Nature Bags - Watercolour Paints

I've posted about our nature bags before.  These are bags that we can grab when we are going on a nature walk or somewhere in nature, and we might like to explore things more closely, and sometimes we draw or paint what we see.

In our nature bags we have a small drawing book, paints, a pencil, monoculars (that is, binoculars but with only one barrel, so you look with only one eye - I often find these easier for children, and they are much smaller and lighter to carry around), a loupe (for looking at things more closely), a mini compass, tiny flashlight (smaller then a pen) and a whistle (for safety).  There is also room for a small camera, ipod or phone for taking photos.  Click here to see a bit more detail about the nature bags.

Today I thought I'd put in a bit more detail about our watercolour paints, as we love them and they are just perfect for this purpose, or any other time when you want to take paints on the go.  They are easier to take with us then coloured pencils (although we do sometimes add them to our bags too).

Note about my spelling:  Being Australian, I spell colour - "colour".  I will use this spelling whenever I type the word.  But the brand name of the paints is not spelled that way, so I will write it as it is spelled.  It may look like I'm changing the spelling all the time, but that's why.

The paints we use are Peerless Watercolor paints.  I bought them from http://www.peerlesscolor.com/.  They are watercolour paint on cards.  You wet the paint (using a wet brush) and lovely colours come from them.

http://www.peerlesscolor.com/

I made a palette from watercolour paper, which I print with little squares labelled with all the colour names.  You could do this by hand, but as I had to make a few of these palettes, it was quicker and easier to print them.  The palettes are cut to size so that each palette is made of two watercolour cards that are taped together in the middle, and it will fit nicely inside the back of our sketch books (and moleskine sketchbooks).  Little rectangles of the paint cards are cut and glued (using glue tape) onto the palettes.  Finally, we add a little sample of the colour painted above each little paint rectangle.

You might be able to see that the bottom half of the palette looks a little shiny or reflective.  That's because there is a piece of plastic taped in the middle (so its like a three page book).  This stops the paints mixing and also gives a palette for mixing colours.

The instructions for this, including a youtube video, are from Jane Davenport.  

Link to Jane Davenport's site

Link to Jane Davenport's youtube clip about Peerless Watercolors

Along with these paints, we use brushes filled with water, so there is no need to take along a cup for water.  This little tin of pencils and things is what I take.  The kids have a few less and they have spots in their bags for them (I take a few spares).  

We also have a piece of paper towel or a small cloth folded in the back of the book for dabbing the brush on.  

When we go on holidays I take a bag (an old laptop bag) with extra art supplies such as a variety of papers cut to A5 or smaller, watercolour pencils, coloured pencils (Prismacolours) and I take the spare Peerless Watercolor cards, along with scissors and glue tape.  If we use up a colour on our individual palettes, as we often do with shades of green, I can cut another little rectangle and replace it.

Here are a few pictures from my nature book, to show off these lovely paints, but you would do well to look at Jane Davenport's pictures for the lovely colours that she uses.  The pictures are taken with my phone, so could be better quality.

Beach (hopefully that's obvious?) - I wanted the challenge of the different shades of blue in the ocean - still needs lots of practice

A bank covered in flowers leading from grass to beach

Lemon tree - the smudges in the writing are where I've smudged names for online posting

I will try and find some pictures from my children's nature journals to post sometime, but to be honest, they haven't done any for a little while - just looked at things and looked them up.  Hmmm ... better plan a day.

Brock Magiscope

This is not a post about sewing or about making anything at all.  We have a Brock Magiscope, which is a type of microscope that is super-sturdy, and I know that there are a few people around who are trying to decide what type of microscope to buy for their kids, so I thought I'd post a few pictures here that I've taken through the microscope.  It should give a bit of an idea of the detail that you can get.

For most of these photos I just pointed my camera (an Olympus PEN - like a DSLR) onto the top of the microscope and used auto settings.  Recently I ordered a small part that screws onto the lens that just blocks out outside light - I used that for the catydid photo, but didn't have it for the others.  Most of the time I took a few photos - some worked well, others were not as clear.

First is a little catydid that I found already dead.  I put it into a little plastic box and under the microscrope.  It was about 1 to 1.5 cm long in total.  This is the magnification that comes with the microscope - 40x.

These two are onion cells - just pulling a thin bit of the skin off the onion.  I took these photos over a year ago and of course didn't label them, but I know that I was playing with the highest magnification I could get, so I'm pretty sure that this first picture is at 400x.  The next one was obviously less, but I'm really not sure what.  Perhaps 200x.  I shone a cheap torch in underneath the microscope just to give a little more light then I had in the room which helped.  It was very hard to focus.

