Now that we're all over our jet lag and getting back into the regular swing of things I'm trying to come up with fun activities to keep the kids occupied for the rest of the Summer break.
One thing that we did last Summer that we all enjoyed was decorating ceramic plates at Brushstrokes Studio here in Berkeley. The girls had a great time decorating their plates and were really pleased with how they looked after being glazed and fired. I thought it would be a nice idea to visit Brushstrokes Studio every Summer and decorate another plate. That way the girls will end up with a nice little collection of their very own hand-painted plates.
We headed down to Brushstrokes Studios earlier this week to get creative. Unfortunately they were out of stock of the plates that we decorated last time. I was pretty keen for the girls' to stick to the same kind of plates as last time but I also didn't want them to leave empty handed, so to speak, seeing as we'd spent quite a while walking there. So we decided to paint something different this time around and paint the plates another day. The girls checked out the large assortment of blank ceramic items available and settled on painting espresso cups with matching saucers. We drank a lot of babyccinos while were were in Australia recently and the girls are keen to have them at home as well. Espresso cups are just the right size and we don't happen to have any at home, so that worked out pretty perfectly.
After discussing design ideas and colors, the girls got to work with the paint.
Lola painted a big happy sun on her saucer and a rainbow on her cup.
Ava painted a picture of herself drinking a hot chocolate on her saucer and a picture of Cookie Monster eating cookies on the cup. She thought it was funny that the saucer will hold cookies but features a hot drink, while the cup will hold a hot drink but features cookies! Kind of role reversal there!
Last year I stamped Mathilde's tiny footprint into the centre of her plate and painted tiny hearts around the outside. This year I figured she could try and paint something herself. I chose the colors for her, gave her a paint brush, and then got as far out of the way as I could while still holding her on my lap!
Doesn't it look like Mathilde has a lot of hair in that last shot? It's actually the end of my ponytail but it seems to match her hair color pretty well!
Anyway, not surprisingly, Mathile grew tired of painting after not too long so she moved onto playing with the contents of a toy box provided at Brushstrokes for just this very purpose. She found a toy dog and surprised us all by making it say "woof" over and over. So cute!
Ok, back to ceramics...
Oh, and this next photo has nothing to do with ceramics, it's just a funny car we found around the corner from the studio! Lola thought it was fantastic and was keen to look inside it. She couldn't work out which end was the front!
What a nice day - that sounds like so much fun. Last time we were home we went glass-blowing and we enjoyed that too. Wish there was a 'Brushstrokes' over here. I have heard about some place one can go and do pottery, but have not found it yet. PS. Love the hairdos!!
ReplyDeleteThe kids love going to Brushstrokes. It's such a great place. I figured there must be somewhere like it in Adelaide but my googling didn't come up with much for you. Just a place called Pug Mill in Mile End that sells supplies and may have a drop in studio or classes (their website says it's coming soon but hasn't been updated since before Christmas). Otherwise there's Plaster Fun House on Brighton Rd but that's plaster and their stuff is pretty tacky. Maybe there's a business opportunity there for you!
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