{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week, inspired by Amanda Soule. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment to pause, savor and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, join in over at SouleMama.

Last week, I had the pleasure of teaching several sessions to LifeWays students who had come to Maine for the east coast training. The experience allowed me to take a welcome break from the endless data entry I’ve been doing to ready the new Bella Luna Toys website. The LifeWays Child Care Training is a comprehensive training to give students the understanding and skills they need to transform themselves and their work with young children, and is inspired by Waldorf education and the insights of Rudolf Steiner. These students teach in Waldorf schools, childhood centers, pre-schools or home programs.

Among the classes I taught were crayon drawing with beeswax block crayons, and wet-on-wet watercolor painting, as practiced in Waldorf education. I had a marvelous week preparing for the class, immersing myself in form and color! With thanks to Madrona Wienges and her camera, I am able to share images of our classes with you.

In addition to the Stockmar Beeswax Crayons, Stockmar Watercolor Paint, Waldorf art supplies and the book Painting With Children which are currently available from Bella Luna Toys, I am excited to be introducing new resources for coloring and drawing when the new site goes live. Stay tuned!

Have questions about drawing or painting? Leave them here, and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Right now I am spending every free moment working on the new Bella Luna Toys website, about which I’m all aflutter. I can’t wait for you to see it! As a result, I’ve had very little time to write blog posts.

So here today, inspired by SouleMama, I am sharing Amanda’s Friday ritual. A single photo, no words, capturing a moment. (And, in this case, a sneak peek into what I’ve been working on!)

copyright Sarah Baldwin, all rights reserved

Wishing you a wonderful summer weekend full of play!

I have been hard at work for the past month on the new and improved Bella Luna Toys website (which I can’t wait to show you!). Since I currently run Bella Luna Toys single-handedly, it has been taking nearly every waking moment to input all the new products, descriptions and photos into the new system. As a result, I’ve had very little time to write as much as I’d like on the blog. I do have two exciting Giveaways planned for the next two weeks in connection with two of my favorite bloggers, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, I thought I’d share with you this lovely image of a happy Bella Luna Toys customer, playing with her Silk Streamer from Sarah’s Silks, one of our bestsellling summer items. Thank you to Cindie Y for sharing this lovely image of her beautiful daughter!

Do you have a photo of your child or children using playthings from Bella Luna Toys? Send it to support [at] bellalunatoys [dot] com for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate!

I spent today with my friend Russell Kaye, a photographer, who was helping me take new photographs of some of the wooden toys from Bella Luna Toys. We especially had fun photographing these Branch Family gnomes. Aren’t they cute?

Branch Family from Tree Blocks

More to come. Stay tuned!