This shows yeast that has been left to sponge.  It was something that my daughter did at school, and I googled and googled for more info to know what I was looking at - is it just the air bubbles?  I'm not sure.  Again, at the time I was playing with different magnifications, so unhelpfully, I can't tell you what this is, except that I'm pretty sure it wasn't as high as 400.  I will start to write it down.  Really.

I'll try to take some more to add when I can.  That's all I can find now.

Artwork from yesterday completed

Just wanted to share the end result of the artwork from my children yesterday. The video from artventures.com.au taught them to do two birds, outlined in oil pastels and then painted with watercolours.  Here are their paintings.

From the seven year old:

And from the six year old:

I was hoping they'd get creative with it afterwards though, so left the materials out and gave them another piece of paper each. The six year old continued on to produce two more lovely paintings.

(And by the way, these birds all represent members of our family. The girls have bows.)

Recipe: Lettuce Wraps

I'm not going to write this out as a formal recipe, as it is more of a quick dinner idea then a recipe, and will depend on what you have available.

Cook whatever veggies you have on hand that you'd like to include - I used 3 small carrots and 2 small zucchinis, cubed, and stir fried them in a little Olive oil until starting to brown.

Now cook the tofu mixture:

INGREDIENTS

Olive oil, as needed

750 g block firm tofu (organic, GE free)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 teaspoons good salt

1 teaspoon chopped garlic

Chopped fresh dill if you like - a couple of tablespoons

METHOD

Heat up a good non-stick fry pan or wok. Add a little oil.

Drain any liquid from the tofu (and I usually rinse it then too). Crumble it directly into the heated fry pan. Cook this until some of it starts to go golden. No need to wait for all of it to, but you want to cook it until the texture is a bit chewier, so don't rush this. Let some go brown.

Add the lemon juice, salt, garlic and chopped fresh dill if you have it. Taste and add more salt and lemon if you like. Cook for a little longer, stirring to mix it all well.

Mix in the cooked veggies from earlier and heat it through.

SERVE with iceberg lettuce leaves (or your choice), trying to keep the leaves as big as possible.

Spoon the tofu mixture into lettuce leaves (like San choy bow), wrap up and eat.

We had this with a bowl of chopped salad veg - cucumber, carrot and grape tomatoes, and corn on the cob. The kids added tomato sauce of course!

Money for kids

My kids all get some pocket money. The older two are expected to buy some of their own clothes and gifts they want to give themselves. The younger two get a lot less. The have it reduced for disobedience and rudeness.

This year we wanted to teach them to keep track of it and to manage it better. For three of them I've just bought them these money boxes from Kikki K - much reduced after Christmas. (The oldest uses a bank account more then the others.)

The thing that I like about these boxes is that they have three different sections - save, give and spend. 

The kids are being encouraged to put a set amount, such as 10%, into the give section each time they get given any money. This is to be used for charity, not for gifts. At either the end of six months or towards the end of the year we'll get a World Vision gift catalogue (or use the website) and they can each chose something - like hens, or school stationery, etc - for someone in need.

They are also being encouraged to think of something to save for, including gifts for family/friends and to work out how much to set aside for that. They can give me this money to put in the bank when there is a bit there.

They also each have a little book to write down anything they spend, and I'll check that book every now and then.  We are actually using a different book to the one that came with the boxes for that, as it didn't quite cover what we wanted.

Christmas Sewing

My little girls sewed Christmas presents for family.

A doll for her sister - using a screen print that I drew and printed a while ago.

No pics of the final product! These were filled with lavender and tied with bows to make lavender bags for quite a few presents. They loved making these because of how simple they were.

They also made some dolls based on a favourite licenced character for their brother.  These were very complicated and turned out beautifully. (Hoping it is okay to post these pics. They have not been made for sale, and are not taken from any specific picture. The pattern was just drawn freehand.)

My son made cotton pajama shorts for each of his three sisters.

I'm very proud of them all for developing the skills and taking the time to make these gifts.

Art Time

We are having a try at the free "art" lessons on artventure.com.au. Here is painting in progress.

Gluten free Bread

Just made a loaf of gluten free bread from the recipe at www.glutenfreecookingschool.com - best gluten free bread I've ever tried. It's definitely worth visiting this site, owned by Mary Francis Pickett, if you are interested in gluten free cooking.

The loaf has a great texture - I've just tried it untoasted with butter and vegemite and it is certainly up to that. I'm very interested to see what it will be like in a few hours.

Australians note - she does use some tablespoon measurements. US tablespoons are 15 ml and Australian ones are 20 ml. Check where your measuring spoons are from, or just use three teaspoons (from the measuring spoon set). One of the tablespoon measurements is for yeast, and you really don't need an extra 5 ml of yeast.  

