This is great! I can just see it hanging in young Master Pompalary’s bedroom: a secret message from Mum that will stay cool even when he’s a bigger boy, because his mates probably would never know what it says . Looks just like a stack of wood, doesn’t it? Well look a little closer. (Hint: turn your head sideways…)

Did you see it? It actually says “I love you very much”. Cool, hunh?

It comes from thepairabirds on Etsy. Check them out.

Have a look at these beautiful goodies from Amorelita Designs. I found them recently at Paddington Markets (a little holiday treat with my daughter), but they’re actually made in my hometown of Newcastle. These photos make them look great, but they’re even better in real life. You just want to pick them up and cradle them in your hands. And a lot of the designs have little dimples in just the right spot, making them a perfect fit.

Here’s where they’re hand crafted by Ami:

(All images from Amorelita Designs, and used with permission.)

But now I’m addicted to tea.

I found these tea cups on Etsy, and thought I’d share them with you. They come from Bailey doesn’t bark. Aren’t they great? I love the simplicity of them. Just smooth, clean lines, and a little touch of quirky. Me to a T.

Sorry.

Pink semisolid:

And parfait:

They’re both from Pancake and Lulu on Etsy. Check ‘em out!

(Images from Pancake and Lulu, and used with permission.)

It’s from print space, a shop run by Mara & Nicholas Girling on Etsy. Go check them out!

Anyway, her teacher last year was brilliant. And a perfect fit for my girl’s somewhat flighty creative nature. The room was just bare walls and boring grey at the beginning of the year, but by the end of the year it was such a beautiful place, full of the children’s creative expression (written, drawn, painted, sculpted, designed, constructed). It was a great place to be!

Here’s just one of the pieces of art my daughter brought home this year. A self portrait in the style of Julian Opie. I love it so much, we scanned it, sent it to snapfish and turned it into greeting cards. Here’s hoping 2011 will be good for her, too.

Self portrait by HT (6 years old) in the style of Julian Opie.

It’s tough love in this house.

My darling 6-nearly-7-but-going-on-16-year-old daughter has been testing whatever boundaries she can find lately, most recently our rules around TV and doing as you’re asked. Long story short, she gave the little on button on our remote control a mightily defiant push, even though I had said to her that if she turned on the set, then it would be banned for a week.

So, no TV.

First week of the school holidays, and no TV.

First week of the school holidays and still a couple of clients waiting on their photos… And. No. T.V.

Kinda shot myself in the foot there, hey? Well… actually, it’s pretty good, really. Apart from getting next to no computer time during the day (I usually check emails, facebook, squeeze in a bit of editing while the kids are watching TV for half an hour), it’s been, well, nice! When I was a kid we had a holiday house with no TV, no radio, no phone… we didn’t even have a letter box! And they were the best holidays ever. We got bored.  Then we made our own fun. And my kids have been doing a bit of the same this week. It’s nice to watch how creative they are.

But of course, a 6-going-on-16-year-old girl and a three-year-old boy do need a little direction in their play from time to time. So what do you do with two kids and no TV?

You make wrapping paper, of course!

Here are some of this year’s Christmas gifts all wrapped up.

Not bad for kiddie-craft, don’t you think? I’m actually pretty pleased with how they turned out. Here’s how you do it. You’ll need:

• a couple of bored kids (optional)
• the tube from a roll of cling wrap or similar, cut into about 5 pieces
• paint, in colours of your choice (we used white, gold, a nice jacaranda blue that I mixed myself, and a little bit of glitter paint)
• a roll of craft paper
• scissors
• and a little bit of tolerance for mess

Method:

Cut a length of paper as long as your table (or whatever surface you’re working on), and then cut in half length-ways

Dip the circular end of  the pieces of tube into the paints and stamp away! Be as random or as regular in your pattern as you like. (We used fingers for the glitter paint.)

Set aside to dry.

And there you have it! Once it’s dry, use it to decorate all sorts of gifts, or as a table runner for your next kids’ party, or use it for handmade cards…. you’re limited only by your imagination.

Enjoy! Merry Christmas everyone!

PS: If you want to see some really beautiful gift wrapping, have a look at a creative mint.

