Milkshakes and Margaritas — a blog for the modern mom

Alphabeasties

Being a graphic designer, I'm naturally drawn to this book, Alphabeasties: And Other Amazing Types, by Chronicle. I know there are hundreds, maybe thousands of alphabet books out there. But what I like about this one is that beyond the usual alphabet book, each animal is created with the letter it starts with in the alphabet. 

 

After reading this book, try finding a bunch of the same letters in a magazine, and cutting out and making your own Alphabeastie... or Alphabot...Alphamonster. You get the idea!

The New Baby Book By Gmail

I had big ambitions for my son Cash's baby book. My mother-in-law had passed down the baby book she kept for my husband, chronicling everything from his first foods and when each tooth came in to the time he got the gold ring on the carousel (yes, he's that old). It was overflowing with minute details about his first years. Hoping to capture the moments of Cash's life as carefully, I bought a charming hand-made book from a crafty friend. I bought dozens of scrap booking pages and little accents for them. I never did anything with any of it. And I've uploaded thousands -- literally like 6,000 -- photos to Shutterfly. But I stopped ordering them after Cash's first Christmas. They are just there. What I regret most about the gap between my ambitions and reality is that I constantly thought, "Well, I'll remember that because it was so sweet...or so funny" and didn't take the time to write things down. So many memories lost.

My friend Kate has come up with the perfect solution for the mom who is too busy (or lazy or whatever) to do a baby book or even a journal. She set up a gmail account for her son and she sends him e-mails detailing his life and the memorable moments. That way, there isn't the pressure to carve out time. She can just whip out an e-mail whenever she has something to say. You can even attach photos.

Throw Grandma on the Floor

My 11-month-old son, Catcher, loves to look at pictures. He is always pointing to framed photos we have around the house and I try to talk to him about the people in them. But my husband has four siblings in addition to several cousins who are considered just as dear, so we haven't come even close to representing everyone on our walls. So when I saw the "Wall of Fam" that my friend Kate put up on her wall for her baby, I thought it was brilliant.

Back to School with Aplomb

Former San Francisco Chronicle reporter Ilene Lelchuk is joining Milkshakes and Margaritas as a contributor and starts off with a touching tale and a great idea for a project.

My 6-year-old son is a can't do kind of a kid. Don't get me wrong. He is incredibly bright, creative and outgoing. But he's also anxious and a perfectionist. The truest Gemini I've ever known.

Those will be terrific attributes when he's a banker, lawyer or some other high-powered perfectionist. But for now, he's just a skinny soon-to-be first grader with tousled hair who resists trying new things - reading, writing, hitting a baseball -- unless he is sure he can do them well. Hmmm, tricky. How do you perfect a skill if you never try?

In kindergarten last year, I heard, "I can't do it!" every time he was asked to put pencil to paper or read a sentence. It didn't help that classrooms really are a girls' realm. Those fidgeting boys aren't developmentally ready for the rigors of school as soon as girls. And the first years are so much more demanding than I remember. I fed carrots to a fluffy class bunny. My son practiced subtraction.

Of course, my can't-do kid learned to draw people and animals, spell phonetically and read simple words by June, just like I knew he could. But now he's worried that he can't do first grade. Ugh.

So I'm on a mission to turn him into a can-do kid. This summer I created a kindergarten memory book that is more than just snapshots. It documents the transformation of his scribbles to shaky printing to sentences to stories. He said he couldn't, but I gave him proof that he can and he did.

I bought an inexpensive 10X10 scrapbook at Michael's. Then I sorted through our bulging bag of schoolwork and culled the best examples. For those huge butcher paper pieces, I photographed them with my digital camera and sized and printed them on photo paper. I'm not a fancy scrap-booker, so I skipped the cutesy embellishments.

I presented the big red book to my son last week and it was one of the few times I saw deep gratitude on his face. He quietly studied each page. Now he loves to bring it out for visitors. His favorite page is the last one titled progress. He says, "Look, when I was little, all I could do was scribble scrabble and now I can draw and alligator and write sentences."

