Embrace your inner librarian! Wear cat glasses and a lot of wool cardigans! Above all, alphabetize!
I painted this bookcase for a school library to (loosely) organize paperback picture books, but I think it would be fun to have in a kid’s room. I used precut cardboard stencils and leftover paint from other projects. The bookcase was leftover, too, and languishing in the basement. I set the bookcase on the ground for browsing, but I think the stencils would work well vertically, too.
Welcome, Captain Wonderpaws! This is our 3-month-old kitten, and no, I didn’t name him. (That would be my comic-loving, crimefighting kids.)
But I did make him some new digs! My husband jigsawed a piece out of a wine crate, and I painted the inside orange and sewed a little cushion (with fab fabric from Jessica Jone’s Outside Oslo collection). Despite his superhero name, Wonderpaw’s a shy guy, so this photo was the best I could do.
A red zipper! And a side view of the crate.
Remember these? Potholders are a childhood summer camp classic, along with gimp bracelets and popsicle stick God’s Eyes.
My friend Addie, age 10, (whose hennaed hands are pictured here) reintroduced me to the joy of potholder production. I bought a kit from Harrisville Designs and a big bag of extra cotton loops. (Times have changed since the seventies: no more polyester!)
My six-year-old and I are planning to make a box by stitching together five potholders with embroidery thread. At our rate of potholder production, supply is likely to outweigh demand–at which point we’ll be doling them out to every living relative.
These fabric eggs–ok, in this case, lumpen footballs–come from a pattern posted by retro mama. Mind you, her eggy creations aren’t in the least lumpen, and she seems to have mastered the ladder stitch (that maddening little stitch!).
(I like these house ornaments on retro mama, too. Could imagine making a more disheveled version myself.)
If you have some fabric scraps, leftover cotton or polyfill, this is a fun, quick project with an upside: no endless egg salad.
Happy chocolate bunnies and matzo ball soup, everyone!
If you want to see some real drama–of the falling-to-the-floor and writhing-in-agony variety, just mention the words “art museum” to my kids. 
They love art, but art museums–not so much. We managed to go to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston through bribery (chocolate-chip cookies) and by bringing an extra kid (our fun cousin Lucy).
It was well worth the cookies. The just-opened museum extension by architect Renzo Piano was stunning (with emerald green bathrooms), the courtyard a midwinter tropical oasis, and Sargent’s “El Jaleo” as startling as ever.
The museum offered not just one but three art projects for kids. We made embossed drawings, painted watercolors, and constructed crowns, shields, and swords in the museum’s new art room. We went home happy and with arms full of art.
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