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Sep 14

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Brittany: How the Fates Conspire

Here is my situation:

I am a morning person. My energy begins to wane around lunch time, and by dinner time it has completely disappeared. In a perfect world, I would get up at the crack of dawn, write on my laptop until I could no longer ignore my hunger pangs, eat breakfast, and then head to the gym for an hour. But even as I write these words, I know it is a complete and utter impossibility.

I wish I was the sort of person who could sit down in front of a blinking cursor and write, but I need a warm up period first to get my brain in gear. My brain refuses to engage when I have toddlers climbing all over me, demanding waffles and oatmeal and YouTube train videos. And as inspiring as I find The Wiggles, they don’t exactly transport me to 1916 Appalachia when they’re blaring from the TV in the background. So even though I’d like to work on my novel first thing in the morning, motherhood has forced me to readjust my writing schedule. If I get any writing  in at all, most mornings I work on my blog because it  just doesn’t require the same degree of concentration as a book.

This summer, I’ve made a point of going to the gym three mornings a week, to the bright and early 8:15 am deep water aerobics class. The YMCA offers childcare during this time, and I love getting my workout in first thing and having the rest of the day to devote to other things. In a perfect world, I would like to continue taking this class three mornings a week ad infinitum. But again, the fates of motherhood are conspiring against me.

Sam’s preschool starts at 9:00 every morning. Obviously I can’t be in two places at once. But I thought I could easily take a class later on in the morning. Except, the morning exercise classes are scheduled for 9:15 and 10:10. There’s no way I can drop Sam off at his preschool at 9:00 and get to the gym in 15 minutes, even if he leapt from the moving mini-van in the preschool parking lot. I could easily make the 10:10 classes, but my morning would be shot. I’d drop Sam off, have not much more than a half an hour to write/clean/run errands, and then have another 15 minutes to kill after my class before I could pick him up. It’s hardly an ideal situation.

What would be ideal is if there were afternoon classes I could attend at the gym, except there aren’t. And it wouldn’t matter anyway, even if there were, because childcare isn’t available from noon until 5:00 pm. The earliest group classes start up again between 5:30 and 6:00 pm, so in addition to not being morning-person-friendly, it would completely ruin my dinner-cooking-and-eating schedule.

I was complaining about all of this to my husband, Tom, and he told me I was being inflexible. I could write after the boys were asleep (9:00 or 10:00 pm) and I certainly didn’t have to take a group class at the gym. I could hit the cardio machines, or better yet, the weight room.

It was at this point that my brain exploded a little bit.

I can barely construct a coherent sentence at 10:00 at night, much less write novel-worthy prose. And there is no way I’m going to use up 30 minutes of  my precious allotment of me-time to drive to a gym to use cardio equipment when I have an elliptical machine in the basement. I like group exercise classes. That is why I joined a gym. If I wanted to exercise alone, I could do it without the monthly membership fee. And spending my morning lifting weights? I do lift weights. A 30-pound 2-year-old and a 45-pound 4-year-old. All day long. Over and over and over again. I’m not going to volunteer to do it some more.

This is the kind of situation I face as a mother all the time. What I want to do should be simple enough, except that it isn’t once I factor in my children’s needs. My needs (quiet writing time and a group exercise class) get put on the back burner, and instead of sympathy, I’m expected to change my wants and needs on the fly so that my wants and needs become compatible with my children’s.

You can do this for a while, but after a while you realize you’ve hit an impasse. Your wants and needs are your wants and needs for a reason, and you get to a point where you can’t be flexible about them anymore. I should be able to write and go to the gym when it best suits my biorhythms, and hopefully if I just wait it out one more year I will. When John is 3 he’ll be eligible for preschool, and I’m strongly considering enrolling him at the preschool at the Y.  That way I could drop him off at his class, get a workout in, and then head home to a quiet house to write.

But in the meantime, it’s looking like I’ll be doing a lot of exercising at home.

Sep 9

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Miranda: Best of Both Worlds

What a creative week! I finally finished overhauling our playroom just in time to finish the first project in WishStudio’s online art playgroup with my 5-year-old son. It took us a few sessions spread over the week to finish our projects. Here’s a peek at a few steps along the way:

I was thrilled with my son’s finished card!

