In Review: Eco-Craft by Susan Wasinger

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I recently checked out Susan Wasinger's book, Eco-Craft: Recycle, Recraft, Restyle, at my local library and I'm so glad I did! This is a thick hard cover book with tons of ideas on how to bring the most basic household 'trash' items into beautiful and creative work. From the simple idea of fusing plastic bags to shaving half of a bamboo shoot for a beautiful presentation of bathroom necessities, this book was worth checking out. I will probably look at it again after the holidays, and my xmas projects are done, so I can make a number of the things in her book for my home...(I try to not make something for someone else if I've never tried it...I didn't know how to do a lot of these projects!)

Definitely a great read if you are getting into the craft fad & smart consumer responsibilit of repurposing used items around your house! Enjoyand Hop on over to my friend Julie K's beautiful repurposing website for some simple tutorials!


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Stayed tuned for a how-to : Instant Inspiration Board and the next post on our Alternative Educational Theory Series!

We Choose D: All of The Above. A Series on Alternative Educational Theory. This Week: Montessori Method

I promised my friend Rebbecca I would do a big educational theory post, or rather, the theories I have looked into more....but I just can't fit them all into one post. So here is the first in the series!

I will do a simple breakdown of each alternative education method as I understand them and go from there. There are so many options out there from boarding school to unschool, public school to home school co-ops. As always, I am a firm believer in "Mamma knows best", just to say whatever works for your family is the best option for you and your children. This post is only to show what I've come across, am interested & passionate about, and what we thinking of maybe, 'planning' to do.... doing what we feel is right for each individual child in the child's season of life.

Montessori Method

I've done a lot of reading about Montessori method online and in books and learning what I can by gleaning bits and pieces by people who live a Montessori-influenced life. The Montessori motto is "Follow the Child". For the most basic of understanding, the child is given tools that they can use to learn what they want to learn, at their own pace as well. For example, in a Montessori school, there may be many "sets" of activities from daily life. One might be a tray with different sized (all child-sized, though) pitchers, and a bowl. The child practices pouring water from each pitcher into the bowl. Another activity might be gardening in their own garden. They dig the weeds, plant the seeds, water with their own can, and dig a hole with their own spade. There are 6 areas of the classroom and they are as follows: practical life, sensory, cultural,science, language, and mathematics.

A few resources

There are many Montessori schools in Lincoln, but one that comes to mind is a school outside of Lincoln that is located on a farm, Prairie Hill. The children feed the animals and care for them, eat the food they grow in their garden, etc.
Here is a blog I follow that is written by a Montessori teacher turned work at home mom.
Montessori Services is the catalog & website I subscribe to when I am planning birthday, or Christmas presents, just in general trying to find something that I think Lukka would be interested in. For example, his gardening tools and his birthday "work tools" were found here.
I also find this to be very well priced.
Maria Montessori: founder.
Another source for tips and ideas that I have found for people who home school with a Montessori slant is the flickr group:Handmade Montessori Materials. This is a group where people post their projects they've made at home or the parents have made for child-led learning. You might even find me there...
See the Bug and I doing things the Montessori way!
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Pros:

• Child-led. Instead of drilling a child each day in 6-7 subjects a day for an hour each, the child follows his/her natural learning style to what their current interest is. A teacher is only there to observe/direct the child to activities or learning experiences.


• Child-sized. Lukka is fairly intensive in his learning to do things around the house like chores. When he works with an adult sized tool (for example, a large broom), he can't use it properly, and he gets very frustrated. He might start to get teary because he feels he can't do it right. Once we started implementing child-sized items, this attitude completely shifted! (He takes after me in that over-achiever, frustrated at myself if I can't figure something out right away unfortunately...I'm workin' on it...) He loves using his tools whether he is helping me rake with his own rake, or putting clean clothes in his own laundry basket. I can tell he is proud of his work!


• Self-Discovery & Retention. When children learn by themselves, it is truly a magnificent thing! Children and adults are much more likely to retain information if they figure a problem out themselves, rather than just drilled, questioned, or made to sit and watch.
  

Cons:

• Wide Variation in Beliefs. I kind of see this as a con of any type of schooling plan, but the fact that some Montessori schools/teachers may not stress reading enough, sequencing, what have you. But, like all teachers, one will be passionate about one subject and therefore likely be drawn to teaching that more, etc.


