LOCAL SPOT: Maui Children's Bookstore - now carrying Ivy & Co.!

Maui Children's Bookstore owner Amanda and I. 

There is great satisfaction when you meet someone who's vision aligns with yours. Today I had a meeting with Amanda, owner of Maui Children's Bookstore (MCB). Immediately I could tell that Amanda has the gift of friendliness and encouragement, and is a true artist, which is evident in her translation of her shop space, inventory selection, and fashion sense. (She hung my bunting way better than I did).  It was unbelievably gratifying to be in the space and talk with her! Here are a few reasons why:

1. She owns a bookstore! 
Those are rare these days, and I know that's why the masses are rallying around Amanda and her shop. Literacy is so important to development, and it's essential that kids never lose the chance to turn the pages of their favorite books. She shares a storefront with the well-established Maui Thing, and it's been so neat to see that partnership develop. MCB carries a handpicked selection of new books including children’s literary classics and contemporary stories for babies to tweens. I noticed some great renditions of Alice in Wonderland and Pride & Prejudice!

"We aim to spark wonder and deep appreciation for the beauty of books, story and language."

Photo courtesy of Maui Children's Bookstore.

Ivy & Koa checking out all the fun toys. 

2. She is family-oriented, which I've noticed is central to the mission with MCB. After all, this is a CHILDREN'S bookstore. Check out her latest blog post to see all members of her family working to get MCB up and running. Prior to securing the location within Maui Thing, Amanda facilitated pop-up shops around the island, with an emphasis on story time and healthy snacks for the whole family. Her husband and son seem to always be helping out and actively participating in MCB's activities. They both popped in during our meeting. Later on Ivy showed up, so Amanda got to meet part of my family too. 

Aside from books, MCB carries children's clothing, baby products, eco-friendly educational toys, and art work.

3. She likes Ivy & Co.! 
She gave me one of the biggest compliments I've received in a long time: she loves my fabric choices and the way I put them together. You see, I've always been a performing artist. Since Ivy & Co. (sewing & furniture restoration) came about in 2011, it's been interesting to watch my creativity morph into something new. It's a little bit of an insecurity to put myself out there in this way (I'd be more comfortable dancing onstage in a flashy costume!), but now this aspect of artistry is being validated by these shop owners who are carrying Ivy & Co. 

If you can't tell, I'm elated about this working relationship with Maui Children's Bookstore. 

If you're on Maui, pop on by: 

Maui Children's Bookstore

7 N. Market St. 

Wailuku, HI 96793

(Shared space with Maui Thing)

Follow MCB on Facebook

Follow MCB on Instagram

www.mauichildrensbookstoreandcafe.com

"Through books, through play, through sweet classes and tea.  I want you to know that we're going to do our best to create an environment that begs to be filled with heart-synched moments like these."

-Amanda, from the blog post "At the heart of it all"

Don't forget to draw something on the chalkboard while you're there!

Aloha, Rebecca

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DIY Mermaid Costume & picking grandma's flowers

So this post is about a year overdue. Last year for Halloween, Ivy was a mermaid.  I don't know how much of a DIY this will actually be, because I made this costume so long ago! Let me try to jog my memory… 

Basically I bought purple clearance fabric and made a tube top with elastic and some pleats. I used a peach-colored elastic headband to make a little halter strap. I used my seaweed ribbon and a real starfish from the year before's costume (see the Starfish costume here). For the skirt/mermaid fin, I measured Ivy's waist and cut out a maxi style skirt out of the scalloped fabric, a little wider than her waist and added elastic to the waist. I made the bottom edge come to a point in the middle. Then I used the blue/green batik fabric to make fins (8 panels to make 4 panels - 2 fins on the front, 2 on the back.) I sewed giant sparkly green rik rak on the front 2 fins, then sewed them all to the pointed edges of the skirt. 

PROBLEM: kids can't walk in mermaid fins

To solve this problem, I made a slit up the back of the skirt/mermaid fin. Then I added snaps on the side of the fin and skirt, so it could be hiked up. Oila! She can walk!

Our ritual each year is to go to the beach in front of my grandma's condo and take pictures of Ivy in her Halloween costume. It's actually not my grandma's condo anymore. She passed away a few years ago when Ivy was about 2. I remember going to show my grandma my Halloween costume every year growing up, and it seemed to bring her so much joy. She loved seeing the grandkids all dressed up. Every time I take Ivy, I remind her about who her "G-Gma" was and that this was where she lived and talk about how special she was. She and my grandpa's ashes are spread in the ocean right where Ivy is looking. 

What was crazy on last year's trip to the condo is that Ivy stopped on the sidewalk exactly in front of my grandma's condo and picked a flower for me. I couldn't believe it! She had no idea that she was exactly in front of G-Gma's condo, (it's been remodeled by the new owners), but also, I picked flowers from that same bush for 20+ years, and gave them to my grandma. 