Isn’t is beautiful? I was less pleased with my own piece, which — despite working for at least an hour after my son had finished and skipped off to do something else — I couldn’t get quite right. After cutting out my son’s image for his own card, I was too intimidated to try to cut out the pair of little ones in my own photo, so I opted to retain the background image. But then the balloon color wasn’t right — wasn’t enough of a contrast — so I tried several different layers (poster paint, colored pencil, crayon, oil pastels, you name it!) before ending up with a murky eggplant color.

Even though the outcome isn’t exactly to my liking, it was a wonderful process. Thank you, Shona! I’m grateful for this opportunity to blend creativity and motherhood, rather than complaining about not doing justice to one or the other.

It’s already Thursday and we haven’t yet started on this week’s project. Time to get those smocks on again 🙂

Sep 8

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Robin: Wish.Play.Create – The E-Course, Week 1

Josey and I were the lucky winners of the fantastic e-course offered by Mindy at The Wish Studio
We tweaked it a bit by used pieces of wood instead of paper for the base of the project.  We just moved into a new place and I saw this as an opportunity to make some art for the walls
This was not an obstacle for Miss Josey who LOVES playing with paint and the MORE SPACE she has to work with, the better!
Shona Cole-Author of “The Artistic Mother” was OUR INSTRUCTOR for Week 1!
Special thanks to Miranda at Studio Mothers for hosting the contest.  We are having SO MUCH FUN!

Sep 7

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Alison: 5 New School-Year Resolutions for Writing Parents

Although it varies by a week or two across the Northern Hemisphere, for many parents, children round about now are returning to school and the more rigid routines of school days, homework, and earlier bedtimes come into play. As parents we need to be more organised and lovingly firm with our kids as we ease them through the change.

Whether you are a going-out-to-work writing parent or a stay-at-home one or a bit of both, it’s a good time to think about your own schedule, your priorities in terms of projects that you have to complete, client commitments, and projects that capture your heart and that you want to spend time on.

An important question to ask is ‘what is actually possible?’ We can take steps to create writing time by getting up early or staying up late, by being good at using small pockets of time between chores or on commute, but believe it or not, writing isn’t everything. Our resolutions need to take account of the current demands of our lives timewise, physically, emotionally, mentally. At different phases these demands will fluctuate. All-out commitment to the cause of writing without consideration of your current situation cannot be a good thing. As children settle into school they may require more of our empathy and listening time, will benefit and feel less anxious by us just being around, taking a walk with them, creating space for communication. Later on in the year these demands may change.

But if we get a chance to write, we want it to be as fruitful as possible. I often struggle to feel satisfied with my achievements because I have several tasks and projects on the go and have not identified which need to come higher on the list. At the end of the session, which is never very long, I have achieved not much of anything as I flit from document to document, to my email, to Google etc. A simple thing, but sometimes I’m not really clear what I’m working on. Just writing that down and having a schedule will make a lot of difference.

Sometimes I come to write and just can’t get into it, I have no spark. This is often after a period where I have not had any down time, general pleasant relaxation, a walk, or sit down with a book or even an evening in front of the TV. It is possible to make writing a stick that doesn’t bear fruit because you are beating yourself with it. (Ah the mixed metaphor, my favourite beast!)

So what resolutions might be good ones for the new school and writing year?

Five resolutions for the new school and writing year

1: Write less but more fruitfully and watch more telly.

2: Pick a project, set a deadline or a mini deadline, and work to it.

3: Think each day about your current demands/desires emotionally, mentally, physiologically, socially, for family etc. and decide what is most important, what is possible, and what is necessary.

4: Take pride and joy in what you achieve even if it is less than what you had hoped — write down what you have done; it’s easy to forget.

5: Think about, interact with, and support others, friends, extended family members, and other writers; create a strong and positive network.

Goodwill and good effort for the most part come back. Writing and life energy can be created by taking care of our time, ourselves, each other.

[Cross posted from my personal blog.]

Sep 3

6 Comments

Miranda: Out of the closet

If you’ve read this blog recently, you’re familiar with WishStudio’s 5-week online playgroup. (Studio Mothers had a giveaway for one spot, which went to Robin Norgren.) The playgroup started this past Monday, with Shona Cole as the instructor for the first week. My 5-year-old and I went shopping for a few supplies we needed and eagerly watched all of Shona’s instructional videos.

The first step was for me to gesso our project paper. But I decided that before I got to the gesso, I would transform our playroom into an art room. The playroom was disorganized and full of outgrown toys and loose game pieces — time for a total overhaul.