Preserving Your Child’s Art

Most children produce copious amounts of artwork. We have magnet strips that run accross the bedroom door to attach and display the most recent artwork and writing samples. But then what? So far I’ve been putting their work into paper portfolios and tucking them under a bed. I clean them out occasionally, but I still save so much. I occasionally get an urge to do “something” with it all before it gets out of control, but I’m never certain what that “something” is, and get overwhelmed just looking at the pile. 

On a recent search for a solution, I came across Artimus Art. A tempting alternative to the paper portfolios stuffed under the bed. With Artimus Art, you can preserve your child’s art in sweet little books as well as in an online gallery that can be shared. It seems to be a brilliant combination of Scan Cafe, My Publisher and Shutterfly (which my husband designed the book interface for). You send your art to them and each image is scanned, restored, re-sized, and reproduced on heavy glossy paper and turned into an 11 x 11 hard cover, case-bound, handmade book, all done by professional designers and bookbinders. This would also make a terrific gift for a birthday or other holiday. Ahem...Mom.

If you’re up for doing your scanning at home, you could make the books yourself using a service like My Publisher, or the book maker in iPhoto. 

For those few pieces that you want to save in their original form, I suggest finding a frame that is easy to change out, and revolve the artwork now and again. Target and Ikea both carry nice, affordable frames in various sizes. Or check garage sales and flea markets for something more ornate. If the matte doesn’t fit, cut a white mat board and float the artwork above instead of behind the mat. Another bonus... you can save the old art behind the new pieces, for as long as it will all fit. This also helps build confidence as your little ones see you displaying their work so prominently and professionally.

Lastly for something really special, you can have scanned and printed onto canvas. Artimus Art provides this service, or google “print on canvas” to find places like Canvas on Demand.

If you have a way of preserving your child’s art that works for you - please share it with us!

Mini Piñatas Break up the Holiday Weekend Doldrums

This weekend we made festive Mini Pinatas with the kids. This project takes a couple of days, but it was nice to stretch out the fun over the long weekend. These would be great decorations for a little garden tea party, or as favors for a birthday party.

What You’ll need

small balloons

newspaper cut or torn into small strips

glue (for both the mix and decorating)

flour

water

tissue paper or other things to decorate with

heavy gauge string or twine

The 1st step was to blow up the balloons. We made ours about the size of a small cantaloupe. But even smaller would be cute too. 

Next, make the papier mache paste. (see recipes here - we used the no cook). Drag the newspaper strips through the paste and layer onto the balloons. Smooth over any rough edges as you work. Wipe off any excess paste with your fingers. Continue until you have the balloon covered, except for a small opening at the top. Let them dry at least 24 hours.

 

The next afternoon, we decorated... a couple were still a bit wet, so we dried them with a hair dryer. (Trick we learned - pop the balloon first and blow the warm air in through the top hole so the pinata keeps its round shape.)

We had multi colored tissue paper, and each of us did something a little different with them. Cash and Tanya balled up the tissue and glued it on, Dillon and I glued the tissue like streamers, and Liam covered his pinata with flat tissue, and then made a neat little pattern with tissue balls. You can see the results below.  

 

 

We filled them with non candy treats like peanut butter sandwich crackers and mini packs of goldfish and fruit leather.  We decided to leave our tops open and created a little hanger by punching two holes on either side and stringing red twine through the top. We used mini clothes pins to hang them on the string. Dillon was the first to go at them.

We initially had to convince the kids that it would be fun to stick their hands in the goopy paste. But they quickly got into it, save a little whining about dirty hands. Ironic since they had just been digging in the dirt for bugs! But once we got going, they had a good time. And they all got excited crumpling up the tissue paper into different sized balls. BTW - what’s up with kids these days?When we were kids we loved to get dirty.  

Color Photo Scavenger Hunt

My 3 year old, Dillon and I went for a nice long walk the other day. I wanted to get some exercise, so to make it more fun for him we held a color scavenger hunt along the way. Dillon chose “blue”. And while we walked, he pointed out the colors and I photographed them. We had a great time and it sparked great conversations about the objects. 

I then put the photos together and printed them on nice paper. Here’s the result. I have an Ikea frame patiently waiting for them. I think next time I’ll print them out and let him cut them out and glue them down to create his own collage.