I am pretty sentimental. Once upon a time we moved to China and sold everything we had, except for those special letters and my favorite shirt from high school and all of those photos (and negatives) from our pre-digital days. So it's  hard for me to not keep every artwork that Isia makes, but I'm learning to be discerning and store only what has real meaning. But what to do with the rest? We keep them on hand and try to find different ways to incorporate them into our lives. Such as weaving them together. 

I first started sewing when I was little. I would take scraps of cloths, sew them together, and called it a dress for my doll. Then I grew, sewed scraps of cloth into backless wonders that tied together, and called them shirts. Sewing was a free-form exercise to use what I already had to make something new. I never took scraps of cloth and sewed them using an honest-to-goodness pattern. Until now, starting with Billy's robot pants, here. And while I still intend to free-form it time to time, I'm amazed at how much faster it is to let someone else do the planning work for you. Someone who even makes sewing your own smocking a feasible task...

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As I've shared before, I am trying to limit art supply purchases this year and focus instead on using up what we already have. It's been hard, because I keep seeing beautiful art ideas that would only require "this or that"- but it's been really good for me too. Not only do we have lots of art supplies already, but it's encouraged me to keep seeing everything as a potential art material. For example, who knew you could combine a plastic lid and a tissue paper roll to get this? 

Isia just turned three! As such, there's a growing interest in art that "looks like something." To help fulfill that wish, and build some fine-motor skills, we like to do some stenciling. During our last session I found some ways that make it less frustrating for her, and easier for me to help too- especially when we have friends to join in the fun.