Category Archives: Diversions

The stuff that didn’t fit elsewhere.

Diversions, Social Media

Green peas, glitter and a lifelong aversion to crafts

I didn’t spend a ton of time at my paternal grandfather’s house when I was a kid, but the few memories I do have of being with them are pretty vivid. I remember laying on their floor in front of their TV watching a VHS of “Savannah Smiles,” a winning and winsome tale of accidental kidnapping. I remember a weird and fascinating lamp they had hanging from the ceiling that featuring a lady in the center who was surrounded by strings that had oil dripping down them. It was mesmerizing.

And I remember Betty’s craft room.

Betty was my grandfather’s second — and, as it turned out, final — wife. Her craft room was a Pinterest-enthusiast’s dream. She had every bead, glue gun and bauble you can imagine. She had stamps, stickers and glitter, tissue paper, ribbon and a hundred varieties of scissors. And I have no idea what she did with all of it because she only let me in there to get crayons from the crayon drawer and coloring books from the coloring-book shelf.

When I was in kindergarten or first grade, Betty came to Grandparents Day at my school to have lunch with me. I embarrassed her by pulling my plate away just as she tried to put peas on it. The peas hit the floor, and she was not pleased. I’m not sure that particular incident is the reason I wasn’t granted free reign amongst her craft supplies, but it certainly couldn’t have helped things. I’m not going to say that Betty is to blame for my aversion to crafts, but that incident in the cafeteria was clearly traumatic for both of us.

Anyway.

My children enjoy a good craft project, which could have been most unfortunate for them because in addition to not having a fully stocked craft room, I am very bad at thinking up good craft projects. Fortunately for Poppy and Pete, they are being raised in the Pinterest era. So I have 24/7 access to the best crafting minds on the internet, and I make frequent use of that modern-day blessing.

The first day of Spring is just a few days away, so I’ve been compiling a list of easy, cute and Springy arts and crafts projects for the kids to enjoy. Hopefully I’ve squirreled away enough coffee filters, paint and toilet paper rolls to make a few of them.

Follow Nichole’s Spring Art Projects board on Pinterest.

Not surprisingly, there are a lot of floral-themed art projects out there. That Artist Woman’s paper hyacinths and found-poetry nests and this up-cycled bouquet from Chica Circle are stunning, but the very easy cherry blossom pieces from Alpha Mom and Kim K are probably more my speed.

I’m positive I don’t have all of the materials required to make these wax-resist bunny garlands from Housing a Forest, but I think you could make the bunnies using pretty much any sort of colorful, abstract artwork. I also don’t have the yarn I’d need to make this texturized bunny silhouette from Katie’s Crochet Goodies, but I might have to fix that because I love it. In non-mammal news, I also love the sweet and spiky baby chick from All Free Kids Crafts. Who would’ve thought you could paint with a fork? (Art teachers and other creative folk, that’s who.)

I have a beautiful Pysanky egg that a neighbor made for me about a decade ago, and I always put it on the mantle in the springtime. (I also put up the one I made, but it is… not beautiful.) I’d like to have some more permanent egg art to put on display. I think the tape-resist Easter eggs from Mom To 2 Posh Li’l Divas, the splatter-painted Easter eggs from Hands On As We Grow or the marbled Easter eggs from The Chocolate Muffin Tree would look pretty great on the wall.

How about you? Was your childhood wrought with arts & crafts?

mother-daughter book club

The mother-daughter book club discusses “A Snicker of Magic”

A Snicker of MagicMidnight Gulch used to be a magical place, a town where people could sing up thunderstorms and dance up sunflowers. Twelve-year-old Felicity, a “word collector,” wants to stay in Midnight Gulch more than anything, but first she’ll need to figure out how to bring back the magic, breaking the spell that’s been cast over the town — and her mother’s broken heart.

Last night our mother-daughter book club met for lasagna, salad, brownies and a discussion of Natalie Lloyd’s “A Snicker of Magic.” It only took three book talks for the other members to recognize that I am, to put it kindly, a curmudgeon. Several of them predicted that the author’s prevalent use of “What the hayseed” would annoy me. They were right. I did find that and a few other frequently occurring cutesy phrases and motifs pretty grating.

I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t in love with Midnight Gulch.

“A Snicker of Magic” was not met with universal acclaim by the members of the Witty Kitty Book Club. The girls and the moms agreed that it took awhile for the story to get started. We all had to push ourselves through the first several chapters before it finally grabbed our attention.

Even thought most of them felt lukewarm about the book, the girls did a great job answering the discussion questions. Here are a few of the topics we discussed:

Felicity says that her mother’s storytelling voice is “like something between a summer breeze and a lullaby” (p. 2). How can someone’s voice help him or her tell a good story?
The girls agreed that a storyteller’s voice can help set the mood of a story and draw the listener in. One girl added that it could “give the story character.”