I don't know what Ivy is going to be this year… we are on a different island now, but will have a chance in mid-October to go visit my grandma's beach. I better get my act together and make a costume! (And hopefully it's beach-themed again, haha). 

This girl makes it too easy to take pictures! She's just up for anything. Don't you love the starfish head band? A friend of mine saw I was making a mermaid costume, and said she had the PERFECT head band for it. Pearls and starfish. I love it!

If you have more questions as to how to make this costume, feel free to comment or email me. 

Sorry the DIY part of this post is pretty lame… haha. 

Aloha, Becca

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Custom Orders & Projects

I've been busy. But good busy, not bad busy. I've really been pushing to make my Etsy shop thrive and taking steps to make "Ivy & Co" grow in general. I've had a ton of requests for custom orders, and then there's always those special presents I make for friends. 

A friend from the East Coast contacted me about making an apron for her 4 year old daughter. She had one request: purple. Ironically, that's one color I barely ever buy. But I knew she'd give me the liberty to get creative, so out came this apron and matching head band. The vintage fabric had the slightest bit of lavender in it!

I love the color of the felt heart, the yellow pom pom fringe, and I must say, this looked awesome in the packaging. I love when random things like packaging make me happy!

My good friend Katie was heading inter-island to visit her niece and new nephew and gave me some zebra print and pink fabrics. She said she wanted a baby soft block, a head band and a blankie. I've never done any sort of blankie/lovey thing, but here's what transpired. 

Ivy's little friend was turning 4 last month and I whipped up this apron. Ivy insisted that I make a rag for the pocket (that polka dotted fabric in the pocket). But she told me, "it needs to be a rag for dancing, not a rag for cleaning." Let me explain... 

 I first made this style of apron for my dance company, (Ampersand Dance Company), to wear about a year and a half ago. It was for a piece where we were a sort of "desperatehousewives/maids/meangirls" character. I custom made cleaning rags for the dance and we danced with them, threw them at each other, dabbed our make-up, etc. Ivy's seen the dance a million times, so now she thinks cleaning rags are for dancing, especially when you're wearing the heart pocket/pom pom apron. 

Pardon the messy backstage area. All in all, I really need to just call this the Ampersand Apron already. Oh, and you can read my Peter Pan Collar tutorial here.

Next up were two custom baby bundles for twins! A boy and a girl. This was such a fun project. I had the blue/grey scallop print, and I knew Sew Special carried it in pink, and I thought it would be perfect for a twin bro and sis! Ironically my 2 new fox fabrics matched perfectly. 

I just started carrying baby bundles in my Etsy Shop! They come with mini-bunting, a baby soft block, a burp cloth and three matching clothes pins.

I love when my friend Jamie calls on me for projects. She owns Sophie Grace Designs, an adorable jewelry boutique. She uses semi-precious stones, recycled coral, freshwater pearls, and a variety of metals. Her jewelry has landed in the Sports Illustrated 2013 & 2014 swimsuit edition the past two years! Whenever I wear her designs, I get so many compliments. 

So my first project for her was 3 grey polyester table cloths and white suede squares for a poolside location. I ended up making 10 more of them for all the other vendors in the area…!

As we were finishing putting all the table cloths on, she brought me back to her section and inquired about me making 3 earring displays. She wanted them light colored as to make the earrings stand out, and heavy enough to hold up against wind, but not bulky.

Those are the Tusk Earrings. One of my students actually gave them to me as a gift. Aren't they awesome?! Seriously, go check out her website: www.sophiegracemaui.com. If you're local, her main shop is in Paia right on Baldwin Avenue. Browse around. Tell her I sent you. Here's the direct link to these earrings: http://www.sophiegracemaui.com/jillian-earrings.html

With a few art canvases, some fabric, hinges, and a little help from my dad, (I just need to learn how to use a table saw already), I got them done and they're ready for pick up! 

On top of all this I finally finished my Line Sheet for people interested in purchasing my products wholesale. That was a big accomplishment, because now I can venture out to having Ivy & Co products in shops across the world. Ok, maybe not the whole world, yet, but you know what I mean. (Send me an email if you are interested in carrying Ivy & Co.)

So that's what I've been up to. Busy, but fun busy. 

Oh, and have you seen my new head band "model shots" in the Etsy Shop? Let's just say my professional photo shoot got rained out, so my impatience got the best of me, and I made Kit do a photo shoot with me in our dining room. Hahahahaha.

Aloha, Rebecca

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Teaching Memory Verses to Pre-Schoolers

In my first month of blogging, over 2 years ago, when Ivy was just 2 years old, I talked about teaching her to recite the Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness & self-control. (You can read that post here). That was the catalyst to where we are today. She's now 4 years old and learning her 10th Bible Verse. 

