Thursday, August 30, 2012

Another Great Collaboration

 Not too long ago, the Husband and I put our skill sets together and created some beautiful microscope slide decorations. I carved stamps and used them to make impressions of my prints into glass paint and the Husband soldered the glass adding jump rings and a shiny silver frame around my images.

We sell them together in my etsy shop PeanutButterPie.etsy.com and we've had a little success with them. Given more time for marketing and possibly a chance to sell them in person, where their charm is way more evident than online I foresee more success for them.

The great thing about collaborating is that we get to spend a little time together both doing something that we both love and are pretty good at.

Of course this means that we've been collaborating a little bit here and there over the last year or so on projects that aren't PeanutButterPie-centric but more BoneShaker centric. You see the Husband has been dabbling in building stomp boxes for guitar and bass for about as long as he's been playing bass. The goal is to create a boutique stomp box operation that features hand painted stomp boxes in limited editions. To the left you can see one of our prototypes.

The box is empty right now but soon it will hold the components to make it into a reverb pedal. There will be switches and an LED light added to the box and it will be lovingly passed on to it's new owner. The nice thing about my process is that even the same carved printing block will yield a unique image each time it's pressed onto a surface. A short run of reverb pedals featuring this image will all be one of a kind. In addition to the boxes I plan on creating hand pressed limited edition prints of each image that will be for sale either in PeanutButterPie or in the Husband's soon to be up and Running Etsy shop. Once the editions and the boxes are sold they will be done and we'll start new editions with new art.

I'm very excited about this new collaboration. The Husband is a consummate perfectionist, his work is high quality and if it's not up to customer satisfaction he'll work to fix it or create a happy resolution for everyone. For my part I get to flex my creativity muscle on something that I am excited about and proud of. Not too shabby if you ask me.


Monday, August 27, 2012

It's not over yet,

Home made popsicles. Fresh picked raspberries
in a popsicle mold covered in fruit juice and frozen
for a special treat on a super hot day.
We're headed into the last week of summer vacation, we have school supplies nearly checked off our list, just tissues, glue sticks and a box of watercolour paints left, well also shoes; but then we are ready and excited about heading into Grade 1.

The Peanut spent this summer participating in the Library's summer reading program, reading books to me as well as vice versa. We've over shot the 50 days of required reading, and in that time we've finished the Hobbit and started on the Harry Potter Series, (me reading to her, currently we are on book 2) as well as a stack of picture books, poetry books, information books and Easy Reader books (The Peanut reading to me, or alternating pages between us). We'll be handing in her reading club form at the end of this week and we'll be keeping on with the reading. It's a lovely way to have some Peanut and me time every day. So with the end of summer looming


I'm determined to squeeze every last second possible out of summer except for those two days of rain they're predicting...

Summer started off a little cool and damp. the Peanut's Birthday party was threatened with rain. Our plans to fill the backyard with boxes and let the kids play with and in them was thrown out the window when the rain continued to fall right up the moment that all our friends arrived. Instead of boxes our friends enjoyed the new back yard swings, the jump rope, hula hoop and sand box. They ate up all of our home made ice cream cake and fresh cut veggies.

Even without the boxes it was a lot of fun and we'll revisit the box idea next summer. Perhaps for the Bean's 1/2 birthday extravaganza. For goody bags I made each child a hand drawn paper doll that looked just like her or him and included a few sheets of clothes for them to decorate and colour. In the rush to get them all done I forgot to photograph the finished dolls but I have plans to make more.

After the birthday party rumpus we hit the Vancouver Jazz festival where the Bean enjoyed roaming free through the crowds, followed closely by either the husband or me. The Peanut enjoyed the music and blew bubbles and crawled over some of the public art in front of the court house.  It's been a few years since we last went to the Jazz Festival. The last time we attempted was the day the wheel axle broke on our car and the trip was aborted in favour of getting the car towed and  calming our nerves.







the addition of a swing set to our back yard has kept both girls busy this summer. The Peanut loves to swing and the Bean has figured out how to get her feet swung around to go down the slide, she requires a little aid to climb the ladder but that's coming (all Gods please help me) The first half of the summer in our back yard was full of sandbox play, Side walk chalk, slip and slide and sprinkler fun. Once the heat set in sprinkler fun was the best way to keep cool without going too far from home using too much energy getting back home after having fun. I loved watching my girls play together and mostly get along.




 

When we did head out; we hit the beach



Visited the wading pool at the playground:


waded in the water feature at the PNE grounds:


 



Hit the playground, where we spent the bulk of some visits trying to contain the Bean, who would try to play in traffic if given the chance:




We managed to check off almost all of our summer Must Do List,  including a back yard camp out complete with s'mores and flashlights. and in between we filled out days with lots of silliness and even a few timeless moments.

Our summer wasn't all fun and happiness. We lost a family member, and are still reeling from that. The Peanut is still trying to wrap her mind around saying good bye to her little cousin and we've had numerous conversations about death and I see more in our future. It's one thing to say good bye to a great Granny who has had a full life and yet another thing to have to say goodbye to a baby who is close in age to your baby sister. We're working on making the idea of death seem (to paraphrase Dumbledore from book one:) like another great adventure. Something that should not be frightening because everyone does it, hopefully after living a life full of love and adventures.