The people of Midnight Gulch possess different types of magic. What kind of magic would you want to have? Why?
Summer: “To be able to fly.”
Scarlet: “To be able to turn any person into anything. I want to be a cat. It would be interesting to see things from another perspective.”
Story: “To talk to animals and to fly.”
Grace: “To be able to talk to plants or to fly.”
Liliana: “The power to turn invisible so I could sneak poundcake.”
Koda: “Magic that can heal nature. I would fix global warming.” She also said she’d like to be able to turn into an animal, specifically so she could find out what it would be like to be a cat, then a bear and then a seahorse.

Words are very important to Felicity. What are your three favorite words?
Summer: “Awesome, super, extraordinary.”
Scarlet: “Hope, family, courage.”
Story: “Nature, animals, peace.”
Grace: “Joy, friends, nature.”
Liliana: “Money.” (Our Poppy was trying her hand at being the class clown at this month’s meeting, to her mother’s dismay and chagrin.)
Koda: “Pickle, meow, family.”

Felicity loves to collects words about people. Choose three words that best describe you.
Summer: “Athletic.”
Scarlet: “Artistic, energetic, daring.”
Story: “Nature, peace, animal-lover.”
Grace: “Creative, fun, nature.”
Liliana: “Fun, crazy, huggable.”
Koda: “Creative, unique, smart.”

The highest rating “A Snicker of Magic” received was an 8.5, and the lowest was a 4. On average, the Witty Kitty Book Club gave it 7 kitty paws.

Once again, this group of girls impressed me with their attention to detail and the thought they put into their answers. Even though they didn’t all enjoy it, they all finished the book and came to the meeting ready to talk. I’m already looking forward to next month’s meeting!

Previous mother-daughter book club selections

  • “Hope Was Here”
  • “Serafina and the Black Cloak”
    • Gardening, partner campaign, Reading, reviews

    How to hide a whole salad in your front yard

    2 Comments

    Farmer Ted is a gentleman in our circa-1955 neighborhood who has converted nearly all of the property around his home into an urban farm. He has fruit trees, a small pond and some ducks in the back yard, and a grid of raised beds covers his fenced-in front yard. He has chickens, too, and he made an ingenious wheeled coop for them that he moves from raised bed to raised bed every season. I admire the whole set-up every time I walk past it, and I almost always notice a small detail or smart feature that I’d never spotted before.

    The neighbors across the street from him, however, are not so impressed. According to Farmer Ted, they’ve reported him to the city for all sorts of infractions in an effort to shut down his sustainability efforts. I haven’t discussed the matter with them, but he says they want the neighborhood to look like it did 55 years ago — with a green lawn and some nice, tidy landscaping.

    So Farmer Ted wants to grow his own food on his own land, but his neighbors want the view from their living room to be more landscape than farmland. Is there a compromise to be found? Well, maybe not for Farmer Ted and his neighbors. I’m pretty sure the neighbors listed their house for sale recently, so I guess Farmer Ted won that fight.

    Angela England's "Gardening Like a Ninja"It may be too late for our neighbors, but you can avoid a lot of gardening-related contention with your neighbors by becoming a Ninja Gardener.

    Angela England’s new book, “Gardening Like a Ninja: A Guide to Sneaking Delicious Edibles into Your Landscape,” tells you which edible plants are most easily hidden in your traditional landscaping and shows you how to arrange them to look picture-perfect, but it’s a great resource even if you don’t have cranky neighbors to assuage. The book contains impressive lists of edible plants, their uses and their ideal growing conditions. Angela shows you how to build your edible garden from the ground up — lingonberries or strawberries down low and lavender or persimmon up top, perhaps? — which is very helpful for gardening novices like myself.

    The list of edible plants in Angela’s book is as eye-opening as it is informational. You’d expect a plant like rosemary to be in such a guide, but did you know you can eat parts of a hosta? Dice that into your salad and eat it. (Or wrap it in bacon and broil it, maybe. Angela says the tender, leafy shoots are somewhat asparagus-like.)

    So far we’ve kept our gardening efforts confined to the back yard, but “Gardening Like a Ninja” has me looking at the long-neglected island bed in the front yard in a new way. There are two dogwood trees and a big bush whose name I don’t recall anchoring it, and there used to be a lot of lavender around the anonymous bush. As much as I’d love to have some fruit trees, I’m not going to take down the big guys already there to make that happen. The lavender is pretty well dead, though, and everything else out there is ornamental, so I’m going to spend some quality time with “Gardening Like a Ninja” over the next few weeks and see if I can’t come up with an appetizing way to bring that sad space in the yard back to life.

    Disclaimer: Angela England sent me a copy of “Gardening Like a Ninja” for review.