At the same time, my art closet was no longer the tidy, organized collection of art supplies that it was a year ago. I often found it too difficult to put things where they belonged and ultimately resorted to opening the door, tossing in whatever belonged in the closet, and quickly closing the door again before the object could fall out. Many of my key supplies were too difficult to get out (note the large plastic bin on the top shelf). In all, the closet turned out to be less than ideal for art supplies. Good for storing, perhaps, but not so good for using.

So, all of the toys came out of the playroom. Many of them went up into the attic for donation/yard sale; some of them went into the boys’ bedrooms. Then all of the art supplies in my art closet went into the playroom, now dubbed the art room. Board games went into the old art closet. I positioned an old table in front of a window in order to make use of natural light, as this room tends to be a little dark.

Here’s the old playroom, just as I started taking it apart (note that my camera tends to distort reality — it makes this room look larger than it actually is):

And here’s the new art room, after three days of hauling, sorting, and labeling. It’s all here, even though it looks like a mishmash:

My two little guys immediately helped themselves to art supplies and inaugurated the art table with fresh splotches of acrylic paint. And you can see that our dear Mimi made herself quite comfy on the table too.

This new room supports my new schedule, which is phasing in over the next few weeks. I’ll blog about that more as soon as I can swing it. I think I may have figured out how to work AND be a stay-at-home mom. As in, the best of both worlds. Stay tuned!

Now, I’d better get that paper gessoed so we can finish the first week’s art project before it’s time for the second one!

Aug 30

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Miranda & Brittany: offline and offroad

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Brittany Vandeputte in person. As one of the original members of the Studio Mothers community (evidenced here) I’ve come to think of Brittany as a friend — but sometimes I wonder if it’s an odd thing to think of your “virtual” relationships as friendships. Now that we’ve met in person, I can attest to the fact that it doesn’t matter whether connections are made on cyberspace or face to face. A friend is a friend.

Brittany generously allowed me to stop in on my drive home from Ithaca, New York. I was in the last leg of a 12-hour round-trip drive to return my oldest son to college, and I was grateful to have a short break with Brittany, her husband Tom, and those two little guys you’ve all read about — Sam and John — in their charming new home.  I should add that I had invited myself over, and the visit occurred smack in the middle of what would have been the bedtime routine — so that just goes to show you the strength of Brittany’s Southern hospitality.

Thanks again, Brittany — see you in October!

Aug 26

4 Comments

Cathy: Back to writing

Yesterday, I met with my writing group. I had not opened my manuscript since the session I went to about month ago. I kind of feared where I was in it and was pleasantly surprised that I was at page 93 in my purple line edits. I won’t use a red pen — looks too much like violent spilt blood.

The significance of being at page 93 is that I was much farther along than I thought I was, and being a middle reader novel, I was darn close to the end. So guess what?

Yesterday, I finished my purple line edits.

Now to go into the document to make the changes official from the purple scribbles. Toward the end, my purple pen ran out of ink, so the end edits are in black, which is what I had in my purse.

Anyway, I feel good about the book, still. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read it since I started it back at the dawn of time. At this point, the changes I was having trouble believing in, make better sense to me. The bottom line is I still cried while reading the end. My main character’s growth is evident.

And I love him. He has been growing up alongside my boys, as if he is one of them himself. Mr. Cynic was a year or so younger than him when I started, and is now in entering the halfway point of high school. Captain Comic was in preschool when I first wrote the 12-year-old into existence, and now he turns the age of my character in a bit over a week from now.

So, from here on out, I want to try to see if I can pick my way through the manuscript document, inserting the scribbles by day, instead of waiting for my writing group to meet in silence and commitment to writing. I am hoping that transferring the changes won’t take as much concentration as the purple lining did. I hope I can do it while my menagerie runs around the house.

Draft 2 (er 5,010) complete. Phew — kind of.

