prompt three - art as self care: What I did on my holidays

As my title suggests, this post is more a diary of my creative pursuits spanning the period between our weekend workshop and the moment I read this post, rather than a response to the post.  It's a bit of a cop out, but its the best anyone will get out of me during the school holidays!

I'm at home with four kids.  I believe wholeheartedly in boring the pants off them in the holidays so that they will be excited to go back to school.  I also think exploring their own minds and bodies and home and garden and relationships is the best way to recharge, so I try to model this a bit.  I also worked this week but I don't go back until after Easter now.  Easter is a lovely time in our household because there is chocolate and also all that egg decorating.

I made the curtain with the kids -we made sweet potato stamps and used screen printing ink.  It was a challenge to 'allow' them to design their own stamps but of course the end result is worth it - I let go of the arrogance that my own design would be the best, and in the end, unsurprisingly, mine is nowhere near the best.

The eggs are from a previous year.  I'm looking forward to what I will make with the years and years worth of decorated eggs sitting in boxes.

I have been wanting to make that apron for years!  Its was so satisfying to make.  I can't say the same for the top - I don't particularly like it, my body got too sore making it, I got a bit obsessed with finishing it.  

So..... Art as self care:

creating rituals, making special, understanding who I am and what I like,  show and tell, exploring boundaries, saying hello, a sensory exploration, surrounding myself in beauty, tolerating others, developing technical competencies, letting go, listening, hearing, allowing, creating my space, finding my limits, breathing, touching, feeling, inspiring, modelling, making, taking in the beauty, appreciating.  Its a different pace, and when it becomes the same pace as the rest of my life then its time to do something else.  I don't feel right if I don't do, in a completely intangible way.  But, if it doesn't work for my body it doesn't work for my mind and ceases to be caring.  It needs to be balanced, embodied.  If I sew I must dance!  Now that sounds like fun!
P.S Is there any other way to survive the school holidays?