A couple of weeks ago (when we were only on 9 verses) I wrote them out on flash cards, because she's starting to recognize more sight words and bigger numbers (past 10), so I wanted that educational aspect of learning to correlate with our biblical learning. But, flash cards is not how we learned these verses. 

Most of the verses I am teaching Ivy are verses I had learned as a kid, mainly from growing up in the AWANA program at Hope Chapel Kihei. Also, my mom kept a couple copies of the "Four Spiritual Laws" in the console of her car, and whenever I would be waiting on her, I'd pick it up and start memorizing the verses, because that's what I always heard you were supposed to do with that little yellow book. Memorize it! You never know when someone is gonna come asking you how to get saved! (I'm not even joking… this was/is my thought process.)

Every kid is different, but here's the steps we took with Ivy in memorization:

1. Pick a specific time of the day to learn and review the verses with your child. 

It worked best as part of Ivy's bedtime routine. Maybe for your kid it could be after dinner, or as soon as they wake up or while driving in the car or even while they're in the bathtub. Whenever it is, do it at the same time every day.

2. You need to have it memorized, before they can have it memorized. 

You and your child will have most success if you memorize the verse first.You're going to be repeating it over and over for them, in a variety of ways. And some days, they won't feel like saying it at all, so you might as well memorize it right off the bat. 

3. Teach each verse in segments. 

For the Fruit of the Spirit, I taught her the first 2 (love, joy) one night, then added in the 3rd and 4th the next night (peace, patience), then the next night taught her how kindness and goodness both ended in "ness", then the next night told her how faithFUL and genTLE had the same "UL" ending, and then finally finished with self-control. We stuck with this verse for a week or two. I didn't even add in "But the fruit of the Spirit is" or "against such there is no law" until later. For each of the verses you see in this post, pay attention to when the verse goes to the next line. These are good groupings to teach them in segments. (i.e.: teach line 1, then line 2, etc).

4. Repetition is key.

Say the first line, then have your child repeat after you. For the following verse, I would have Ivy repeat "I can" after me 3 or 4 times, before moving on to "do all things" and repeating that 3 or 4 times, then repeating "I can do all things" a bunch, then add "through Christ" and so on. Repeat. Repeat again and again. Combine. Repeat. 

5. Teach the Verse Address.

"1 Corinthians 11:1" may sound like a mouthful for a pre-schooler, but if you don't teach the reference now, it's way harder to teach it later. It's also helping to teach them numbers. I screwed up and taught Ivy the following verse as "2 Corinthians 10:1" for like 6 months, and then I realized I was wrong, and it's taken quite a few weeks to re-teach Ivy, and she still says it the wrong way most nights. :( My bad!

6. Some days you'll be the only one saying the verse.
There were some nights where Ivy just didn't feel like saying the verses. Of course I tried to encourage her to do so, but in the end she would just ask me to say them. So I did. Happily. I never wanted it to become something negative. After all, this is God's Word! And it's okay for her to hear it being said, even if she's not the one saying it. That's still helping her learn.

7. It's okay to simplify for kids.
I'm not trying to push for a new kids version of the Bible or anything, but sometimes you can let words go… like "hath," or "yet" or repeating "might" a million times. Believe me, I took many courses in New Testament and Old Testament and have listened to countless teachings on the importance over which translation is most accurate, most inspired, most understandable and I respect all the research being done to try to find the purist form of God's Word. But just like you would bring over a stool for your child to reach something up high, sometimes you have to make adjustments to make these verses accessible to your children. For example, the following verse actually reads: "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom." Our version isn't too different, but a little less wordy.

8. At this age it's about memorization, not meaning.

Again, don't start a debate with me on this. Of course the meaning is ESSENTIAL. It's why we teach our kids Bible verses! But, some things they just won't understand until they are older. Sure, I explained the word "abundantly" to Ivy, but she would be bored out of her mind if I forcefully explained the entire verse in detail, the way I would to an adult. My goal is that these verses are being "written on her heart" so that when she is older, she will remember them and things will start to click, just like they did for me. I memorized the following verse when I was 5 years old and have never forgotten it. And how cool did I feel for being able to say a word like "abundantly" at that age?! 

9. Spend at least a week or two on learning a verse before moving on to a new verse.

Ivy can say the first 8 verses listed in this post, and we've been working on #9 for about 4 weeks now. She always remembers the last part of #9 "it is the gift of God." Remember, I started the Fruit of the Spirit over 2 years ago, and we are just starting our 9th verse… it takes time and repetition. The older she gets (she's 4 1/2), the easier it is to teach new verses, but I'm in no rush. Neither is she. 

10. Recite each verse, in order, every day. 
This goes for all the verses you've learned (not the ones you haven't learned yet). Prompts are okay. For example, all I say is "And it shall" and Ivy will be able to finish the rest of Acts 2:21 on her own.