[crossposted from musings in mayhem]

Aug 25

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Robin: The Writing Is THE Thing

While watching the premiere of Handmade Nation By Faythe Levine a few years ago, I latched onto the phrase “gateway drug” referring to the means by which an artist meanders into the art/craft genre. I have been thinking about what that “drug” would be for me and I know for sure writing is THE thing. It is the one thing I gravitate to when I feel at my wits’ end. Writing brings this gift to my life which allows me to renew the hope that life is ALL about the process and that going through the process is worth it. Equally fulfilling these last several months is recognizing that others experience this same satisfaction when they are drawing or crocheting or crafting mosaics or jewelry making. A mentor of mine sent me an e-mail around this same time. He posed the question: “how are you doing with the ‘what next” now that your seminary degree is completed?” I almost deleted the e-mail; the words were too hot to even live in my inbox. The following week I got an invitation for the commencement ceremony for my alma mater. Again, a knock at my door which I was not ready to answer. I answered the e-mail later in the week this way: “I would have never expected it to look like this — my life, I mean. I do not know what to do but I do know what I am not doing: writing.” He responded quickly, “What is it you think you should be writing?” Since then, I have found many ways to exercise that writing muscle: through blogging, whether it be on my blog or as a guest blogger. And I strings words and thoughts together for cards and mixed media. I am amazed at how a series of events coming together at the right time can challenge you in such a life changing way. How about you? What is YOUR THING that fuels all things creative? [photo credit]

Aug 19

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Kelly: What Does Authenticity Mean?

Well, the fog I described last week is lifting, but I continue to be a scattered-brained mess! 🙂 My house looks like a tornado hit, and as I sit here in my little office, I’m surrounded by fake dollar bills (the play kind, just so you Feds know, I’m not creating dollar bills here), an atlas, Ebay and Etsy receipts, three cameras, my new deposit slips, stamp and fancy checkbook for my business checking account, scribbled notes written while trying to find a hotel for our trip up to North Georgia later this week (thus the atlas mentioned earlier…who knew we’d be visiting Aunt Livy the same four days as a huge gospel fest AND softball tournament in the same area?), a few shells, baby lotion, kids shampoo, a large comb, innumerable blankets, quilts and scarves the girls have pulled out of their room to play with, and um, a reindeer that poops jelly beans. And that’s all just in my little 5’ x 5’ office nook! And that doesn’t include the “normal” office stuff that’s supposed to be here! The rest of my house is currently in a similar state. Oh well.

I made this necklace a couple weeks ago while my friend Dana was over for a play date. It’s now in my Etsy store here. That big piece of jade up front used to be in a different piece that I’ve had laying around for a while, so I reworked it for summer. Dana just finished Florence, and we were celebrating. Who is Florence, you ask? Florence is a mannequin Dana collaged from head to toe with all sorts of fabulous stuff. Took her two years! Serious dedication there! My only suggestion was that she change out Florence’s boring brown wig for a hot pink one. That was my contribution, and we both feel it was the finishing touch. Sorry, no pictures of Florence to share with you because Dana is thinking about starting a blog, and when I suggested that maybe it could be Florence’s blog, Dana’s face lit up. So I’m hoping she’ll follow through with that, and THEN Dana will share pictures of Florence with you.

When talking about Florence and her potential blog, Dana and I got on the subject of authenticity, which seems to be the biggest buzz word in blogging. We talked about what we think that means. What the heck does that mean anyway? Dana is a psychology instructor, and though we are very dear friends, we have very different approaches on life. Dana, God bless her, is a mega-analyzer. And I’m really, um, not. I’ll analyze temporarily, but then I’m over it; the old “it is what it is” motto I live by. Experience it, learn from it, move on. And while I certainly touch on my personal life here, I try my darndest not to dwell on issues I may be struggling with. Hashing out my problems, insecurities, fears, what have you, in a public forum is just not how I process things. Other people do, and if that works for them, I think that’s great! But just because someone chooses not to hash out those things on a blog, does that mean she is not being authentic? I certainly do not think so, and it’s that line of thinking that really bugs me about authenticity talk.

Lori mentioned something similar on her blog a while back, and she has the exact same outlook on life that I do (one of the many reasons I love you Lori!). No one’s life is perfect. Bad things happen to everyone, regardless of whether you are a stay at home mom or working mom, regardless of your income or lack thereof, regardless of your marital status, regardless of where you live and whether you have a river in your backyard or not, regardless of what you choose to share and choose not to share. Bad stuff just happens. That’s just life. The one thing that we all have in common is that we all have the choice regarding how we react to that bad stuff. We all have the choice of whether or not to choose happiness or dwell on the negative. 99 times out of 100, I choose to be happy. Am I Pollyanna-ish enough to think that I’m, therefore, going to be happy every single second of every single day? Heck no! I have my moments. But when I’m not in a happy place, I typically choose not to share that with the world. That’s what works for me. That is the “authentic” me, take ‘er or leave ‘er. And I eat lots of chocolate and lick batter directly out of the brownie batter bowl.

