All Posts By

Sarah Baldwin

Happy August!

It’s August and I’ve decided that Moon Child needs to take a little vacation. As you may know, I’ve been hard at work on upgrading Bella Luna Toys‘ website, which is turning out to be a much bigger job than I had ever imagined. My goal is to have the new site up and running by September, but I realized that in order to meet that goal, I need to devote every free moment I have during the month of August to that end. I’m excited to share the results with you, and hope you will find that it was worth the wait! There will be many new products and I think you will find the new system to be much more user-friendly with lots of cool new features.

Once that transition has taken place, I look forward to resuming regular blog posts in the fall with the new energy and vigor that the change of season brings. I will, however, be making my first post over at Simple Homeschool this month as a guest contributor, so keep an eye out for that!

Things are humming along as usual at Bella Luna Toys. I’ve been so grateful to my son Harper who has been packing and shipping all your orders this summer, as well as helping me edit photos for the new site. He’ll be holding down the fort as I head off this week to a LifeWays board retreat in California. (What will I ever do when he leaves for college in a few weeks?)

I’m looking forward to spending a week with my fellow LifeWays board members, a group of amazing, powerhouse women who have dedicated themselves to the needs of young children and their families. I’m also looking forward to gazing at the Pacific Ocean for a few days instead of my computer screen! It will be a most welcome change of scenery.

In the meantime, be sure to “friend” Bella Luna Toys on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter. I’ll keep in touch with quick updates and notices of promotions there. Most importantly, please leave comments here if there are new products and features you’d like to see added to the new site! Your suggestions are invaluable to me.

Blessings on you and your children, and hoping your August is full of play!

August 2, 2010 by Sarah Baldwin

Photographs

This Moment

{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.

July 30, 2010 by Sarah Baldwin

Art, LifeWays, Photographs, Waldorf Education

Teaching Block Crayon Drawing and Watercolor Painting

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.

July 26, 2010 by Sarah Baldwin