paint cut paste

it’s the time of year for baking! it is a family tradition in my family to make fudge and russian tea cookies at christmas, but N’s very favorite one to help out with is the sugar cookies! last week, we got some serious baking done in our kitchen!

N helps with (almost) everything in the process, from rolling the dough…

to cutting out her favorite holiday shapes with cookies cutters… (this year made much more exciting with our purchase of 101 cookie cutter shapes!)

she gets so excited when they’re ready to go in the oven…

and the most fun is when they come out of the oven, are iced, and are ready to decorate!

now, this is PURE ART for N. she takes her time choosing which colors and sprinkles go on each cookie.

when they’re all finished, she practices great restraint in not eating every single one (last year when she was 22 months old, this was harder. at 34 months, she’s able to resist a bit more.) finally, she gets to enjoy all of her hard work by eating a cookie and a glass of milk.

she helps me to package up the cookies to give to neighbors and friends, and “plays santa” in proudly handing them out, along with some of her handmade ornaments.

the part she’s not so jazzed about is the clean up. unfortunately this year, that ritual is still just for momma.

i must say this aproned elf did most of the work this year! messy, but so worth it!

the other day, N was in the mood for modeling, but our cans of store-bought play-doh were ka-put… so we whipped up a batch of our own play dough from ingredients we had in our kitchen. i consulted my trusty mudworks book to make sure i had the measurements correct for the recipe.

• 4 cups flour
• 1 cup iodized salt
• 1.75 cups warm water
• mix in a bowl, knead 10 minutes, play!

we got to work creating the dough. N helped every step of the way.

after we kneaded the dough for 10 minutes, it was a ball of potential energy waiting to become kinetic. (science nerdddd!)

anything is possible

and it did! N had lots of fun with cookie cutters and clay tools all afternoon!

(as earthy and homemade as we try to be, the longest stint in her play was when the little bear clay dude was “talking on his iphone to duck.” sheesh.)

little bear talking on his iphone, which clearly needs an earpiece so he can avoid brain tumors

we decided to bake a few of the cut shapes to make (what else?!) ornaments! (this really was not what we set out to do, but it just sort of happened. again. hey, it’s december…) i brushed each one with mayonnaise prior to baking at 300 for one hour. before putting them in the oven, don’t forget to poke a hole in the ones you intend to hang – straws work well for this.

the next day N painted the ornaments (and her fingers) with some sparkly acrylic paint.

once dry, we strung them with pretty ribbons and beads, and hung them on our tree. (well, a few were packaged in the mail to be delivered to the trees of friends and family… guess what you’re all getting this year…)

this entry is a departure from the purpose of this blog, which is to share ideas for ways to get artsy with your little one to inspire their own creations. my aim for this blog is to foster creativity in those little people we adore, who always have huuuge ideas and often just need a third hand (and someone to drive them to the art store) to put those ideas onto paper or clay or canvas.

but, dear readers, today i just thought i’d share a few pics of what i’ve been making lately, sans little helping hands. just for kicks.

i’m no geninne (urban outfitters is not banging down my door for me to silkscreen a pillow for them, dammit) and nor is my inspiration board nearly as cool as hers, but i take inspiration from her board and studio. here’s my own board in my own mini-studio (in our playroom/guestroom):

and i have been collecting some fun natural objects for later use:

despite my complete lack of sewing skillz, i made a few felt owls for new baby friends a la craft stylish:

as you may have seen here, i made our pets into rocks:

i immortalized our cats

i got hungry:

animal crackers (they're cookies!)

i added to our felted wool acorn ornament collection from last holiday season (and then i used some pom poms inside of the acorn caps when i ran outta wool balls, a la pink & green mama‘s idea)

making more felted wool & pom pom acorns

triplets!

i got some wooden beads and watercolored them and used my homemade wood creme to finish them off, to make little toys for N’s advent calendar:

our wooden family

i resurrected an old passion for making homemade bath products (i used to have a company called green athena where i sold these goods in nyc and on the web, in a former life,) and whipped up some yummers sugar scrubs for the body (raw sugar, grapeseed oil, vitamin E oil, any fav combo of essential oils. i like peppermint grapefruit and lavender rose!)

rub-a-dub-yum!

and some homemade lipbalm to go with (beeswax, jojoba oil or olive oil, honey, and essential oils. these are lemon mint!)

yip yip

when i have a chunk of time, i loooove to watercolor… i took out this one from a few years ago as inspiration and as a reminder that the visual stimuli of this time of year is fun to capture in this medium:

happy holidays to all of you mommas, dads, kiddos, caregivers, teachers, and artists out there! i’m going to be doing more painting, knitting, and baking before the  year is out… and, of course, always making art with my little artist in residence. enjoy the beauty of the season!

making food fun for kids is an art. perhaps not a fine art, or even a craft really, but it is creative, for sure. i stumbled upon the bento box craze for kids before N could eat solids, and i couldn’t wait to get in on the action. now N has all of her teeth and eats all meals and snacks, but still, our bentos are few and far between, as she’s not yet in preschool. regardless, what a great eco-chic (no disposable packaging!) and cute way to inspire young ones to eat healthy meals and snacks! i love to bring them out on playdates or picnics with her. here are a couple i’ve made:

picnic in the park

dinner outing

another cool idea for fun food that i saw in cookie magazine is this simple trick using cookie cutters on kids’ morning toast and eggs.

butterfly toast & eggs

seasonal fun - pumpkin toast

of course, there are sooo many creative books like play with your food and others that have wonderful ideas for edible art!

this woman’s bento photo set on flickr is totally inspiratonal! or you can even just search the word bento on flickr for other awesome ideas.

and many, many cute sites for getting your bento ideas and supplies:

• bento crazy
• lunch in a box
• cooking for monkeys
• cooking cute
• vegan lunch box
• i love obento
• japan centre
• lunchboxes
• reusable bags
• laptop lunches
• lunch sense
• snap wear
• sugar charms
• weldonia’s blog
• tools for bentos
• ichiban kan
• air and angels
• supplies on ebay