• Expense. They are expensive. Nuff' said!

Any questions? :) I hope you'll stick around for more of this series!

Movie Review: August Rush

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August Rush is a really sweet family movie. If ever I could describe that genre with one movie, this would be it. At times, a bit cheesy without a pre-teen to share it with, and more than once completely unbelievable, it really was a cute movie to watch. I wouldn't have even known about this movie if I hadn't had to watch it for my cinema class, but I'm glad I did. It is one I will want to watch with my own kids when they are old enough, and talk to them about issues such as adoption, poverty, and even what 'destiny' means. This is a great film to help broach some of these tough subjects for a child.

The main character, Freddie Highmore, is an orphan at a boys' home and has a willing spirit and is sensitive to the fact he knows his parents are 'out there' and want him, even though the world tells him otherwise. August "trusts music like some trust fairy tales" and through the sounds of nature, his heart, and even the city of New York finds his way through in this coming-of-age story.

Rich in music, the soundtrack will also not disappoint. Classical, rock, and folk mix just as fluidly as a family's own unique culture, making the sound of this film beautiful. I think that was a big part of why I liked it, aside from the cute-ness factor. Enjoy this movie with a big bucket of popcorn and a little one at your side. You'll be glad you did.

In Review: Amy Karol's Bend the Rules with Fabric!

Amy Karol, author of Bend the Rules Sewing and popular blog Angry Chicken is kind of the go-to girl for most advanced sewing frustrations. She knows how to do everything. She even sews her own undergarments from old t-shirts! Impressive, I know!
Her newest book Bend the Rules with Fabric was no exception. It has projects ranging from the lesser known Freezer Paper shirt design to making your own stamps to making a doll representing someone and then making Partridge Family-like band shirts.. One of my favorite projects, though, and the one I am finding most practical to know how to do in my season of life, is the applique projects.
Now, I have to be honest, I already knew how to do this, but I read through her tutorial and followed it so I could tell you that yes, her instructions are superb, easy to follow and clear. It even made me a bit more confident in my applique experience. Here is one baby onesie I made for my sister-in-law's shower with the owls from my art class.

Here is another angle, bad lighting, sorry. The first is a whale, the second is the bird in its nest. And, not to forget the cute little imp trying to get into the picture :)

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This is a great reference book for anyone who wants to begin printing on or repurposing scraps of fabric and trying to find new ways to use it.

Another Playtime at Arbor Day Farm

We love Arbor Day Farm's Tree Adventure so much we try to go every 3 weeks, and although we couldn't make it out there in October due to rain, we are trying to go two or three times in November! Here is a small portion of the walk (ample for ambitious toddlers who want to stroll their siblings, "Me do it!")

Lu's favorite part of the Tree Adventure is this huge wooden xylophone. It even has tree stumps of all sizes for the *ahem* littlest of music makers.

Here's the little lady playing in one of the block area. They have a rectangular blocks area and another (where Ani is, with the stump-ground) of just sliced tree rings & branch limbs cut down to an appropriate size. Before we go there, there was a beautiful bridge built by a future city planner. I should have snapped a picture of it, but I didn't get a chance before Tornado Lu hit the area.

After about an hour there, we realized there is an entire section behind the main entrance building that is an exact replica of the Tree Adventure only mini-sized...for toddlers! Complete with its own wooden xylophone and small "messy area" (i.e. fort building area, where the kids are in the picture), we were sold! They even had a mini tree-house with silks that were hung as hammocks(more pictures of that to come!). This place gets better and better! See more pics of the Arbor Day Farm here.

In Review: The Soloist

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The Soloist was a movie I found in a magazine. I just happened to read the short exerpt while online, probably why it showed up in my Netflix queue near the top. I must have put it as #1 until it was uprooted by my ever-documentary-loving husband. :) I am so glad we watched this movie, since there aren't many movies wanting to talk about what homelessness looks like on Skid Row. This is a heartbreaking movie, one that leaves the audience talking after the credits are run through.

