Crayons - the muffin remix

If you've never tried this, give it a go, its fun and makes you feel really thrifty.  We have a lovely set of Stockmar Beeswax crayons for 'best' which are great, but we also have amassed quite a collection of basic wax crayons from activity packs, restaurants, planes etc.  When these wax crayons break we snap them up into little bits, put them into the mini muffin tin, and put them in the oven at 275F for about 8-10 mins.

Then you leave them to cool and pop them out and you have a whole new set of multi-coloured round crayons.

Haven't tried it with the beeswax crayons but I suspect it would also work equally well with them.  The only thing I have discovered is that some of the really cheapy crayons don't seem to melt too well, so we have had lumps in the past, but this lot came out just fine.

Sally forth to Steveston

Happy Victoria Day!  We headed out to Steveston, a fishing village in Richmond, for a spot of cycling along the South Dyke trail, some fish-shopping (straight off the boats) and of course, some play.

 
 
  
  

There is a fair amount of history (for Canada!) along the South Dyke trail, with a heritage farm and shipyard you can visit, though we didn't on this occasion.  The most interesting heritage find was, however, Finn Slough, a tiny fishing settlement along a backwater, so called because its original settlers were Finnish.  Now 30 people live in little houses raised above the water on stilts, reached by a weathered looking wooden bridge.

Funny how real life can make you think of art.  These little houses reminded me of some art that can currently be seen in downtown Vancouver by Ken Lum, an offsite project by the Vancouver Art Gallery.  

Here's what the art gallery has to say about the work:

For his sculptural installation from shangri-la to shangri-la at Vancouver Art Gallery Offsite, artist Ken Lum constructs scale replicas of three squatter’s shacks from North Vancouver’s Maplewood Mudflats settlement. Lum recreates the cabins of renowned writer Malcolm Lowry, artist Tom Burrows and Greenpeace leader Dr. Paul Spong. Propped up on stilts over the surface of the Offsite reflecting pool, the huts strike a sharp contrast with the surrounding downtown architecture. Located at the foot of the Shangri-La Hotel, Vancouver’s tallest building, these structures evoke the character of the mudflat community and draw attention to the advance of urban development in the Lower Mainland.

 
  

Scenes from a Festival

  More buggies than in Mothercare, clean toilets and baby change stations, no alcohol and several strategically placed toy shops, it can only be a festival designed for families, the Children's Festival to be precise, an annual event taking place in Vanier Park, Kitsilano.  We went to see The National Acrobats of Taiwan, and very impressive they were too, particularly the man who performed tricks on the top of a vertical stack of chairs, balanced on 4 champagne bottles, balanced on a high stand.  My stomach was flipping.  

Oh what's this?  Playing around with the new camera and its 'colour select' function?  That'll be it, and fun it is too.

Good fun.  We'll be back next year, and I've got my eye on checking out some puppetry when Boo is old enough to sit still and listen through a show.
 
 
 
 
 
   

Book of the Week: 'Paulina P. (for Peterson) by Lisa Cinar

When I was recently taking a 'Childrens Book Workshop' at UBC, the editor from Simply Read Books came in and brought a selection of books from his catalogue, and this was one of them, which I picked out to subsequently borrow from the library.  Their catalogue is really worth checking out, the books are are real quality and beautifully designed from what I have seen.

Paulina P. is written and illustrated by Vancouver author/illustrator Lisa Cinar, who has an excellent website and also a blog about childrens book illustration from which I have already learnt quite a lot about significant illustrators.

Paulina P. is a grey cat-like character with red hair and a spotty body.  She loves things that start with P and cannot comprehend the obsessions of others, such as her friend Penny Lee who loves hearts.  Cinar's work involves bold crayon lines, scanned patterns, and photographic collage, as well as some elements that are clearly computer-generated.  The rhyming text is fun, with all the 'p's being printed in different colours, as well as there being the use of comic-strip like speech bubbles.  I love the eclectic use of media and the dynamism of all the pages.  The drawings are child-like which I suspect is a much harder thing to achieve than it appears, and, whilst I find the crayon lines a little heavy at times, there is real energy in the work which I find exciting.  Over the course of the book Paulina comes to a level of acceptance of people's differences and develops greater tolerance for the predelictions of others such as her friend Penny.  A wise life lesson told in a fun way.  
 

I Heart Seawall

Ok, this isn't really a trail, but it is the most popular walkway in Vancouver; the Seawall around Stanley Park, which is, I read today, the largest urban park in N. America.  It seems to me that much of the park's uniqueness is not solely due to its size but also to its 'wildness'.  Much of the park is old forest, with only trails intersecting through it, which are usually pretty quiet.  You can't really say the same thing about the seawall, which is as close as things get to busy around here.  I have cycled the 10km perimeter a couple of times, but have never previously walked it, but I really wanted to do so in order to take in everything at a slower pace.  So we loaded up the buggy, Boo got going on the snacks, and we headed out from our starting point just across from Coal Harbour.

Before long we reach tourist central the The Totem Poles, and we were searching for bears, as ever.  On the totem poles that is, there are only real bears on the north shore.

Then we got our first glimpse of the north shore.  The tower blocks are downtown Lonsdale, and we live off in the distance, in the valley between the two mountains visible here.

Round the first of two little lighthouses...

... round to the 'Girl in the Wet suit' sculpture and a dragon which had a former life on a Japanese ship.  Boo said the dragon was a 'green bear' unsurprisingly, her obsession with bears continuing unabated.

We trotted along under Lions Gate Bridge (or Bear Bridge 1 as it is known in our household, Bear Bridge II being Second Narrows of course).

That's Grouse Mountain in the distance.

Marching a bit now as the tourist sights dwindle a bit beyond the bridge, and Boo was beginning to lose interest, we continued on to Siwash Rock.

On the rocks around the next corner, we saw literally hundreds of purple sea stars.  We couldn't get down to them with the buggy, and most of them were just too far away for the little canon, but here's a couple of them.

Round about Third Beach, we came across a spot of stone yoga  which I understand is the work of one Kent Avery.

Third Beach is a great spot to chill out...

...but we were headed for the sights and sounds of Second Beach.

Finally, we scooted around Lost Lagoon,

before getting our last glimpse of the north shore mountains, and getting back in the car to head back over the bridge in their direction.

 

  

Hearts 'n' Stars

Many months ago, Boo and I made some salt dough shapes using heart and start-shaped cutters.  In a recent attempt to clear my closet of unfinished projects, I finally painted them and strung them onto a piece of bamboo with ribbon, to make a hanging for Boo's room.  Not sure how it ended up being quite so girly with the pink and purple, but she likes it.

 
  

Catching up...

Well, my camera finally decided to give up the ghost last week, so I couldn't record our two great cycle ride/walks up the Seymour Valley Trailway and the Old Growth Trail in the glorious sunshine, which was just beautiful.

Neither do I unfortunately have any pics of our experience of this year's Sun Run   , which Dadda Boo took part in for the first time.

Looking at this pic of the 51,000 runners, I'm still pretty amazed that we managed to spot Dadda Boo at the end without the use of any mobile devices!

The sun is back and I'm falling in love with the city and the mountains all over again.  It's hard to think of anywhere better in the world than Vancouver in the spring and summer.

Dadda Boo bought a dinky little Canon powershot so we should be resuming normal service on the blog now, and there may even be some movies once I've figured out how to make them.  Its just perfect for trail walking too.  Me, I'm starting to check our some DSLRs for a future date. Mmmmm.