For those of you in Vancouver you should definitely do your holiday shopping at Toque at the Western Front, next weekend (Dec 9 & 10th). Friday night you can even do it with a drink in your hand.
We will be there, along with old friends Banquet and Sonja Ahlers, and a new favorite, jewelry maker Anita Sikma (I’m really hoping one of these ends up in my stocking).
Or so says this interesting article in the New York Times.
At the very least it does confirm what we have always felt, and why we’ve continued to make these things—that with a few simple and consistent shapes kids can learn about proportion, math, architecture, aesthetics and actually (hopefully) have fun while they’re doing it.
As someone trying to make toys for kids I think it’s always good to be reminded of this, from Wired Magazine. I might be tempted to add “rocks” into this list as well.
Sometimes (OK, most times) I’m embarassed/conflicted about how much media my 4 year old consumes in the form of television, movies, iPhone, PBSKids.com, etc. For example, the super shitty show she’s watching on TV right now in order to by myself some time to write this post about how I feel guilty about how much television she watches. I had always assumed I’d be a militant about that, but I quickly came to realize that as a mom who works full-time with a lot of side projects, dinners to make, apartments to clean and events that Ada needs to be dragged too that media, in it’s many insidious forms, can be my friend. Two recent articles in the New York Times also kind of added to my already high enough anxiety around the matter: here and here.
Reading hundreds of kid craft blogs don’t help either really — reminding me that instead of letting Ada watch SuperWhy I should probably be baking bread or building a doll house with her or something.
But, I try to be a realist and I have to say that there are a lot of fantastic iPhone/iPad apps out there that keep her distracted in the best way possible.
The Montessorium App for spelling and math is beautiful and excellent.
As is this great spelling puzzle Shape-O.
Now I’m excited to check out Inhabitot’s new list of Top 10 educational apps for kids. And to cut myself some slack about the TV watching (and also making a long list of christmas crafts we’re going to do to tip the scales back).
Given that we work with beetle affected pine, we clearly have an affinity to “waste” wood products. Not many people use it better than Alicucio, a young Sicilian artists who uses recycled wood to make a range of kids toys (and grown up furniture too).
via Pirouette
and as a result I spent the entire weekend playing on Kuler.
You can pick from thousands of colour combinations created by people and either borrow them wholesale or modify yourself. Somehow for me this makes things a lot easier to envision than simply staring at my pantone book. A fantasic tool — thanks again Internet!
I’m afraid the fashion and melodrama of Downton Abbey stole my blogging time this past week! I wish I could say it was research, but really it’s just good tv fun—with amazing dresses.
