We are pretty good about writing thank yous. Some of us better than others. Given the tools and the space to do it though, we can usually get the job done; just not always in a timely manner. But I stick to my theory that it’s never to late to say thank you or sorry. Or happy birthday or hey there for that matter but this post is specifically about thank you.

While my kids are good about making cards, sometimes when the list is so long it’s hard to keep the momentum. A few get written and then, something comes along to distract and, before you know it, the half finished list is all that remains of the intention.

This year we’ve discovered the collaborative thank-you. It piggy-backs on our collaborative drawing game that we like to play, wherein we pass the drawing around the table for all to add to their own ideas, drawings, collage, etc. We make a big thank-you note using a big piece of paper: brown paper bag, old page ripped from the calendar, etc. It has to be bigger than a regular piece of paper in order to accommodate the entire family’s gratitude. We then pass it around the table for all to add their thanks.

We just made one for Grandma using the back of the December calendar page. This was fun because in addition to giving thanks, we were able to give my mom a glimpse into our world. She saw our December parties and craft events and school functions and all the rest. Another we did on a giant piece of cardboard that we sent as a giant postcard. (Disclaimer: whether that arrives in the mail remains to be seen!)

So not only are we getting the thank-yous written, but we’re doing it together, thereby getting a little needed family time as well. And the recipients are getting some cool notes in the mail full of our family’s drawings, notes and gratitude.

Search your recycling bin for some cool materials to make into cards. Clear off the kitchen table and get break out the pencils, glue and whatever else you need. Call the family together and get writing! It’s satisfying on so many levels.

Score one for win-win.

These yoga  pants from a t-shirt are one of those items. This is such a super pattern! So simple. So cheap. (cost of one t-shirt) and so comfy too. One year at the clothes swap at school we made dozens of these for the happy swappers. And now I present it to all of you. Once again.

The t-shirt yoga pants. Now get on it!

It often surprises me to see how immediately people react to disaster. Instantaneously. Like the wildfires themselves. And the desire to be helpful kicks in. It’s so beautiful to witness and now with social media being what it is, it’s there for everyone to witness in a moment.

The Modern Day Quilters at Valli and Kim Quilt Shop, responded instantly, with the skills they have, they have started a quilt drive with the goal of a handmade quilt for every child who has lost their home and needs something tangible to hold onto, something to snuggle, to cry into, to lay under, something that will feel like a little bit of home. The basics.

Here’s what they say on their blog…

Families have lost everything, let us start to rebuild their lives with a
quilt

This weekend in central Texas, hundreds of people have lost their homes,
families have lost everything. This is where I live.

I want to give every child who has lost everything a quilt to sleep under.
One simple, but real thing to help families get back on their feet.

My goal is a quilt for every child who lost their home.

Will you help me?

Heather is in, are
you?

Quilts should be at least 45” x 60”, although twin size bed quilts are
encouraged.

Please ship quilts to Valli & Kim Quilt Shop, Attn: Wildfire Quilts, 700
West Highway 290, Dripping Springs, TX 78620. If you have questions, please
email me at moderndayquilts@gmail.com

If you are in Austin, I’ll pick the quilt up, just send me an email.

I wonder if these Craft Out Girls might participate!

The new date is  SUNDAY, AUGUST 28th!!!from 10am – 2pm. Zilker Elementary 1900 Bluebonnet!

Yes folks! It’s time!!! Time for the Zilker Elementary 4th annual clothes swap brought to you by Future Craft Collective, Andrea’s Art Class, dozens of volunteers, and hundreds of closets and dresser drawers across Austin. We’ll have sewing stations to redesign, reconfigure, recraft the duds you find. We’ll have screen printers on hand printing up some amazing designs – even if it’s just to cover up a stain on a much loved item! And we’ll have mountains and mountains of clothing for everyone from infants to adults!

WE’ve added a book swap so bring them too!

photo by Katherine O Photo!

We’ve been given the keys to the cafeteria at Zilker Elementary School in South Austin. Thank you Principal Thomson!

The guidelines are the same. Bring what you can. Take what you need.

Infants to adults. All clothing, jackets, backpacks.

We’ll need volunteers so if you want to help sew, sort or screen – just email us!

Photo by Katherine O Photo

With that in mind, it is once again time to remind you all that it is that time of year to start setting some intentions around just how you might want things to go. Start making some plans for places you want to go. People you want to see. And, perhaps most importantly of all, projects you’d like to do!

 Of course our book will be helpful with that end of things as it’s chock full of enough family projects to give you a whole crafty summer – not to mention chock full of ways that you can make that crafty time with kids more satisfying and connecting for everyone involved. But since that doesn’t hit the stands until June 13th, might I recommend an oldie but a goodie project of ours? One that will start you and your family out on the right foot for a summer full of fun.

We created this Family Summer Center project a couple of summers ago for Craftzine. It’s got pockets and places to hold all your summer dreams including family reading lists, vacation ideas, places to go, people to see. It offers lots of suggestions for making sure that what you want to do and folks you want to see can actually be done and seen. If you’ve already made yours in summer’s past, now’s the time to break it out, dust it off and put it back in action as a place to hold all the families’ summer hopes.

