Spirit Ship

My good friend Kristin, is one of those people who seems to be endlessly creative. She is a mama, makes beautiful jewelry, children's toys, and paintings....she has an insightful poignant blog and I have even done a few craft fairs with her selling our art! But her true love is Little Creatures, the children's film company that she and her partner Sean founded. A couple of years ago they shot a short film for children here in Brooklyn called Spirit Ship, and friends this short film is true beauty (that's a still from the film in the picture).
I was lucky enough to have Kristin give Jasper, Carys and I a screening of the rough cut of the film last year, so that my children could give her their feedback, and Jasper was talking about it and acting the adventure out in his play for days after wards! There is a mysterious, other worldly quality to the film that my children could completely relate to. It is about the hunt for what is hidden, the thrill of finding a mysterious treasure, the wonders inherent in an afternoon playing in the woods, and the joy in telling the story. You can check out the trailer for the film here, and catch a glimpse for yourself. It is really the sort of children's art film that I wish there were more of.
Right now, through January 2, 2011 they are a part of Kickstarter, an online pledge drive in which they hope to raise $5000 so that they can finish and distribute Spirit Ship. If you feel moved by the trailer for their film please consider giving to their pledge drive, even $1 would help. The crazy thing about Kickstarter is that if they don't raise the $5000 by next Sunday, January 2nd, then they don't get ANY of the more than $4000 that they have already raised! Crazy, but true.
I just love seeing artists realize their dreams, so I wanted to share her dream here with you!

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas!
xo

Wishing you...

A very,

with all of the trimmings!

Love and light.

xo

Tropical Christmas

We're here in Florida, preparing for a tropical Christmas with Frank's family,

Being in the sunny warm weather has felt so healing after the frigid temperatures that we were having up north. We are melting into it, after the initial feeling that it is a shock to the system to fly down here and suddenly be in summer weather, with the sun shining so brightly! Oh sun how we've missed you!

So far we've been doing some of our favorite things to do when we come to Naples, Florida. We visit our favorite "pirate ship" playground (the wooden structure looks like a ship!),

Marvel at the tropical foliage,

Go to the zoo, where we go on the special boat ride monkey tour (I love that Carys looks so serious in the photo, that's some serious monkey watching),

Collect and arrange our nature finds (The fact that my children do this makes me feel like I have trained them well!), 

And generally enjoy some tropical silliness,

Things are about to kick into some serious Christmas celebrating when the rest of the family arrives tomorrow. I hope that you are getting ready to celebrate a wonderful holiday where ever you are!

Our Christmas Angel

Happy Solstice! Last night Frank and I got up at 2:30am to witness the lunar eclipse, this particular alignment, right on our winter solstice, has not occurred in over 400 years, so we felt like we didn't want to miss it. I heard that it was visible from all over North and South America. I had never seen an eclipse before and this one did not disappoint, seeing the moon darkened was surreal, and I have never seen the stars glowing so brightly! It felt so special to see it!

I want to share with you the new tree topper Christmas angel, that I just finished. I've learned some wonderful crafts at our Waldorf playgroup's parent craft group, but this has been by far my favorite. I love learning a new skill and then "running" with it to let my creative juices flow. For this project the teacher showed us how to create a doll out of wool through the process of needle felting.

Then we took wool home to complete the dress decorations and wings on our own. I also added the basket that she is holding, as sort of a cornucopia, my kids call it her "basket of presents". The basket is actually a petal that I learned how to wet felt in the amazing felting class that I took after Thanksgiving!

My favorite part of making the angel was working on her hair,

I loved making it wild, adding braids, twists, flowers, gold....all kinds of pretty things. She's got my idea of angel hair!

I makes my heart sing every time I see my kids admiring her up on our tree. I want them to remember the little things that I make, as through making each thing for our home I am making my love tangible.

This afternoon I asked Frank to pick a number between 1 and 6, and he chose number 5....so Ang, you are the lucky winner of Nicole's beautiful Indonesian glass bead necklace! Contact me with your information so that she can send it to you!

I wishing you all a bit of Christmas magic! Frank and I are about to head out for a date night, yeah!

A couple of forts

I can't believe that Christmas is this week, we are in the count down and my kids could not be more excited!
The cold has been keeping us from spending our almost daily time in Prospect Park for the past few weeks, but when we have visited in this late autumn we've come across some exciting forts...

built by others, but ready and waiting for us to spend a good hour or so adding to the structure, pretending to hide out, 

or sometimes, just to stop for a moment, climb inside and look up at the sky. Reminding me of this magical fort that we found last winter. I love how it is so easy for us to all get involved in a family project when we are outside, with no distractions, and the imagination can fly!

Just a reminder that this is the last day to enter my giveaway to win Nicole's beautiful Indonesian glass bead necklace! I'll choose a winner tomorrow on the Solstice, the official start of winter here and our shortest day of the year! I love the Solstice for the knowledge that from here on we get a bit more light with each passing day!

Our Nativity and a Giveaway!

At this time of year I take great pleasure in decorating our home for the holidays. I have such dear memories of unpacking our family Nativity, a wooden Nativity set from Guatemala, when I was a child. My brother and I looked forward all year to the moments when we would slowing unwrap each delicate tissue wrapped figure, and we were of course thrilled when we came to the baby Jesus figure with his manger!
For a few years now, I have had thoughts of creating a Nativity set for my family, especially for my children to enjoy.  I had fantasies of needle felting it myself, but I just had never found the time. I met Nicole this year, and we struck up a friendship through Etsy and our blogs. I love visiting her blog Lebenskuenstler as I am always inspired by her creative life in Australia, and I marvel each time at how alike our lives are as mothers and artists on opposite sides of the earth! I immediately fell in love with her fantastic wool Nativity set, offered in her Etsy shop full of amazing wool creations, it was literally the set of my dreams....and the rest is history.