[cross-posted from Artful Happiness]

Aug 17

7 Comments

Brittany: How to Get a Grip

“Let this become your key — next time when anger comes, just watch it. Don’t say, ‘I am angry.’ Say, ‘Anger is there and I am watching it.’ And see the difference! The difference is vast. Suddenly you are out of the grip of anger. If you can say, ‘I am just a watcher, I am not anger,’ you are out of the grip.”  ~Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

When we initially moved to New York, my three-year-old son, Sam, was all smiles and excitement. It was all a great adventure to him, driving cross country, living in temporary housing, and spending a week without us at the grandparents’ that ultimately culminated in the wonderous, never-to-be-repeated excitement of finally, finally, after months and months of talking about it, coming to live in The New House.

But like most things on the roller-coaster of life, once you’ve reached the highest of highs, there’s nowhere to go but down…

We moved into our house on July 1st and Sam hit Toddler Rock Bottom about two weeks later. (And I hit Parenting Rock Bottom right along with him.) It started with a tantrum or two, over nothing, and then insidiously, over the next few weeks, the tantrums escalated into mega-tantrums, where Sam bit John, and then began biting his new friends, to which I escalated my parental crackdown. My punishments were met with outrage so severe that Sam started having “accidents” — in public and at home. And by the beginning of August, our house was like a police state — justice was intense and swift — and Sam’s behavior was so unpredictable that Tom and I wondered where we could find him a good therapist.

Even when I was pregnant with Sam, I knew that he was going to test my emotional and physical endurance. In utero, he was active, demanding, and always a loud presence. Before he was ever born, I knew him and his moods as well as I knew my own because he projected them to me so intensely.

But things had been fine in South Carolina. After he turned three, the tantrums from his Terrible Twos leveled off, and his intense reactions to everything seemed to have been a passing phase. When they manifested again here it took me completely by surprise, and it took me several weeks to remember that an intense reaction to change has always been a facet of his personality. If I looked at things from his perspective, he’d just experienced a huge emotional upheaval leaving the only home, only friends, only neighbors, only life he’d ever known. He had nothing in his life to compare it to, no sense that everything would be okay after a while, no ability to understand the fear and homesickness gnawing at him. I incorrectly assumed he was too young to care much where he lived, as long as he was with me and Tom and John. By the time I stepped away from my own rage at this wild, unpredictable, irrational child that I was being forced to deal with, and think about the reasons behind it, the damage was done. My child was an emotional wreck. I knew I had to try a new tack, and soon, or things were going to get untenable.

I dug through still-packed boxes of books until I found my copy of the Raising Your Spirited Child Workbook by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka and re-read it from cover-to-cover twice.

One of Kurcinka’s suggestions in dealing with intense children is to give them a visual demonstration of their anger in the form of vinegar and baking soda “volcanos.” She suggests doing this with the child so he/she can see the volcano bubbling over and make the connection between it and the way they feel when they’re under stress.

I like to put my own spin on things, and since I knew the source of Sam’s anger, I tried doing things a little differently.

I gathered up the vinegar, the baking soda, a glass, and a quarter measuring cup. Then I told Sam that we needed to fill the glass up with “yuckies” — that for each thing that made him sad or mad, we were going to put a “yucky” in the glass. It took him a while to understand what a “yucky” was, but in no time he was on a roll. He missed his teachers, his school, his friends, our old house, our neighbors, our family members, punishments made him mad, our new house made him sad, and he was mad that this house didn’t have a swing set in the backyard like our old house had. Once the glass was full, I added the baking soda, and narrated a pretend (and ridiculous) tantrum — even by Sam’s standards.

“…What! No waffles for breakfast? Sam wanted waffles! Oh no! Sam’s yelling! He’s screaming! He’s thrown himself on the floor and he’s kicking kicking kicking! Oh no! He’s kicking Mommy! He’s kicking John! Now he’s even kicked the dog! Oh no! He’s kicked a hole in the floor. Now he’s kicked the house down! And he’s stomping stomping stomping on the house! And he’s throwing pieces of the house! Now the garage is flying through the air! And Sam’s still mad!”

