Jot down outdoor observations and more in this pocket-sized journal. Pages can alternate between blank and ruled so that there is plenty of room for both notes and sketches.
from Handmade Books for Everyday Adventures: 20 Bookbinding Projects for Explorers, Travelers, and Nature Lovers
by Erin Zamrzla
Keep track of your favorite baseball team all season long. With baseball card covers, you can pay homage to your favorite players too.
from Handmade Books for Everyday Adventures: 20 Bookbinding Projects for Explorers, Travelers, and Nature Lovers
by Erin Zamrzla
It doesn’t take an encounter with whales to make my day. Sometimes a bumblebee will do. In the warm sun, I watched one bee fly up inside a blueberry flower. Thanks to that bee, someday we’d have a blueberry. For that moment, my breath and the sun and then bee and the flower seemed all of a piece. It may have only been a few seconds, but the time in that space seemed long and strong.
Finding the stillness that allows this kind of deeper nature watching isn’t always easy. Those golden moments are fleeting in a noisy, busy world. Yet learning wildlife watching skills can help your family sink deeper into the joy of being part of the wild.
from Touch a Butterfly: Wildlife Gardening with Kids
by April Sayre
Let your heart’s first hunch or inkling be what guides you. Swap head-logic for heart-logic. The only requirement: be willing to “allow for strangeness,” as poet Jane Hirshfield suggests. Don’t play it safe. Dare to write something you’ve never written before, go beyond one-word answers and leave your fear of being wrong in the dust with your eraser.
from Leap Write In: Adventures in Creative Writing to Stretch and Surprise
Your One-of-a-Kind Mind
by Karen Benke
This is a gloriously easy food for a crowd if you make the sweet-salty-sour salsa in advance.
from Friends at My Table: Recipes for a Year of Eating, Drinking and Making Merry
by Alice Hart
These handsome eggs manage to be both especially springlike and exactly what you’d want for brunch.
from Friends at My Table: Recipes for a Year of Eating, Drinking and Making Merry
by Alice Hart
Share the love this Valentine’s Day with these free projects from Roost Books. Plus, save 30% on your entire order between now and February 14th with code VAL13.
This Heart Surprise card is sure to make your loved ones smile. With double the pop-ups, there’s double the surprise! Use different shades of the same color to create a sense of harmony.
From Pop-Up Cards: Over 50 Designs for Cards That Fold, Flap, Spin, and Slide
With a little pocket for love notes, the stuffed Family Heart can be a wonderfully comforting and soft reminder of the family love we all carry with us.
From Handmade Home: Simple Ways to Repurpose Old Materials into New Family Treasures
These hazelnut molten chocolate cakes are for chocolate lovers! Serve them in individual molds so you and your valentine can each enjoy your own little dish.
From La Tartine Gourmande: Recipes for an Inspired Life
This easiest of printmaking activities produces a unique result each time.
excerpted from The Artful Parent: Simple Ways to Fill Your
Family’s Life with Art and Creativity
by Jean Van’t Hul
This activity gets children seeing and thinking about their bodies and helps them work on their sense of self.
Excerpted from The Artful Parent: Simple Ways to Fill Your
Family’s Life with Art and Creativity
by Jean Van’t Hul
At its best, roast chicken should represent the essence of simplicity. It’s the dish you want to make on a Sunday, when everyone is hanging around the house together and there is time to linger in the kitchen, and then at the table, and talk. It goes well with white wine, it goes well with red wine, it goes well with beer. More important, it goes well with children: Even at their most gratingly picky, many kids seem unable to resist the moist, salty white meat of a chicken that has been roasted with care. And as long as you stick to the correct time and temperature, you can improvise in terms of what goes inside, outside, and underneath the chicken.
Excerpted from The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage: True Tales of Food, Family, and How We Learn to Eat
edited by Caroline M. Grant & Lisa Catherine Harper