11. Choose the verses you want your child to learn.

I chose these 10 verses for a few reasons: either I knew them myself, or my husband knew them, or I felt like they were important yet simple/short enough for her to grasp, or I heard them in church and quickly wrote them down because I liked them and wanted to teach them to her. You can totally use the verses I use (they're tried and true for us) or make up your own. 

Let me know if you have any questions about this. It's been super rewarding for us to do with Ivy. We live in a world where our religious freedom and freedom of speech is slowly being taken away, and I wouldn't doubt that in our kids' lifetime the Bible will be somewhat inaccessible. In preparation, I want God's Word written on Ivy's heart, so that it will be with her always. 

Aloha, Rebecca

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11 Things To Do With Your Little Girl (part 3)

Finally, my final installation of:

"11 Things To Do With Your Little Girl."

 (To read Part 1, click here.)
 (To read Part 2, click here.)

I started this series back in September and October, and those holidays sure crept up on me! I even had to get through Valentine's Day just to get part 3 out!


If you've been following along, you know that I just think life with my daughter Ivy (age 3) gets better each day. Infancy was a little hard on me, and motherhood in general took some figuring out. I had to figure out what Ivy likes, and to figure out what I like in this role called "mom."

So here's #8, #9, #10 and #11 of things we do together:

Sometimes you just have to get out the cups and saucers, fill those miniature carafes with water, sit in a too-small chair, and have some tea with your daughter. Last spring I re-finished a kids Pottery Barn table and chair set, (see that post here), which gave me a great excuse to take it outside and use it in its full glory. My daughter was in 7th heaven, holding those little cups to her stuffed animals' mouths and pouring me "tea" every 30 seconds, watching me sip it. It was just me, Ivy, and our best manners. (Oh, and grandpa popped in for a bit). Such a sweet memory and so simple to do.

Throughout my pregnancy the smell of coffee made me vomit (literally). Within weeks of giving birth, I started drinking coffee again, especially since Ivy refused to sleep longer than 2 hours, night and day (until I made her cry it out at 10 months old). Getting coffee at Starbucks has always been a fun treat for me. As soon as I was mobile with Ivy, I started hauling her in the infant seat and enjoying a few nice moments at Starbucks with her, before she'd cry or need a diaper change or something. As she got older, started eating solid food, began to walk and such, I'd order her an organic chocolate milk and a muffin or croissant. At first she wanted to climb around (or worse, run around by those stacks of ceramic mugs!) but with some patience, practice and sometimes having to leave earlier than I would have liked, I trained her to sit there and "have coffee" with me. Just because I'm a mom now, doesn't mean I have to sacrifice those simple pleasures. But I did have to figure out how to still make it enjoyable-- for all parties involved. It is now even more enjoyable sharing "a cup of coffee" with my precious daughter. She loves it and looks forward to those mornings where I say, "You wanna go to Starbucks?"

I like to paint furniture and sew bunting. That's why I started this blog. My husband also likes to paint, and is also an amazing painter on canvas. The first thing Ivy does when Kit or I go out to the work tent to paint is say, "I wanna paint! What can I paint with?" I'll be honest, my first response is not always, "Ok great! Help me paint, Ivy!" It's usually more like, "Ivy, this is something mommy needs to paint, can you find something else to play with?" That response doesn't go over well at all. So I keep a few "projects" handy that Ivy can "help" with. For example, when I go to garage sales, I pick up old acrylics, paint brushes and wooden shelves, etc., so Ivy can feel like she's painting something like mommy. We have a gravel driveway and Ivy LOVES to paint the tiny rocks. I had a bunch of pumpkins left over from her Cinderella Birthday Party (see that post here) and one day she helped me paint them. It's pretty much a 100% chance (50% Kit + 50% Becca) that Ivy will be artistic. We might as well foster the creativity now! 

I might be cheating a little with this one... I choreograph 4-5 days a week at home before I head to work at the dance studio. So Ivy has no choice but to watch me move around our tiny cottage creating dances to teach to kids and adults. But sometimes, I have to stop choreographing with purpose, turn my eyes toward Ivy, take her hands, and dance with her. Especially when she says to me, "Mommy, dance with me!" Many evenings after dinner, instead of flipping on the television, we turn on some music and tell Ivy to dance. She may request some sample moves from Kit and I (yes, Kit), but soon gets on a roll herself. And, contrary to common belief, you don't have to play those overdone nursery songs to get a kid to dance. The other day I was playing the most Indie/Singer/Songwriter/Emo mash of music for work and Ivy kept telling me to play it again and again. Kit loves reggae. She dances to that. I love Christian worship music. She dances to that. I play hip hop for work. She dances to all of it. 

And that concludes "11 Things To Do With Your Little Girl." Hope you're able to take a little of this information and be inspired with new ways to spend time with your sweet daughter. 

Aloha, Rebecca

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