Sam thought this was hilarious and so we spent the morning making more volcanoes and having more pretend tantrums. Every time we did it, I noticed that his ability to verbalize how he was feeling became more fluent. I knew he had completely caught on when he was playing with some friends, one of whom was getting very frustrated about something, and Sam called to me, “Mommy, Tyler’s glass is getting full of yuckies! Come help him!” Since then, yuckies, full glasses, and volcanoes have become part of our dialogue with each other. Now I can say to him, “Sam, your glass is looking pretty full. I can see you’re starting to get bubbly like a volcano. Do you need a break?”

After I say this, the expression on his face changes.You can watch him thinking about his emotions instead of feeling them, and then he’ll say, “I’m okay Mom. The yuckies are gone now.”

Yesterday, John was being a royal two-year-old pain in the grocery store, and we had to go past the candy aisle at check out. Both boys began begging for candy and I was feeling harassed. So I said to Sam, “Sam, please stop asking about candy. John is not being a nice boy right now (he was trying to leap out of his seat into the basket of the shopping cart) and Mommy’s glass is really REALLY full.” And Sam, to my everlasting surprise said, “Oh. Let me help you unload the cart then.” And he immediately got to work putting our groceries on the conveyor belt.

Please envision how I must’ve looked — absolutely flummoxed — mouth agape — eyes wide in surprise — as my toddler attempted to diffuse MY tantrum. It was quite the role reversal. Sam was able to give back to me what I had apparently been giving him — the incredible relief that comes from knowing that your feelings of stress are understood, that the burden of keeping it together has been lifted, and you’ve been excused for a moment to sort yourself out. All it took was a little understanding, and the weight of the day lifted from my shoulders. I was renewed and back to myself in seconds.

It was a good week for us. We seem to have gotten a grip.

Aug 16

2 Comments

And the winner is….

The winner of the first-ever Studio Mothers giveaway is Robin Norgren! Our highly unscientific drawing went like this: I walked into the family room and told my husband to pick a number from 1 to 14. He thought for a moment, stated a number, then stopped and revised his choice to number 8. (I was kind of surprised that he went along with my command without first asking me WHY I wanted him to select a number, but anyway.) Congratulations, Robin! I’ll pass along the relevant info for your free registration. Class begins in two weeks!

Thanks to everyone who entered. If anyone (aside from myself) is going to register the old-fashioned way, please post a comment here to let us know 🙂

Aug 10

15 Comments

The First-Ever Studio Mothers Giveaway!

And now for something completely different. The very first Studio Mothers giveaway!

Studio Mothers is — and will remain — an ad-free blog. But when Mindy at WishStudio (a beautiful resource mentioned at Studio Mothers in these posts) sent me an e-mail about a new online course she was offering, I started doing cartwheels. I signed up for the class immediately, and am thrilled to offer a free giveaway slot to the Studio Mothers community.

As creative mothers, we benefit from blending the lines between creativity and motherhood. Especially when our children are young and finding time for solo creativity is a scientifically proven impossibility often a challenge, keeping the creative flames alive by being creative with our children is often a surprisingly satisfying interim strategy. Even for me — a writer — I find that making something artful with my children keeps me from feeling like I’ve abandoned my creative self, even if I haven’t actually written anything for weeks or months.

Enter Wish Play Create, a 5-week online art playgroup with fabulous guest teachers: Tracey Clark, Stephanie Lee, Pixie Campbell, Mindy Tsonas, and Shona Cole (who’s book The Artistic Mother will be quite familiar to regular visitors of the Studio Mothers Facebook page). The course begins on August 30, and I’ll be blogging about the process at Studio Mothers. It would be great fun to have friends from the Studio Mothers community join me! The course description:

online – 5 weeks {$48}

this fall, carve out some juicy creative time for you and your little ones…join our mom and child online art playgroup! every monday, a new 1 hour project will be presented by a fabulous guest teacher encouraging you to play and create in a variety of different mediums throughout the weeks. our virtual open studio allows you to work from home, at your own pace, and when it’s most convenient for you. along with all the artsy fun you’ll enjoy connecting with other moms and sharing your work and creative time in our private playgroup flickr pool. all projects are designed to be inspiring and engaging for both mom and child – this is not simply just for kids! supply lists will be provided in advance for you to gather everything you’ll need for each project. once you register, your email confirmation will be sent to you within the following day.

Click here for the schedule of workshops and registration.

So, how to win a free spot for yourself and your kid(s)? Simply post a comment below. On Monday, August 16, Studio Mothers will randomly select one respondent for the free spot. Good luck!

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