Have you ever had one of those days (or weeks!) when things just seem to go from bad to worse? Or are you perhaps one of those people who believe that bad things always come in threes. A particularly pessimistic and often self-fulfilling frame of mind, in my view. Once you have that mindset, then you are automatically on the lookout for the next bad thing to happen, just to prove to yourself that you’re right. And that’s not really a mindset I want to foster in myself, or in my children. There’s plenty of evidence from neuroscience that the connections we make in our brains (the synapses we create) get stronger with practice. In other words, the more pessimistic we are, the more pessimistic we become. Add to this the notion that we humans have a predisposition to negative emotions, and we’re in a sticky situation indeed!

Predisposed to negativity? Apparently so. You see, fear and anger and the like probably helped us stay alive way back when we were literally fighting for our survival every day. Those so called negative emotions have been passed on as ‘useful’ in our collective psyche and can still serve us well from time to time, but we no longer need to have them as the default setting. We need to be aware of our tendency to over use them, and perhaps give positivity a bit more of a play.

I have found myself at the start of what looks to be a very challenging week, and I must admit to starting down the path of focusing on how difficult everything is going to be… And then this came into my email in-box:

“Overall, whenever you remember, deliberately tilt toward the positive in your mind. That’s not looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. Given the negativity bias in the brain, you’re only leveling the playing field.” (Rick Hanson, PhD. Co-author of  Buddha’s brain: The practical neuroscience of happiness, love and wisdom”).

You can read more of his work and sign up to receive a weekly dose of wisdom with the Just One Thing email here.

And the image at the start of this post? Well, it’s a photo from a portrait session I did some time ago now. It reminds me of those people who just like to run away from a problem, or cover their eyes and pretend it doesn’t exist. And then there’s the other bunch who think that you can just think positive thoughts, and pretend that the bad stuff doesn’t happen, or that it doesn’t matter. But that’s not what I suggest at all. Rather, take the blinkers off your eyes. Acknowledge the bad things that happen in life, and then own up to your own part in making things worse by ‘catastrophising’ everything in your own mind. Or is that just me? Greet negative emotions and thoughts when they come a-knocking on the front door of your mind.

And then open the back door and let them walk right on through!

Have a great week.

Jen.

They were really quick and easy to apply. A great way to quickly add some interest to a bare wall. And my daughter loves them! These ones came from Modern Wall Company on Etsy (as did the photo shown above), but there are LOADS of people selling decals. Enjoy browsing!

What you’ll need:

• Frame
• sandpaper, paint and brushes (optional)
• grosgrain ribbon (enough to stretch across your frame 4~5 times, depending on width of your frame).
• scissors
• staple gun
• hanging devices (e.g. 3M picture hangers/velcro dots, etc.)

The frame I used came gratis from The Framing Factory (on the Pacific Highway in Roseville, for all you Sydney readers).

Go into your local framing shop, explain what you’re doing and ask if they have a ready made frame that they no longer want/need. I actually went in to buy a frame, and offered to pay for this one, but the owner of the store said it was one he was going to get rid of anyway, and that he was much happier knowing it was going to be used and enjoyed by my daughter. Wouldn’t take a cent for it. I even offered to buy a bone for his gorgeous dog, who likes to loll about the shop waiting for a pat, but no. Wouldn’t accept that either.   I’d never been in to the Framing Factory before, but you can bet with an attitude like that I’ll be checking them out when I have my next photography job to be framed!

Here’s how you do it:

Clean up the frame, removing any wire or twine that has been added for hanging.

Paint as desired. (I actually used a very pale blue as an undercoat… the colour of my daughter’s freshly painted room… and then sprayed with white gloss enamel, because we had these things left over from another project. Reduce, reuse, recycle!)

“Distress” the frame with sandpaper, if desired.

Cut the grosgrain ribbon into lengths slightly longer than the width of the frame so that you can tuck the raw edges under when you staple.

Fold about 1 cm over at each end of the ribbon, and staple one end to the back of the frame.

Pull the ribbon taught across the frame, and staple the other end to the back of the frame.

Repeat with each piece of ribbon.

Add hair clips, and there you have it!

Now I just need to go shopping for more hair clips. I think I’ll start here at Rosalind Grace’s shop. She has one on Made It, too, where you can shop in Aussie dollars. You’ll find it here.

Actually, it was through Ros’ blog that I first saw this idea of using a frame for hair clip storage. She has a post about Jenny Collier, a photographer in the USA, and the pictures of her daughter’s AMAZING bedroom. All a bit too pink and black for me, but I can imagine most little girls would just love it.

PS: Excuse the snapshots. These images were taken on a little point and press while I was waiting for the insurance company to replace all my camera gear that was stolen a while back.

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