Please Touch Museum

We went to the new Please Touch Museum yesterday with Aidan, Wendy and Daniel. What an awesome place! They recently relocated to a bigger, better building with a parking lot and a cafe {both of which they didn't have in the previous location}. Malayna and Aidan had a great time, and both of them were asking when we can go back. There is so much for the kids to do and see here, that it's worth the $15 admission and $5 parking fee. {Though we didn't pay - one of the perks of having a friend who edits a children's magazine.} I took lots of photos, but it was hard to get good shots in there. More photos are on my flickr page.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Go read my Scoutie Girl post about gorgeous pottery!

Not much going on…

Thanks to all of you who came out to the Waldorf show this past weekend. It was fun {and successful}! I mostly resisted the urge to shop instead of sell. There were so many great things there to buy!

Malayna and I are off to the new Please Touch Museum today with Wendy, Daniel and Aidan.

Not much else going on. How about all of you? What's new?

Photo Friday

Malayna's uncle David {my brother} got a bunch of dress-up clothes for her from Craigslist the other day. Luco's not too happy about it.

{Snow White and Cinderella.}

{Malayna and mom-mom.}

{Silly girls Malayna and Abby.}

I'll be at the Waldorf Holiday Fair this weekend {see the sidebar to the right for info}. It's snowing here right now, so unpacking my truck later should be loads of fun. Anyone want to come help me?

Getting ready

My favorite show is taking place this weekend at the Waldorf School of Philadelphia. The show is Friday night, from 6-9:30, with candlelit dinner and live music {in addition to the shopping, of course!}. Saturday the show goes from 10-5, with homemade organic foods, puppet plays, storytelling, children-only holiday shopping room, children’s craft room, and free choral performances by WSP’s Bluebirds and Middle School Choir. It's a very well-attended show with great artists participating. In fact, I will sharing a room with Linda of Little Flower Designs.

I've got lots of work ready to go, but I will be putting the finishing touches on a few things tomorrow and Friday morning. I'm looking forward to spending all day tomorrow in the studio!

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Head on over to Scoutie Girl and read my latest post!

Monday's agenda

It's Monday! My studio-time day. Here's what I have planned for today:

1. Take Malayna to school.
2. Rush home and up to the studio.
3. Pick Malayna up from school.
4. Run some errands: buy new bras, socks, underwear. Fun stuff. Another, actual fun errand, too: go to the arts and crafts store for something for Malayna and Lily to do later today.
5. Come home, eat lunch, let Malayna watch a video so I can do some work.
6. Walk down the street, pick up Lily and bring her back here so the she and Malayna can tear my house up.
7. Try and convince them to do a painting project. Maybe regret that.
8. Get ready to do a local show tonight from 6-10.
9. Do the show and sell lots of stuff.
10. Come home and fall into bed.

What's on your agenda today?

Photo Friday

Last week at the playground with Aidan and Lily:

{"Reading" to Lily.}

What are you plans for the weekend? I'm doing a gift show at my parents' house in Northeast Philadelphia. If you live in the area, send me an email and I'll give you her address.

Barbies

I absolutely LOVED Barbies when I was a kid. I had every Barbie thing you could think of - camper, townhouse, car, clothing, pool, etc. My aunt Michele {who is five years older than me} and I would play for hours and hours, and would make furniture out of toilet paper rolls, clothing out of scraps of fabric, and even little placemats and rugs.

Even though I loved her then, I've banished Barbie from our house so far. She is a stereotyped image of a woman - perfect body, long hair and a permanent smile. She exists for our daughters to dress in cute little outfits. But I'll admit that I've considered getting one for Malayna. Her favorite things to play with are dolls - big, little and in between. A Barbie would quickly become the favorite toy here if I let her have one. Or two or three or four…

Malayna's classroom has a few Barbies, and she points them out when we see them at the toy store. She knows I don't like them, and mentions that every time she talks about them. I'm quick to tell her that even though I don't like them, she doesn't have to agree with me. But I haven't bought her one, nor let anyone else give her one.

Jimmy and Malayna saw a doctor Barbie at Target the other day {photo above}. Malayna told me about her while we were having dinner - she was going gaga over the babies in the package. If I were to buy her a Barbie, at least I could start with one who actually DOES something, as opposed to existing just to look pretty.

