Toddler Art :: Painting Canvases & Playing Poker

Its been a little quiet on the blog front here, but we've been busy in our every days.   Doing the every day and dealing with Handsome's odd hours job, making merry, the usual.  Ever since I realized that my baby was now a toddler, and that she might like to make things, we've been adding some creative doings to our shedules (fancy English accent required).

We *try* to only use the paintbrush, but sometimes...
The hands get what the hands want.

I love to get in on the painting, too!
The best part, is that if I don't like it, I can paint over it again with a different color.
The Nester taught me that.
The blue one, I want to put words on, but I don't know precisely how...

 Riley has loved doing the painting, and so long as I pick out colors that won't poorly mix (like green and purple and brown), the end result is generally aesthetically pleasing.  I'm planning on hanging a handful of the canvases together, all of our paintings, to showcase them.  A few 3M Velcro Strips* (They are THE BOMB!) and voila! We'll have another blank wall in our rental covered up with something beautiful! [This whole "no hole making" rule is chaffing, but we're working around it.]

Painting could definitely be done without purchasing canvases.  I was considering painting some pieces of cardboard white and letting them dry, then having RG paint on them.  But the canvases at Hobby Lobby are $6 for 2, sized 11x14.  That just seemed too good to pass up, especially when these might be turning into Christmas presents.  Another thought - I'd like to get them printed as postcards.  C'mon, who doesn't want a postcard that looks like this!?

On an unrelated-to-painting note, I made a toy for Riley.  It is nowhere near as pretty as her paintings, but it has brought a lot of enjoyment to my girl, and a lot of picking up of poker chips for me.  But whatevs.  

 Old oatmeal container, a moment with a knife, and a handful of poker chips: Boom.  New sorter toy.  When she's using it as Mom intended, its awesome.  I like to think that the different orientations of the slits in the top help her understand spacial reasoning, and the hole in the side allows her to follow cause-and-effect with chips in the top = chips out the bottom.  I may be reaching.  Regardless, she likes it.  When she uses it as a shaker toy, that results in chips flying all over the living room, she still loves it, although I love it less.

Although I came up with the idea on my own (mostly born out of desperation and cheapness), I was inspired by this gal here.  She & her son are constantly making cool things out of whats around them!  I love following along with her on Instagram and seeing all of her creations!

<3 M.

WFMW :: NoPoo

This post could also be titled "And Then I Became A Hippie"

Another working title might be "That day I tried to submit to a link up that was closed."

Whatever you want to call it.  I'm throwing this information out in to the abyss of the interwebs so that you can all know how far down the granola trail I've gone.  

Its far.

I'm just saying.

I asked Handsome last night if he ever thought I'd become as much of a hippie as I have.  We both agreed that no, we did not see this coming.  This conversation took place after he told me I smelled nice and I confessed that the smell was coming from my Pit Putty, an all-natural cream deodorant I'm trying.  I thought it was a gender neutral scent, but I was wrong.  My armpits smell spicy.

This is the sample size of spicy smelling deodorant.
AKA - the nail in the "I'm not really a hippie" coffin

Anyhow, after beginning to purchase food from a local coop, I took another giant leap for weird kind into the realm of "No Poo".  That "poo" is short for "shampoo", not short for "poop".  Just so we're all reading the same words here.

There's a lot of people who know a heck of a lot more about "no 'poo" than I do, but the gist of it is, you don't need shampoo.  Shampoo (apparently, from my 45 minute foray into the internet) strips your hair of its natural oils or pH balance or something, so that your head makes more oil, so that you need to shampoo again.  Kind of like a bad mechanic, it both causes and fixes the problem that is gross oily hair.  And the world wide web says that it contains bad chemicals.

Enter the best invention of all time: baking soda.  You can do so. many. things. with baking soda.  First, science fair volcanos and self-inflating balloons   Duh.  But after that, there's toothpaste, oven cleaning (which has never worked for me, fyi), cake leavening (meaning making cakes rise), laundry detergent, and of course, the magic that makes homemade pretzels/bagels taste like the food of your dreams.

And now, shampoo.  Or more accurately, No 'Poo.

Here's what I do:  Get your hair wet.  Shake some Baking Soda out of your hoarded baby food jar onto your wet hand.  Rub little pinches of it into your scalp, along your part, around your face, and basically everywhere you can think of.  Now massage, until it starts to feel dissolvy, or slippery.  Rinse.  Boom.  You've just no 'poo'ed.  

To follow it up and "condition" with some diluted apple cider vinegar.  I store mine (like, 1 T, 1 Cup water) in another hoarded baby food jar that I poked some holes into the top of.  After I no 'poo, I shake some of the vinegar stuff onto the ends of my hair, going as far up my locks as halfway.  Rinse.  Be done.  Feel 100% like a homesteader.

If, after your shower, you want to, I don't know, put a little product in there to make sure your hair doesn't get frizzy or whatevs, I've read that a little coconut oil rubbed into your hands and then your hands rubbed on your hair makes that happen.  So I do it.  Because if you're going to ride the weirdo-crunchy-granola-train, you may as well hit all the stops.

Hair as usual.
I'm going to start taking those pre-natals again, I need these baby hairs to grow back!
Dear pregnancy hair,
I miss you.
I hate that you fell out and made me feel bald.
Come back and we'll make it work.
Love, Me.

So yes.  I'm a no-poo-er.  And the first week and a half were touch and go.  Supposedly, it takes a while for your scalp to re-adjust to it not being stripped of all of its oils every day.  But now, I think its looking pretty normal.  And if my sources aren't selling me ocean-front property in AZ, I will someday reach "No 'Poo Nirvana" where you don't even need to use baking soda anymore, you just rinse your hair with water, and it looks fuller and thicker and grows faster than it ever has before.  I know you're waiting with baited breath, but try and take some big inhales and I promise to let you know when that day comes.

Any other hippies out there?  Ever do stuff you never imagined you'd be into?  C'mon, let me know I'm not alone!

<3 M.