Christmas Candles

We're a bit behind this year - December seemed to suddenly be here. Finally got the Christmas candles out today and they are now in position in the middle of the table. 

We've used the same set for a few years as you can tell, but we'll start with a different purple one this year. A new candle is lit each Sunday, and we will talk about its significance then (just a two minute talk).  We light any candles for the week whenever we are home for dinner that week. Tomorrow is the second Sunday already, so we'll light one tonight and two tomorrow. Usually we light the candles before dinner and keep them lit until dinner is over.

Sunday 1:  purple candle one

Symbolising hope

Isaiah 60:2-3

Sunday 2: purple candle two along with previous candle

Symbolising peace

Mark 1:4

Sunday 3:  pink candle along with previous candles

Symbolising joy

Isaiah 35:10

Sunday 4:  final purple candle along with others

Symbolising love

Isaiah 9:6-7

Christmas Eve: all four candles and the white one in the middle

Symbolising the light of Christ

Luke 1:68-79, 2:1-20

ALSO, today is St Nicholas Day, so I thought that at bedtime tonight I'd read the story of St Nicholas, then in the morning we'd try to do secret acts of kindness - we'll chose names from a "hat" for the person to be secretly kind to, and at lunch the kids can guess who their kind person was. I wonder if I'll be able to convince the kids that this is a good idea.  There are lots of stories of St Nicholas online.

(If I'd planned ahead we would have read the story this morning and done the acts of kindness today.)

Jesse Tree

One of our Christmas traditions is the Jesse Tree.  There are lots of pictures of Jesse Trees around the web - including downloadable pictures to cut out and stick onto a paper tree or pictures for children to colour, so if you haven't started one yet, it isn't too late.

I made ours a few years ago based on someone else's blog pictures, so its time that I posted pictures of ours.  I can't find the original blog that I based my pictures on.  If you know it, please add a comment with the link so that I can acknowledge the owner.

A Jesse Tree has a symbol for each day which is hung (or stuck) onto a tree.  Jesse was King David's father (from the old Testament), so it is named after him (Isaiah 11:1 "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit" NIV).  Through December, you read a short passage from the Bible each day, starting with the creation of the World and continuing through to the birth of Jesus, showing God's hand at work and His continual commitment to drawing us back to him.  Each passage has a symbol which is hung on the tree.  (You will find a better explanation elsewhere - this is just the very quick version.)

So ... here is a photo (from a few years ago) of our half completed tree mid December:

(The fluffy yellow thing near the top is not part of it - its a wool felt angel hanging on the wall.)

Now, I'm not going to write a tutorial, just a quick explanation incase you want to use this for ideas.  If you want more details let me know.

We made the stand out of dowel, but you could easily just use any small Christmas tree or a branch.  I put the symbols onto leaves.  They are all made of felt.  I just cut lots of leaves from felt with short brown strips to make loops for hanging.  The loop was inserted into the top of the leaf - which was two felt leaves joined together.  I machine stitched around the outside and added machine stitched veins.  Once I had a big pile of them, I added the pictures.  They are not sewn on, but just ironed on - cut from felt and applique backing, then put together and ironed.  So far they have held together well.

Here are some of the individual leaves.  Some of the Jesse Tree "plans" have just a few verses, some have devotional passages, but I prefer longer Bible readings that we chat about.

(Day 1:  Put up the branch and read Isaiah 11:  1-2)

Day 2:  Genesis 1:1-2:4

Day 3:  Genesis 2: 4-24

Day 4:  Genesis 3:  1-24

Day 5:  Genesis 6:5 - 9:17 (or choose shorter selections)

Okay, that's it for today.  I'll post pictures of more as soon as I have time!

Baking

This post was from a couple of weeks' ago, but I just realised that it didn't upload properly that day. I haven't done this cooking today along with everything else!

Easy Italian style bread

Still too hot to cut.

And I used up some bananas on banana bread - using freshly ground wheat flour, coconut sugar, etc. Still to be tasted.

Learning to use a sewing machine

I started to teach my little girls (age 6 and 7) how to sew with a machine today. They have done quite a bit of hand sewing before and I will try to do some catch up posts about that soon, but I'll start with machine sewing so that I can post about it as we go.  I have followed a similar process for my older two. 

Before I go on, considering my last post, also from today, you may wonder at us doing this on a day that we have designated as a rest day. Remember that I said I wasn't making lots of rules about it.  To us, sewing lessons together were a fun thing. Once sewing lessons become work, rather then fun, relaxing, together time, I will avoid them on a Sunday. For now though, I think they are very appropriate, especially as the other kids had gone out so they weren't being left out.

