The perfect placemat (jk), DIY buckets and dishwasher maintenance.

Did I hook you with that irresistible subject line?

A placemat that promises to change your life!

As a modern parent I have been swept up in the collective force of “parenting” as a verb. From my very little reading on historical parenting, it wasn’t even a concept 40 years ago. Now, if you want a bestseller, a good bet is to write some hot takes (slightly controversial) on how a person should raise their kids. 

Like many parents-to-be I did a cursory google search during my pregnancy “how to raise an independent child.” The first books that came up were Montessori Baby and Montessori Toddler. I bought in, hard. I read the baby version first and my mind was completely blown. Parents lament about how hard it is to care for a baby, they must not have read this book! Why, it’s so easy, you just set up a perfect environment that will instill in your baby a sense of mutual respect and suddenly they are sweeping the floor and arranging flowers! As you can probably already guess. This did not pan out quite as the book had promised. 

The thing is though, I still believe in the false hope of The Montessori Toddler. Because, you see, there is just one little change you have to make to end the nightly ritual of throwing the fork and plate onto the floor. The magical key that will unlock your problem is this: you need a placemat with clearly delineated places for the utensils, plate and cup.

I’ll be completely honest I probably would never have put this much effort into a placemat if I was not doubling dipping and using it as an opportunity to make a how-to video. It did turn out very cute though and I’m tempted to make them for the whole family.

You already know the ending to this story. The plate is still being dumped down his shirt and the fork makes it across the room before I can blink. 

Practical Boat Owner

I posted a link to this article on Practical Boat Owner (PBO) How to make your own canvas bucket a few years back and have yet to tackle it. The tab remains open in my browser and I daydream about making a bigger version and then waxing it myself with this canvas wax. Anyway, I once again found myself looking at the tab (not actually taking any action on making the bucket) when I scrolled through the whole article and found many more interesting articles!

Like this one on DIY sail repairs

PBO, specifically about boats, is the kind of publication I want to have, but for like, all aspects of life. How to repair little things around the house, how to maintain your dishwasher, how to fix your bike. You know, Practical Life Things (PLT). All this is to say I feel very inspired by PBO and resolve to find more practical things on the internet to present to you. Stay tuned.

Speaking of Practical Life Things

• Molly Wizenberg on her colonoscopy and the results, a totally honest look at one person’s bowels.

• Ask a Clean Person on how to clean your dishwasher

• Your House Machine about keeping the trash out of your car

Semi-related to practical life things: I love purging and decluttering and have only truly regretted giving away a handful of things in my lifetime. Some things I regret cleaning out

• My grommet setter kit and loads of grommets. A friend-of-a-friend donated this to my now defunct art supply thrift shop and I held onto it for a couple of years without ever using it. Now, I’m thinking of all sorts of projects that require heavy-duty grommets and feeling deep regret about taking it to the thrift store.

• A laminator that a former studiomate of mine let me borrow for literal years. I wish I had never returned it to her when I moved out of our studio. Brady - are you reading this? I will buy you dinner in exchange for your laminator.

Thank you for reading! I aim to keep most of my content free because I just want to share this random stuff with the world! However, I do have to make a living. A solid handful of faithful readers have upgraded to paid memberships and I’m forever grateful for that. If you want to join the fun and get the the benefits of paid membership (mostly, the knowledge that you are supporting a living artist / mother) click below to manage your subscription.

A few additional benefits to paid memberships:

• The Rolodex, my mega spreadsheet with all sorts of resources for artists

• All of my how-to videos like how to make hand-sewn patchwork

• Extended Sunday posts

Thanks again! See you next Sunday.

:) Bekka