So anyway, I've not posted even a fraction of what we've done this summer. I may post more pictures later or I might not. Life flies by on you and my next post might just be full of first day of school things or perhaps a look into what I started on my birthday and am so excited about that I'm itching to get back to it every day...



How did you spend your summer vacation? Did you do anything extraordinary or was it a summer just like a summer should be?

Friday, August 17, 2012

Counting My Blessings

Well last week we attended the celebration of my nephew Linden's life. It was a painfully sad day and there were not enough tissues to wipe away all the tears. Watching my niece and her partner say good bye to the baby that they were hoping to bring home and celebrate his first year was devastating.

Since Linden was entranced by the nurses green pants and was also drawn to his green coloured toys everyone wore green to the funeral service. All shades from deep forest to pale mint and soft limes were worn on shirts, dresses, ties, ribbons, jewellery and in the Peanut's case in the form of marker coloured bangs. At the burial they released a large Elmo (another of Linden's favourites) balloon surrounded in a bouquet of green which caught in the trees nearby. Some of us believe that Linden's spirit wanted to keep Elmo close by to help watch over his parents during the next little while.

Saying good bye to anyone whom has made an impression in your life is such a hard task. When that person is a baby... I can't even begin to describe how hard it is.

As I did in my last post, I'm asking that you please consider becoming a bone marrow donor, Linden's life would have had little hope had he not had a match.  If you live outside of Canada you can become a donor in your own country. Matches can be made from all over the world. To list a very few:

In Canada visit One Match
In the US go to Be The Match 
In the UK go to the British Bone Marrow Registry

You may be a match for someone whose life could be changed and possibly saved by a donation. Wouldn't that be a lovely legacy for my nephew? Please, if you do sign up and are a match for someone at anytime, please let me know so I can pass that information on to my niece and her partner, knowing that Linden's circumstances helped someone else might be a tiny balm to the pain they are feeling right now and in the future.

As for me I am holding my girls a tiny bit longer and telling them I love them a little more often . I am taking notice of all the good things in life and being grateful for all the blessings I have, including delicious birthday cake and extraordinary hand drawn and stickered birthday cards. It's not every year a Mommy turns ** now is it?


Monday, August 6, 2012

Unthinkable

 My heart is breaking for my niece and her partner and also for my sister. My nephew quietly left them yesterday, suddenly and from an unforeseen complication which was unrelated to his rare condition. A blockage in an artery dislodged and Linden went to sleep, peacefully, surrounded by the people who loved him best.

Linden fought tooth and nail, battling mountainous odds and beating them in his very short life. When things seemed to be at the darkest he rallied, accepting the positive energies and healing prayers that were being sent his way from countless people who knew him and his family and also from those who had just heard his story and kept him in their thoughts. For those of you who added to the ocean of support via my blog. Please, please, please accept my gratitude.

Losing a child is simply and horrifyingly unthinkable. We try not to dwell on the possibility that any child will leave this world before their parents. When it actually happens there are absolutely no words that can do justice to the grief that follows. The little we can do and say never
taken last week. Happy to be able to go outside after
months of being indoors. Linden was so close
to being able to go home.
feels like enough. We are awkward in our condolences.

As a mother I can only imagine (and quite vividly) what my niece is going through right now. I know that my imaginings barely scrape the surface of what she is living through. Her desire to have her baby in her arms just one more time must be overpowering. The wish that her child was still here and still in possession of all the possibilities we are gifted with when we take our first few steps in this life, must be exquisitely painful. These are things I imagine but cannot know myself. I am blessed with my two daughters. They are healthy and full of energy.

Watching my sister, my niece and her partner put all their energy into Linden's treatment allowed me to look at my girls and really be thankful for their health, their childish wisdom and even their mischievous moments. Because my niece is no longer able to hold her baby I hold mine a little tighter and for a few seconds longer. I am thankful that I have them, that their little spirits chose me to be their mother and I let them know.

Linden embodied the love from all the people who sent him their thoughts and prayers, from his grandparents and great grandparents who looked on him with devotion, from his aunts and uncles who fell in love with him the moment he was born, and from his parents who were graced with his monster sized soul. He fought to stay with them. When he was too tired to fight they/we fought for him. When it was his time to leave they held him with all their love as he went to a place with no more pain. Love is a verb as well as a noun. Linden was loved, he loved he was love.

In honour of Linden's short and powerful life please consider becoming a bone marrow donor, Linden's life would have had little hope had he not had a match.  If you live outside of Canada you can become a donor in your own country. Matches can be made from all over the world. To list a very few:

In Canada visit One Match
In the US go to Be The Match 
In the UK go to the British Bone Marrow Registry

You may be a match for someone whose life could be saved by a donation. Wouldn't that be a lovely legacy for my nephew? Please, if you do sign up and are a match for someone at anytime please let me know so I can pass that information on to my niece and her partner, knowing that Linden's circumstances helped someone else might be a tiny balm to the pain they are feeling right now and in the future.































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