And while you’re filling it out, don’t forget to put June 26th on the calendar. That’s the day of our book release at the fabulous Stitch Lab here in Austin.

The numbers that have come out lately though about the amount of time kids spend onscreen – tv, video, computer – and frankly there doesn’t seem to be much of a balance for the average kid. Here’s just one statistic that gave me pause…

The average teen spends an average of 7.5 hours of screen time per day and less than 1 hour per week in conversation with their families.  And the average preschooler spends an average of 32 hours a week with screens. Wow. Really? In addition to not then having time to make, play and create, the costs of excessive screen time are enormous—poor school performance, childhood obesity, and problems with attention are just a few.

So, in an effort to keep things in balance and just to make families aware of their own screen time vs. their own family time, there is an annual event called Screen-Free Week. This year it’s being managed by The Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood, a great group of folks trying to make sure the commercial powers that be don’t contaminate our children’s worlds with an excess of input from marketing and corporations. During this week they want families to find connection within the home. Find talents within themselves that they never knew existed. And find ways to spend time that are imaginative and creative and not dependent on passive intake.

Future Craft agrees!!! 

We know that children are spending way too much time with screens—a staggering 32 hours a week for preschoolers and even more for older kids.  The costs of excessive screen time are enormous—poor school performance, childhood obesity, and problems with attention are just a few.

The Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood says…

Screen-Free Week is a fun and innovative way to improve children’s well-being by reducing dependence on entertainment screen media, including television, video games, computers, and hand-held devices.  It’s a time for children to unplug and play outside, read, daydream, create, explore, and spend more time with family and friends.  And, of course, Screen-Free Week isn’t just about snubbing screens for seven days; it’s a springboard for important lifestyle changes that will improve well-being and quality of life all year round.

Do you want to take the challenge? Do you want to find activities to do together and ways to build connection and spend a little time outside?

Right now, go to your calendar and write: SCREEN FREE WEEK across the week of April 18-24th.

Do it in whatever capacity you can. Want to just turn off the tv? Do that? No computer time during certain hours? No video games for a week? Discuss it with your family and figure out a way to make it work for you. We don’t want anyone using it as an excuse to not turn in a research paper but cutting it out in the name of connection and creativity sure wouldn’t hurt. 

Are you wondering what you’ll do instead? Well, my mom used to say write a letter. Read a book. Read a letter. Write a book. If you need something more than that how about checking out some of our tutorials down the left side of the page? Or go to Craftzine and check out some of their projects. Check out Slow Family Living and download one of our ebooks on creating a Family Mission Statement or fill out our Slow Family Living workbook. Go to Nature Rocks website and find a place near you to hike. The library too is loaded with project books and ideas. Or just lay under a big patch of big blue sky and ponder life and all it has to offer.  I think you’ll be amazed at just how much time you have when you make the decision to unplug for a little bit. Maybe it’ll even become habit!

Handmade with LOVE!

 It’s that time of year again! Time for my favorite holiday of the year. Time for paper crafts and love and chocolate all on one day! This year we are oh so lucky that Valentines falls on a Monday this year. That means you have all weekend to cut and paste and stitch and draw and paint and cut and paste some more. Who are the lucky ones in your house? Who will be the recipient of your handmade goodness all put together with love and craft?

If you need some ideas beyond the standard heart cut out of red paper take a look at the ones in the photo above made by my family a year or so ago. Or you can take a look at the project on Craftzine where we put a great tutorial last year on sewing cards with random stacks of kid art and pieces gleaned from the recycling bin. You know you’ve been seeking a method for dealing with those piles anyway! Here’s a peak…

Whatever you do, whomever you love, whatever kind of chocolate you eat, we hope you have a lovely time. And we hope too that you feel the love big and strong.

Only problem being, she and her friend Lilah really didn’t want to spend time just hanging out either. They weren’t up for playing but the idea of just hanging made them both a little anxious. Too much pressure to just be. And to figure out what to do with their conversations and their hands and their hearts too.

As they got together this week, they decided they would each bring their sewing machines, pick a project, and get busy. They pondered all kinds of great patterns and projects out there – including a few sneak previews they got from our upcoming Future Craft Collective book Make Stuff Together. They strolled through One Yard Wonders which has lots of great small projects to peruse.They poured over Lotta Jansdotter’s Simple Sewing book too which we all love to drool over.

Finally, they decided they’d create their own. And, rather than each work on their own project, they would work together on a strip quilt lap blanket so that they could each have one on their respective summer airplane trips.They’d make one this week and then another next week (thereby guaranteeing some more time together too!)

Craft Out!!

They had a great time, as you can plainly see. And they made a beautiful blanket too that each one will have to always remind each other of their friendship – even when they’re traveling in opposite directions.

What we saw as mothers, were two girls seguing into the next portion of their developmental selves and their friendship too. The girls were both able to see how they are moving into that land that rests squarely between being little and being big. And they came up with a perfect new term for the kind of plan-oriented time they want to have with each other while they live in this land they’re in: A Craft Out.Not a play date. Not a hang out. But a Craft Out.

So, if you’ve got a pre-teen in the house and she’s trying to ease into this new life of hers, maybe she’d want to plan such time with a friend too. They can get together not to play, not to hang out, but to craft out. Together.