If you know me in real life, one of my favorite type of movies are those based on books or true stories. I love watching miraculous events play out that could only be Divinely orchestrated, and this was a beautiful story about just that. I also love movies that really make you think in the end, whether that's about poverty, or humanity, or whatever. If it starts a conversation, it probably struck a chord.

This story starts with the main character (Downey Jr.) who needs a story for his newspaper. Enter in a prospective interest : Foxx, a man making music in a terminal who is obviously homeless, mentally unstable, or both. Through the movie, the two become friends, and as Downey Jr's character begins to realize there are more to the people living on Skid Row other than forcing them to an area where they are forgotten, Nathaniel Ayers (Foxx) rebirths his passion for the cello while battling schizophrenia. Truly a movie conversation starter, this film isn't cinematically great. It is average, but the story is one that appealed to me.

In Review: Heaven on Earth by Sharifa Oppenheimer

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As far as educational theory goes, I would say I'm a bit of a 'mutt'. I like a little from each practice, to the 'small tools' idea of a Montessorian, to the complete freedom in following the child in unschooling, to the natural materials of a Waldorf education. I plan on doing an entire post on what I think about each main category I've researched, but now I'll tell you about a great parenting book, although it follows a Waldorf practice.

Heaven on Earth by Sharifa Oppenheimer was first seen by me on one of my favorite blogs, SewLiberated. Meg from SL is a Montessori teacher and now a stay-at-home mom who has a pattern shop and a book coming out soon. I love her thoughtful full-scale Montessori room for her little one, and am very attracted to her mad sewing skills. When she gave a good review, I knew I wanted to check it out, and I'm so glad I did!

Anyway, back to the book. I read this front to back, and quite carefully; whether or not you ascribe to a Waldorf mentality (I don't fully), there are some good sheaves ready to glean from this lady's wisdom as a parent of 3 grown boys and educator. It brought me back to the reason I love to stay at home with my children: to create peace and harmony with my family in the avenues of security, balance, and joy; and to allow my family to carve out an ample amount of time to spend together!

This book has so many ideas on how to do just that: allow your children to have plenty of imaginative play time with also addressing teaching them about life through imitation (something I am big on!) like washing dishes or raking leaves. It also has some great ideas on creating your family culture through traditions and seasonal festivals--something I would like to be more intentional about.

I know it is because of where I am in day to day life--dealing with a lot of discipline, whining, and dirty diapers that this book was so inspirational to me to just relax, be patient and kind (yet firm!), and to bring me back to that joy of staying at home teaching my children about the everyday wonder in life and nature!

This was a wonderful book that I needed right in the thick of being on demand 24/7, and I really appreciated the calmness that seemed to emanate even from the way the author wrote!

This will find a permanant place on my shelf!

In-Review: Away We Go

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With our recent move, and then a week of the flu, hubby and I have been watching a lot of movies. Some I've wanted to see for a long time now, and some are for our film class (at church) that we are in for twelve weeks. This particular film, I've had in the netflix queue for a long time, but due to my husband having roughly 45,932 films ahead of mine, I didn't get to see it until recently. :)
The movie is about a couple who finds out they're pregnant, only to realize a sense of place in the world is the most important thing for their child. They travel around to different cities and states where they know people, from family to old co-workers in order to find the one place they'll feel right raising a baby.
Away We Go is really quite a funny movie. It has great one-liners and is a satire on modern families and parenting theories in practice. All in all, I really enjoyed this movie, with one exception. I think a lot of people would also enjoy this movie, so I won't tell you what it is unless you ask!
All in all, 3 out of 5 stars.

Our Daily Ritual

Ever since we've moved to our "New House"(!) as Lukka calls it, we saddle up Lukka on Arjax, put Ani in the backpack and go to a great little park that is about a 3 block walk. There is enough space to let the dogs run around like crazy to get their energy out, and it's in the best part of town for fall foliage.

A little glimpse of Lukka riding Arjax & Dad with Ani.

Happy Baby. This little lady loves being outside.

Lukka has found a hula hoop and loves to race after it after dad rolls it really far away. So much so that I think we will buy him one for Christmas if someone actually claims this one.

Our mighty dogs love, no need to run like this every day to stay happy. If you can't tell, that powerdog is Atreyu, and we're pretty sure she was mixed with a Greyhound. She is the fastest dog we've ever seen (not a joke!). It is so fun to just watch them run as fast as they can!
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What do you love to do over and over?