The day that we received our Nativity set in the mail was so thrilling. We unwrapped each piece carefully, and arranged them just as I remembered from childhood. My children were immediately entranced with the set which I placed on the shelf where our family "nature table" sits for the rest of the year. We all love the tiny details that are so well done, like the different textures of wool used for hair and clothing (and the sweet little sheep!)...

Even the special angel watching over the scene, seems just so effortlessly put together!

I'm so happy that now, every Christmas season we'll be able to look forward to unwrapping this beautiful Nativity set as part of our family tradition.
Nicole has generously offered to give away one of her beautiful necklaces that she made during her family's most recent trip to Bali with old Indonesian glass beads,

I don't know about you but for me just seeing that tropical leaf in the picture is doing me all kinds of good right now! One lucky winner will receive this lovely necklace to cheer the coldest of winter days! Just leave a comment on this post to enter the drawing. I'll chose a winner next Tuesday, on December 21st, the winter solstice up here in the Northern Hemisphere.
xo

Right now...

I am loving,

The thrill of opening our shutters to a light coating of snow yesterday morning!

Seriously, if it is going to be this cold I feel like we might as well have snow to make it beautiful, and I do think that the city is rarely as beautiful and quiet as after a snow fall.

I am loving my boy's newly toothless grin!

and also loving working on more felt projects, this past weekend I created another rainbow garland. First I wet felted a bunch of little white balls that I put bands of bright color around. Then I cut out flower shapes from felt that I had in my craft cabinet, in a rainbow of colors. I then laid them all out in a row, in the order that I wanted to string them...

and here is the finished garland, it is about 4 feet long, and I hung it in the arch way between our kitchen and living room, where Carys likes to touch it each time she walks by.

I am also loving working on a few top secret handmade Christmas gifts, that I'll share here when they are closer to being finished! Suddenly Christmas feels so soon!

Huge shop update!

Hhhhhhhhhhhhhm. That's me exhaling deeply. Frank was away last week, so being alone with the kids had me running around like a wild woman doing the job of two parents, but we made it through, and I'm so happy to have my sweet man at home again! Somehow this past weekend I completed a huge shop update...and now my shop is full to brimming with pretty things. One of the the things that I'm most excited about are these prints on canvas, that are GORGEOUS!

I put a bunch of them up with my show at Swallow, I love that they look practically just like the originals but at a fraction of the price (spreading the love)! The sides are black all around, and the company that I found to print them just does a wonderful job, I'm so pleased with them.

I had them made in editions of two each of my favorite paintings, you can stop by here to check them out!

OK, another drum roll please....

Also, new to the shop are prints of four brand new paintings, all but one include deer. The piece that I have the biggest crush on currently is this wintry one called...

 Hiding Place 

along with, Close to You,  Faith and Courage, and Traveling Mercies. They are all pieces that I finished the week before my show went up. I usually like to wait and release each piece into the world on its own...but with the whirlwind and thrill of getting my show up I just went for it and added them all to the shop! To top it off I've also added a few more new small originals to the shop. There are this sweet Mama and baby in Little One, that I think is so perfect for a child's room,

and this gentle doe in Tender Footing,

As always, all of my prints are available for custom mounting on a wooden block with a key hole in the back for hanging, this is such a lovely way to see them displayed, it is as if they are just floating on the wall or bookshelf,

I am also totally getting caught up in the holiday spirit, probably something to do with my kid's excitement this year, Jasper is just at the age where he is starting to really get into the excitement of anticipating something. I think that it also has to do with the fact that this year we are planning a Florida Christmas, we are heading to Florida next Monday, away from the cold, to enjoy a warm holiday with Frank's family at his parent's house. Since we have already been having freezing temperatures here in Brooklyn this past week, I am more than ready for some sunshine. Warm thoughts are definitely keeping my spirits buoyant, and with that I would like to share with you that I am  offering a friendly 20% off of everything (even originals) in my shop using coupon code SEEKPEACE until I leave on the 19th, at which time I plan to close the shop for a whole week and simply relax. 

I hear myself deeply exhaling again, ahhh.

P.S. There are only three of my 2011 calendars left, get them while you can...

Winter Spiral

The winter spiral for Carys's Waldorf playgroup was the other night, this is a festival celebrating carrying our inner light through the dark winter months ahead, and it is very beautiful. As we entered the room in silence the head teacher sat playing a small harp next to the spiral of winter greens, with a single candle at the center.

The children sat expectantly and as the ceremony began each of them got up one by one and walked the spiral to light their candle from the central candle, and then place their lit candle somewhere along the spiral,

With each candle the light grew and grew,

Until the spiral glowed brilliantly.

Then we all got our coats on and left in silence (well, as much silence as you can have in a dimly lit room filled with young children) and a feeling of reverence.

More felting!

Here is a peak at a few of the other things that we made in our amazing felting class, even though the class finished early this week the felt fun has been continuing here, I think that the kids and I have found a new addiction.

We loved making these felt balls, that were so easy and simple both kids could make them with little to no help, it was all about rolling the wet felt in your hands, which was very satisfying. Then I finished them with the little bands of color.

Then we learned how to make felted pouches, which was probably my favorite project. I made this lotus pouch first...

and then I helped Jasper make this pouch, since he is six and turquoise is his favorite color he wanted six turquoise stripes, it all turned out great and he has been filling it with mysterious little things ever since! He is very proud of it.