We have a little sewing machine - a Janome "sew mini". It is simple, with only a few stitches, and it is nice and slow. I have found it to be a perfect machine to start on. Over the years I have bought downloads of a few "learn to sew" books, so I pick and chose pages from those. I'll list the books and which pages I'm using in a later post (at the moment I'm sitting by the pool watching the kids swim and typing this on my phone, so I can't look it up).

I print off a page with the parts of the sewing machine labelled, some pages with lines to practice sewing over, and because I had two of them learning at once, I also had a couple of other sheets they could do when it wasn't their turn at the machine. I'm not a huge fan of lots if worksheets, and in future I may have activities for them, like helping me by cutting loose threads from sewing or something, but for now, I wanted some "busy work" for them. One worksheet that was very helpful was an unlabelled diagram of a sewing machine - but a different machine. They looked at the first diagram and tried to work out the names of the parts in the second diagram and write them on. They have a scrapbook each to stick in any info pages, worksheets, stitching samples, project photos and instructions, etc.

So today, I showed them the parts of the machine and how they work (just what they needed to know for today). Then they were to start by sewing straight lines on paper. I demonstrated first, then they had turns. A little rhyme that I learnt when teaching at technical college years ago which I still find helpful for teaching practical skills is:

"I do it quickly

I do it slow

You do it with me

Then off you go."

I sort of followed that procedure, with variations as necessary. 

1) I demonstrated, explaining what I was doing. (Then they thought they were ready to start, but I didn't let them.)

2) I demonstrated again, getting them to tell me what to do as I went.

3) I let them start, but got them to explain what they were doing as they went and gently reminded them of things they forgot, so I was right there with them.

4) I stepped back and watched as they did the next row of stitching. 

At this point, it was sometimes necessary to go back over something, like resting gands gently on the paper to let the machine feed it through.

Each girl sewed about five lines of stitching. Remember that at this stage we are just stitching on paper tracing lines, and there us no thread in the machine.  While one sewed, the other could work on the worksheet, which I helped with.

After they finished the page of straight lines I showed them how to turn corners, leaving the needle down while raising the presser foot. They had another sheet of lines to sew over that had corners - first just 90 degrees then stars.

They were keen to keep going after the straight lines, but in hindsight it might have been better to leave corners for another day as they were getting tired. 

Next time they will finish their page of corners and work on a page of curves.

Just to finish for today, I will briefly tell you the difference when I started teaching my son a few months ago. He is older, so it was quicker for him to learn. He did all the sewing on paper in one day. The second session I showed him how to make basic shorts out of calico (which he could use for pajama shorts). The third session he made himself a pair of shorts with pockets out of blue pin corduroy - they were the same pattern but with pockets added - which he wears around a lot. I'll get him to make more shorts, adding different pockets and trying different fabrics, and he can also make himself flannelette pajama pants fir winter pajamas. Then we'll move onto something else - perhaps a t-shirt or a bag.

Perhaps the shorts aren't clear in this photo as they are dark, but they look great

Sabbath

I have been trying to make Sundays more of a Sabbath.  I'm not getting legalistic about it, but I think that with our busy lives, a day when we intentionally do things a bit differently - slow things down a bit, focus on time together when possible, and try and not use the day to catch up on things we classify as work - is what we need.  And it is one of God's commandments, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised when it turns out to be something that I think is good for us.

One of the things we have been trying to do sometimes on a Sunday is making and sharing delicious (white) bread for lunch. We almost always have homemade bread, but on weekdays we mostly have wholemeal loaves and on the weekends we have white bread for a treat. About every second week I make a big tub of dough that we use for pizza, naan, gozlemes (well, our version anyway), etc.  The alternate weekends I make Turkish bread.  Sometimes we vary from this, such as if we're having burgers (bean and veg) during the week and I don't have time to make rolls, we have Turkish bread as it's quicker, or if I'm sick I might even buy a loaf (!!). 

Back to our Sunday bread ... I make the dough in the morning using the bread machine, and when it's ready for shaping I divide it up into roll sizes and each of the kids gets a ball of dough to shape as they please. I've shown them how to shape nice round rolls, but then they can make whatever shape they like.  We also make one bigger roll - about twice the normal size - for sharing. Usually I shape it into a sun or similar, but today I let the youngest do a star, so it looks like the shaping if that loaf might be shared around in future.

Shaped bread ready to bake 

I try to have some extras for Monday lunches.

Risen, baked and ready

At lunch time we generally put out salad fillings, etc, although we could just have jam or vegemite and add a green smoothie for our fruit and veg. We start by giving thanks that Jesus came to forgive our sins - one of the children does that - and we pass around the larger roll (in this case, the star) and tear off a piece each. It is hot and soft and delicious.