Happy Halloween 2009

American Gothic, Mast style. If you have a hard time telling, my husband hates posing for pictures, my little Ladybug (Red Riding Hood, thanks, Jess!) is a bit annoyed, and my Bug is a hardcore "State Trooper" with a rubbed off mustache who just really needs to eat "one more piece of candy, mamma".

Happy Halloween. Now...onto Thanksgiving and Christmas, already!

In Review: Play All Day

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I think I first saw mention of Play all Day: Design for Children (R. Klanten, etc.) on the Bkids childrens' design website. I remember the teaser had a line about Arounna Khounnoraj (click to see their amazing designs & store) and I was already signing myself up for a copy from InterLibraryLoan.
* (She did a weekly kids' craft project on her website, and although a few of them were too hard for a toddler, a lot of them could be scaled down to a small child's learning curve. I even 'favorited' a few of her projects because I wanted to do them for myself! Find them here.)*
When I received Play All Day, I couldn't wait to sit down and look at the pictures, finding inspiration at every turn. A lot of the products were made by small companies, but a few were made by parents, and there was an entire section dedicated to futuristic & naturalistic parks/play areas, which is something close to my heart! I loved having this resource around for a few weeks before I had to give it back, but was a little sorry to see there were no tutorials in the book. I misunderstood that this wasn't a 'how-to' book, simply a nice art book that focused on design purely for children. Oh well, I got my fill of eye candy from it, and if you can grab this for a month or so from your local library, I say snag it!
Here is another great review from Ohdeedoh, also some sneak peak pictures if you're interested!

IKEA trip 2009

A few weeks ago my sister-in-law, mother-in-law, Anikka and I took a trip up to Minneapolis to go shopping at IKEA. If you haven't heard of IKEA before, you're really missing out, it's like it's own city in there, the stores are SO big, the products sleek, well-designed, simple and clean-cut, and dirt cheap. They don't sell a lot online unfortunately (they don't need to!), but it's better in person anyway. We rented a van and took the back seats out and came home with this:

That's right. Barely a square foot left. 2 Flatbeds ,3 shopping carts , and 7 hours of browsing and we're back on the road.

She just saw the bill.

Weekend with Friends

Some of Stefan's best friends came to visit us last weekend from Vancouver, British Columbia for a 5 day vacation! Here are some pics of our time together taking the dogs to the pond.

I love this picture of the two guys.

Danielle with baby Ani on the blanket. Ani wearing baby leggies made by her mama!

She is very willing in front of the camera. Flirt!

The whole gang, minus the mama and one dog (probably running through the grass). We had such an awesome time hanging out around the fireplace, cooking & eating really good meals, and just generally relaxing. We are going to try to take a vacation with them next year, I can't wait to see them again!

A Handmade Baby Shower

Every first time mom should have at least one baby shower, so I was up to the challenge of hosting one for my sister-in-law two weekends ago. With a little collaboration with an exquisite cake decorator (who also made the lovely diaper cake you see above) and a few ideas from my online art class I'm taking & some respected crafters, I think it was a hit!~

You can't really see the soft trees in the back of the owls, but they are covered in buttons and slouched to the side for a whimsical, funky theme of 'nature land' replete with 5 homemade owls! The honored new mom got to pick one out to keep.

Although this picture doesn't do the cake justice, it was so perfect! I told the baker what our theme was and she went from there, perfectly matched to our colors and theme! A tree branch with leaves was the decoration and the inside was incredible! We'll be using her again in the near future as I plan a bridal shower this month.

Here is an almost complete view of the basement where we held the shower. There were three homemade banners, two that were bunting and one with the new baby's name on it, Ryder. It was a bit challenging making everything from invites to presents in a little under 3 weeks, but I am happy with how it turned out!

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Please note: soft tree idea & banner ideas inspired by Rachel Denbow and Amanda Blake Soule
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We are moving this week, so there may be a post about our weekend with friends coming up, but the blog will be silent for a week or two until then. You can look forward to 2-3 more movie & 3 book reviews after that! Promise!

