem kids. it’s so easy… just twist together pipe cleaners and bend them into cursive letters in a word of your choice.

they looked pretty cute even like this, yet kinda crude where the pipe cleaners twist together. i’m not a huge fan of the cadmium red color of the pipe cleaners, so…

the next step is to yarn bomb them! i wrapped them with a lovely nubby alizarin crimson red yarn i’ve had for ages. (seriously, i knit my first scarf ever with the rest of this yarn in autumn 2002.)

then i strung the LOVE sign up on my trusty salvage yard window pane using white thread.

just adding a touch of red glass votive candles and some red berries from the tree outside gave it all the valentiney punch it needed.

i was tempted to bring in the paint chip heart garland and these candy jars…

but less is more, and 2012 is all about simplicity for me.

N is making “mini-mantels” in her bedroom for each season or holiday, as well. here’s her valentine one so far…

for more valentine mantel inspiration, check out my friend, beth’s, awesome valentine linky round-up on her blog. do you and your kids create a valentine mantel? if so, i’d love to hear about it!

my daughter is becoming a gnome lover. she’s a girl who gets a lot of satisfaction out of making her own toys - what a great way to boost self-esteem in little ones. this project was perfect for her: creating her own wooden and wool gnome toys!

i recently blogged about how N was learning to sew gnomes with felt. the newer variety is a bit different, in that she is sewing wool hats and gluing them to watercolored wooden peg bodies. i wrote a guest post on this earlier in the week over on kiwi crate, so check it out to see the step by step of how these little cuties came to be!

N has been playing with hers quite a bit, and has gifted some to friends, too. and shhhh, for her birthday tomorrow, she’ll be receiving more wooden peg dolls and wool felt, so i’m sure more will soon be born!