Cover image: Jo Newman and her children make natural watercolour paint
The first issue for 2013 is part of our Elements themed year, and begins with WATER. So versatile and so necessary for life. In this issue we have 15 contributors, and more than 20 projects, these wonderful contributors from around the world walk us through arts and crafts, science, experimentation, adventure, cooking and play — all related to water.
:: Jo Newman and her children make natural watercolour paints & salt from the sea
:: Susan Schwake & her students show us some water colour techniques
:: Vicki Smith makes paper mache bowls with her students
:: Joanie Gorman and a bunch of kids make a fleet of boats & cork sailors
:: Marcie Cuff and her daughter send a message in a bottle
:: Kathreen Ricketson & family [that’s me] investigate ocean flotsam & jetsam, make some ephemeral beach collections & experiment with sea jellies
:: Gina Vida and her children make two ice projects
:: and Jackie Boucher has designed a water themed word search & colouring page
This is an e-magazine – you will receive a download link to a high quality printable pdf [you can save the file to your hard drive and access it, read, and print it anytime and you can view the pdf on a Tablet or iPad].
Organise your area, use equipment safely and follow the safety advice.
Prepare and organise your space, ingredients and materials beforehand.
Be safe and careful when handling heat and knives and sharp instruments.
Clean up afterwards.
Have fun.
Important: After purchase you will be directed to a page where you can download the PDF. And the pdf magazine will also be automatically delivered via e-mail as soon as your payment is received. The e-mail you receive will include a link to download the file directly to your computer. Please note that the link will only allow you to access the file for a limited period (150 hours or 5 tries), so please make sure to download and save the file on your own computer as soon as you receive it. Lost files may be replaced for a period of 30 days following purchase. Very occasionally your email provider may mark this email as junk, so if you do not receive the email, then first check your junk mail, as a precaution download the file from the webpage directly after purchase.
As I work and play and read and relax while camping, it is not all fun and games. Camping can be hot, and strenuous and sweaty and dirty and tiring too. It is not all starry nights and birds chirping, sometimes there is blaring music and noisy neighbours. However after a week of moving around, fixing broken stuff and staying in some run down sad caravan parks, we have found a little corner of paradise. Fishing is good, the weather is hot, the campsite is small and quiet, the water is lovely and we have internet — so I can catch up on emails and blogging and various things like that.
I found out through friends on twitter that my new book is now available for preorder on Amazon — very excited about this book, such a labour of love, a lot of work, a lot of sweat and tears and lot of design decisions. You can pre-order it now, or wait until September — don’t worry i’ll remind you! And i’ll talk more about the book in the months to come.
Enjoying the amazing weather. No rain, wind or tears. Sunny blue blue blue skies, green water and soft grey pebbly beach. The water is calm as are tempers.
Reading Sherri S Tepper books — first Grass and now The Margarets. Complex and interesting characters — science fiction but concentrating on the people and the environment rather than on technology — I like that.
Listening to the crazy noisy bird life — Cockatoos and Galas.
Observing the people — fellow campers are an interesting mixed bunch of people. Grey nomads, young couples in love with tiny tents and a hippy van, lots of people traveling with dogs, one couple have 3 dogs and a parrot in a cage — the woman as the most amazing long silvery grey hair. Another couple travelling with their 21 year old son and hoping he will find some happiness (and maybe a job and a girlfriend) along the way — they sold their house and plan to spend 10 years on the road. A family of 5 in a swiss army style caravan (lots of gadgets and nifty nooks that fold out and fold back again). Another homeschooling family with 3 kids and a giant vintage caravan.
Giving in to my craving for black jelly beans.
Finishing up this post while the family wait for me to go for an afternoon swim.
Enjoying spending quality and quantity time with the kids.
Repeating the words — Tolerance and Respect over and over and over (our new family mantra this trip).
Working on my book and some crafty projects and taking lots of photos.
Finishing up the editing for the next Action Pack — a great one with a focus on Water related projects
DO get in touch if you are interested in writing a guest post for whipup this year! Send me a short email with your idea Kathreen {at} whipup.net
The first day of homeschooling on our year long road trip luckily coincides with us being in a glorious beachy campsite, with wonderful weather. We spent an hour this morning discussing the slang used in Enders Game, as well as the prisoners who were hanged at Adelaide gaol. Quite a mix! But what I really wanted to tell you about was the very cool yarn bombed town we recently spent some time at. The whole town had trees wrapped in blankets, knitted flags strung along the streets, park bench and bicycle cosies too. Really loved it, made me want to get my yarn on.
I have made a pact with myself not to be buying anything new this year and to make use of crafting materials from natural, recycled or found or second hand sources. So I began with making some plastic bag yarn — better known as plarn, and got my crochet on. Not having crocheted with plarn before, I feel that I have a lot of learning to do. In fact I need some advice. How fine can / should you cut the plastic bag strips? What is the best / easiest stitch to use? I think I’ll be making a bag of some sort for my first plarn project. Photos to come next time.
I missed a newsletter last week, due to travel and beautiful weather and beaches and not very good internet coverage. This week I have the internet and I still have the beach too. We are chilling out, slowing down, relaxing, reading and swimming in a sleepy South Australian coastal town where the fish are biting and the water is an ethereal milky green colour because of the limestone — and the waves are perfect. Slightly overpriced and under facilitated camping makes the area just less than otherwise perfectly lovely.
This beautiful old beach umbrella was spotted outside the general store at the sweetest little town, it was sitting in this abandoned fashion amongst the milk crates and recycling bins. I couldn’t resist taking a snap of it, the retro rose pattern and the fringing reminded me of my grandmother, and childhood dreams and ice creams.
Image: Joanie Gorman‘s cork sailors and pirates
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This town has been yarn bombed