Applejack Festival 2009 and Applejack Adventure

Fall is my absolute favorite season here in Nebraska. Things start to really cool off, colors are brilliant, and I am all about cuddling up with hot cocoa around our wood-burning fireplace. Shut me in a cottage for a full year of fall and I'd be happy! The small-town Nebraska City Applejack Festival is the start of the apple season, and what better way to celebrate the Fall and the founder of Arbor Day than heading up for some Carmel apples?! You can see last years short post here.
This year some friends and I met there, and we took the kiddos to an outdoor hike, art walk, and natural materials play center called Tree Adventure. What a GEM! This place is only $15 for a yearly pass for an individual, and since one-day admission is $6.50, I opted for the pass! I will be taking my kiddos back here a LOT during the next year! (Since they are both 2 & under, we didn't have to get the family pass, which was $27.00 for 2 adults & all children). You start on a path through these beautiful trees:

here is the first natural materials sculpture-- a woven tunnel for little ones to run through. It looks as if it is only held up by sticks. It was beautiful!

Here is a small area of the play place. The foreground shows you a table with stump seats that you can make art with. Like this. The background is an area with different sized blocks for the babies and toddlers to play in. It looks deceiving from my pictures, but this play area is SO big, complete with a running water sculpture that you can learn how leaves travel with water systems, a small-scale music amphitheatre area, a fort building section with stumps, long & short logs, fallen branches, etc.

and the finale: A HUGE natural play tree-house full of colored scarves. People, this is every Waldorf & Natural Play persons dream! It is like a large scale fairy/gnome tree house that are becoming so popular. It is beautifully made, and the kids loved it! There were a few tears when we had to go!

If you are local, drive the hour up to Nebraska City to check out this gem! Open year round and totally worth it!

In Review: Paddle to the Sea, a film by Bill Mason

This is a unique review here but it was so great I had to include it on my main blog instead of just BabyMast. This is a short narrative film for children by Bill Mason, titled Paddle to the Sea. It was a tribute to the book published in 1940, and was about a small boy who created aboat that could sail the open waters and see things he could not. Over the winter months, the boy worked so hard whittling him down from wood, painting him, and finally releasing him.

From the Amazon website:
Like The Red Balloon, Paddle To The Sea folklorically portrays a toy's journey, with a bit of added personification since the whittled boat contains a stoic Native American man carved into its seat. The film begins in a Nipogon log cabin, where a boy laments releasing his newly crafted artwork but soon realizes that setting his toy free is the only way to enliven it.
Paddle goes on a number of adventures, and finally makes it to the sea after being fished out, stuck in a rut, and treated with kindness from an old lighthouse watcher. Paddle to the Sea is a lullaby to tranquility that entertains with simple charm and clever wit--Trinie Dalton

This is a really sweet and interesting story for families to watch or children. I would say normally 4 years plus, but when I introduced it to Lukka one rainy morning, he loved it, and he's only 2!
Enjoy!

First Commission!

A friend of mine asked if I could make her daughter a "Gryffindor Scarf" from the Harry Potter movies for Halloween. Sure! I love learning new things and was up for the challenge of knitting an item with changing colors! It turned out great and after the blocking, fit the little lady like a Gem!

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up next: review post on Paddle to the Sea, a short tribute filmComing soon: Review post on Unschooling Unmanual followed by a full post on Unschooling ideology.

Book Club Follow Along Post

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Dear Readers,

As some of you may know I host a monthly book club, born from my English major past through my voracious reader friends from Grace Chapel and my local knitting group! Although I will be doing a review of each (or send you back to the reviews I've already done of some) I am putting an open-ended invitation to read along and comment online.

Here are the titles:

October: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, she's a previous Pulizter prize winner, and this is the current "One Book One Lincoln"

November: Havah: The Story of Eve by Tosca Lee

December: Shattered Dreams by Irene Spencer

January: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

February: The Outside World by Tova Mirvis

March: These Is My Words by Nancy Turner

April: River of Doubt by Candice Millard

May: The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

*Read a good book lately? Tell me about it!*

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Click here for some family photos of our Memorial Day weekend!

