How are you? How much time has passed, and how many things have happened over the last year under pandemic that have involved and shocked us all…
I am back here, in my tiny virtual world, my happy place, to tell you a little about my creations.
During lockdowns, with children at home, creative activities multiplied in order to keep me and them busy and to limit their screen time. As a result, the time spent on this blog has been reduced to almost zero.
The various festivities and seasonal events have marked and cheered this loooong year: each time it was an opportunity to create something themed along with my kids.
With the arrival of spring and nice weather we enjoyed spending a lot of time in the garden making crafts and using natural material, such rosebuds for little fairies, and leaves and flowers for botanical mandalas.
My daughter’s school was very inspiring: in addition to the well-organised online learning activities (reading, writing, phonics and maths), we found countless creative projects for children in the school blog, and we didn’t miss one! Among those, we created a house model with a box, Numberblocks with clay, a castle with toilet rolls, a paper guitar, and a tropical reef model.
Easter at home brought in more projects: spring window display and paper mache Easter eggs. The “Pizza al formaggio” could certainly not be missed for the traditional Italian Easter breakfast alongside with Chocolate eggs, boiled eggs and the “Colomba”!
When summer 2020 arrived, we celebrated it with a colourful bunting made with recycled plastic bags. I made many face masks to give relatives and friends. Our summer holidays in the beautiful sea of Sardinia (Italy) with our loved ones have regenerated us and given us the necessary energy to face a new autumn/winter and a probable new lockdown (as it later occurred).
The long-waited return to school in presence (early September in the UK) lifted our spirit, parents’ and children’s.
With many limitations and restrictions, we arrived at the first half-term, at the end of October, which was all about Halloween in my house. Even without the possibility of trick or treating, the morale of my children did not go down, because they were taken by various crafts and they still dressed up at home. We put a giant popup cardboard haunted castle in the kitchen (made a few years ago and stored folded in the garage), which served as a setting and background for a series of themed shots, we made creepy buntings and mobiles, we carved four scary pumpkins, all made tasty by Halloween food: pumpkin tartlets, petrifying muffins and hair-raising pizza 😊.
Only a month later, Christmas decorations have begun in our house! We made a lot of Christmassy crafts: paper snowflakes on the windows, toilet paper elves on the shelves, Christmassy origami, giant cardboard gingerbread house, real gingerbread house… we even invented a Christmas themed board game named “Race to the grotto”! Not to mention the different types of Christmas tree decorations we made: salt dough ornaments, Hama beads shapes, cross stitches stars, softies. I was particularly inspired by some vintage festive fabric belonged to my mum and found again after a long time. I sewed some buntings, a polystyrene wreath cover, two quilted cushion covers and some Christmassy face masks too.
The impossibility to celebrate birthdays in presence with friends in this year turned into a brainstorming of all the family in order to make an original and unforgettable virtual birthday party for my little one. She chose the theme, the rainbow, and we thought of different activities to do online together with her friends, such as to make a rainbow cone hat, decorate a gingerbread man biscuit and play a rainbow bingo.
Of course, during this year I cooked a lot, many times with my children: tagliatelle, tortellini, ravioli, pizza, sushi rolls, doughnuts, crepes, “lingue di gatto” and much, much more.
With some time on my part and patience on your part, I will try to publish some posts about these creative projects and food, if you have found them interesting. Did you? Which one in particular?
Incredibly, beyond all these creative activities, I was able to find time for myself, for my mental-physical well-being. I rediscovered the pleasure of drawing and painting, experimenting with different techniques and media (soft pastels, oil pastels, acrylics, lino-cutting / ink-printing, torn paper collage) and challenging myself with different subjects (portraits, landscapes, abstracts), but I will tell you about this another time in other posts to come…
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Crafty Messy Mom 