What are your thoughts about Barbie? Do you have a daughter {how old}? Does she have Barbies? Do you talk to her about how Barbie looks?

This is your child on color

Remember those commercials from the 80s about drugs? They showed a frying pan with an egg cooking in it, and the voice over would say, "This is your brain on drugs."

A neighbor took a picture of me, Malayna, India and Lily at the polls on Election Day. Malayna's behavior was horrible that day, and it was because of all the artificial color she had ingested since Halloween. When my neighbor emailed this photo to me yesterday, I thought of those anti-drug commercials of the 80s, but with these words, "This is your child on color." She does not usually look like this - she's floppy and she looks like she's in pain from trying to smile. {Even Lily knows somethings's not right!} If I had seen this photo that day, I probably would've scrapped any plans we had and stayed inside all day. Certainly would've saved us all a lot of trouble. M&Ms are evil.

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Click on over to Scoutie Girl and take a look at the awesome jewelry I featured today!

Updated Etsy site

It's been a looooong time since I've updated my Etsy site. I finally did just that over the weekend with new wall squares. Check it out!

Photo Friday

{In the classroom, before the parade.
She kept that mask on all day!}

{Scary shark.}

{Xavier and Malayna}

{See that dorsal fin?!}

{Luco came to school to pick Malayna up.}

{Trick or treat!}

Change

Malayna and I walked to the polls yesterday with our friends/neighbors India and Lily. The girls waved their little American flags, while India and I talked about the change we hoped to see. We met a few neighbors along the way, and didn't even have to wait in line to vote. I brought my camera, but unfortunately it wasn't working when we got there. {Must get new camera! Any recommendations?}

I let Malayna push the button to record our vote, and then we did a little dance in the booth. Afterwards, the four of us met Aidan and Wendy at the playground, and talked more politics. I don't remember ever being so excited and interested in an election before this. Did you see that acceptance speech?!

Unfortunately, the day went downhill from there. Remember back in August, when we stopped giving Malayna food with artifical coloring? All was going well, with a few bumps in the road {mostly when she ate something with color}. Then along came Halloween. We {stupidly} let her have a few pieces of candy, mostly M&Ms, thinking that she's been doing so well that it would be okay. Ha! I know that eating the colored food takes a few days to catch up and rear its ugly head. Well, yesterday was the day - HUGE tantrum/meltdown in Cosi, where we went for lunch with our friends after the playground. It was horrible and embarrassing and we had to leave. The place was FILLED with people, and even had a line almost out the door. Needless to say, she had a huge audience.

I put her in the truck and then realized I left her water bottle there. So I went back in, and when I was leaving again a woman stopped me and asked me if I was okay. I said no, and she said, "It'll be alright. It happens to all of us. Take deep breaths." She was so nice and so supportive that I wanted to give her a hug. I thanked her about a hundred times, and went on my way.

Last night when Jimmy got home from work, we talked to Malayna about the food coloring and what it does to her behavior. The two of them threw away all the Halloween candy, and went through the cabinets to check snacks. He talked to her about what she could and could not eat, and she happily accepted what he was telling her.

It was a long day that I was happy to see end.

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Check out my Scoutie Girl post!

VOTE!

Surface designs

I got a burst of creative energy over the weekend and created lots of new surface designs for my trip to New York in January. To create each pattern, I first draw in my sketchbook with a black pen, then scan the page {usually the page has about 10 or so little sketches on it}. I then open the scanned page in Photoshop, and "cut" one of the drawings out. I make a new file, then play around with the drawing to see which direction will work best. I color this sketch in Photoshop, usually working by intuition. Most of the time just looking at the sketch will give me ideas about what colors I think it should be. Other times, when I'm stuck, I'll look around my house, through catalogs, visit websites, or look outside for color ideas. Then I copy and paste the drawing until I have a page full - this gives me my pattern.

Once I get going, I don't want to stop - not for lunch, dinner, or to go to bed. We didn't have much to do this weekend, so I was able to park myself on the couch and get to work. Here are some patterns I came up with {more here}. What do you think?