In Review: Edible Schoolyard by Alice Waters

If you haven't ever heard of Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse restaurant, you must be under the biggest anti-cooking rock. She is the hippie version of Julia Child, a supporter of Slow Food USA, and the creator behind the Edible Schoolyard idea & introductory garden in Berkeley, California. I have a special place in my heart for Alice Waters, who writes entire cookbooks on a food group. My favorite of her cookbooks is her most recent, The Art of Simple Food. This book is about the first Edible Schoolyard, which broke ground in the middle of an unused parking lot in an eyesore middle school due to graffiti and urban cement. It is a colorful explanation of what the Universal Idea & it's goals are, complete with tons of pictures from National Geographic photographer David Liittschwager.
I saw this awhile ago on my Amazon recommends, and I knew I had to read it. A few weeks of waiting from Inter-Library-Loan and I read it through in a day. It's just an easy, breezy 70+ pages of story after story of this garden changing kids' lives. Some in abject poverty who learned to cook themselves so they would not miss breakfast; some never before being trusted to do anything but play video games and then learning to love cooking with the help of the creative teachers and volunteers!
A quick inspirational and beautiful idea-starter for those who would love to learn the usefulness and wonder of how a tiny seed erupts into mountains of food! Now, go eat your veggies and read this book!
Check out the Edible Schoolyard's website to find out more info!
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click here for babymast pics of crazy baby Anikka!

Slow Down Time and some Linky Love!

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Hello again!

Sorry I dropped off blogland for awhile, but we've had lots of goings-on at Our House lately. For one, our internet has been spotty all week, and whenever I sat down to look at email or peruse my favorite websites, I couldn't! To be fixed later...

Secondly, our children are not sleeping in the same room anymore, they did great for a few months, but after weeks of disciplining L. with getting out of bed at night and waking up his little sister, who did not find that funny in the least bit, we've decided to let him sleep in the computer room at night (the only other room is ours!), and during naptime, which means my time of the computer has literally been chopped down to one hour a night which normally is our dinner time.

Until we work out a better situation, I might not be blogging or getting online as much as I used to, and I've actually kind of enjoyed taking a huge break from the internet. Although, my inbox did not!

These next few months are some of my favorite in Nebraska, since we have absolutely beautiful fall weather, and along with numerous bridal & baby showers I'm throwing or co-throwing, taking an art class & cinema class I'd like to invest lots of time in, and tons of Christmas gifts I'm going to be making,not to mention being a fully present and less stressed-out mamma, blogging won't really be a priority for awhile. I'll still check in once in awhile, and if I'm lucky, blog once or twice a week . I do have about 5-6 post ideas that I'm working on, one being about unschooling, for a friend of mine! :)

In the meantime, here are are a few of the things I've been enjoying and looking forward to lately:

• Lindsey's comparison post on One-Size Pocket Diapers (the type we prefer, they fit newborn through toddler and the pocket means you remove the absorbent pad in the back). GREAT for those starting out wanting to get the most bang for their buck with cloth diapering!


• This little girl knitting!


• My IKEA trip coming up in a month with my MIL, SIL & Ani. Got my IKEA, Montessori, Anthropologie, World Ark, and Joann catalogs all in the same day--awesome. Seriously. Can't. Wait. Just look. at. these. goodies!Seriously.


• This awesome book I am hoping to get from ILL. The Antropologie of DIY kids' books!


• My favorite season:: fall, and the applejack festival that I get to go to every year! This year the kiddos and I are going with a good friend and her daughter. Can't wait for the Carmel Apples I wait for every year!! Not to mention, the apple slushies, apple pie, kettle corn, and americana crafts! Geez, only a few more days of waiting! Local? Info HERE.


• My two favorite TV actors having a conversation? Their new seasons coming up? YES PLEASE!!


• My Corinne Bailey Rae + Amy Winehouse + Billie Holiday pandora radio station. Seriously can't get enough of these amazing women.


• My book club! We picked out some amazing reads until the end of May and the first book we're reading is the One Book One Lincoln pick from Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks: People of the Book! Check out my shelfari on the left side bar to see what I'm readin'. Reviews to come, of course!


• Some amazing, amazing, amazing movies coming out in theatres and those to my netflix! Yay!


• And lastly, some good news! Someone is interested in our house AND my hubby has an interview with the LPD!! Woohoo!

Enjoy your week!