issue six | Summer 2015

be creative . be free . be together

parent tribe

the re-launch edition brings inspiration from other creative parents including

budget family travel, a crafty throw tutorial, tips on being human + more...

Let’s go fly a kiteUp to the highest height!Let’s go fly a kite and send it soaringUp through the atmosphereUp where the air is clearOh, let’s go fly a kite!

Instagram Photo by @charlieb_eattheearth

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Family Travel

Budget Spanish Family Adventures - 12

LearningLearning Anywhere and Anytime - PRINT ONLY

Holistic ParentingA Family Blessing - 28

Tips for Being Human - PRINT ONLY

Family StoriesThe Barras family from Sheffield - 18

Food

Herb & Wild Garlic Pesto - PRINT ONLY

Home BusinessWorking from Home - PRINT ONLY

CreativityThe Creative family - 30

Motherhood Poem - 16

Family Fun at a Nature Reserve - 22

A Handmade Tweedy Throw Tutorial - 8

contents

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I’ve had a year off from Parent Tribe magazine and I did really need that year. I have been lucky to have some time to enjoy my littlies after my second child, settle into our new location and find my new ‘tribe’. This time I found it hard getting back into ‘work mode’ and have had to really think what I wanted to do with my business going forward.

One day during our trip to Barcelona, I was taking some time to ponder what I’d like to do and it suddenly dawned on me I missed Parent Tribe Magazine. I missed creating it, but also all the inspiration I got from it and all the lovely people and friendships I have made with other like-minded parents around the world.

I decided that day to start it up again, I then found a very positive response to that decision and found some fabulous contributors in no time! I hope that you all get as much inspiration and love that I get from magazine.

Big love Hatti x

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the wonderful Parents who have contributed to this edition are:

Ross Mountneyrossmountney.wordpress.com

Clare Cooperfacebook.com/MilestonesOfMotherhoodBook

Jenny Podorozhnayahumanpotentialengineering.co.uk/blog

Helen Kitchenbrandhelenkichenbrandphotography.com

Veronika Robinsonveronikarobinson.com

Charlotte Daviescharlottedavies.com

Suzy Saunderssunnybrowfarm.co.uk

Anna Dove

dottydovesdesigns.co.uk

In our autumn edition we are going to focus on

Exploringwhat does your family enjoy

exploring?

send your answers with a family photo to hatti@parenttribe.net

articles and artwork also welcome to do with exploring the world, food, creativity or anything else!?

Perfect to brighten up a sofa ...or simply ready to picnic on!

With a house full of children and a new sofa, I set out with the brief of making a beautiful throw that would save the sofa from the rough and tumble of family life. Which would not only providing a splash of colour and a fabulous variety of texture, but also bringing together all the colours from the plethora of cushions that scatter the sofas.

There’s a simplicity in this though and the technique of putting together a range of fabrics into a fabulous patchwork throw is straight forward. If you can sew in a straight line, then you too can put together a unique throw for your sofa, to cover your bed, or a simple blanket to snuggle up on for a picnic in the summer. The first thing (and one of my favourite bits of the whole project!) is to gather together all the little pieces of fabric that you want to use in your masterpiece. You can use this as a fun way of using up little pieces

A Handmade Tweedy Throw

of treasured fabrics that you have stashed away, or simply go out shopping for fabrics that you just love (I love to scout second hand shops for some really lovely vintage and eclectic finds).

After you have sourced all your little pieces though, you then need to chop and snip it into squares or rectangles that are useable (maybe size them 15cm by 20cm but you can be flexible here) and then all you need to do is to lay them out into strips the length of your throw. The huge one there are pictures of here is over 2m long and 1.8m wide (it covers a king size bed –so as you can imagine, it was very heavy putting through the machine!), but yours need not be so big!

The next step is to pin the pieces together forming strips, and then sew them piece by piece with a straight stitch. This will form long strips of fabric. After which you iron the seams flat, over stitch each seam with a large zig zag (or other fancy, decorative stitch of your choice) and then sew the strips together (with right sides facing) forming the front piece of your throw. Next, you need

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to lay it out on a flat surface (I use the floor!) and then cut out some strips of fabric that will form the edging. Sew these on with right sides facing (I like to put the sides on first and then the top and bottom pieces on last of all) and then, all you need to do is sew on your backing piece of fabric with outside pieces facing (I like to use a vintage piece of fabric if I can find one) give it a good old iron, and Bobs your uncle! A completed and unique throw or blanket – ready to drape on a sofa, or laze on with a lovely summer picnic.

If you don’t fancy having a go at sewing up one of these for yourself, then they can be made to order, to your specifications by me (dottydovesdesigns.co.uk) made in tweed or another, lovely fabric of your choice. Having just decorated my Little Dot’s bedroom, another patchwork project that I might pick up at a quiet time will be to use their old dresses and tops etc that they wore when they were little. Cut them up into useable pieces (or patches) to sew into a pair of lovely throws for their new hand painted beds...all ready to be used as picnic blankets, or dens... or whatever their creative little minds may want them to be!

Enjoy your crafting and if you do have a go, and want to share your makes with me, you can share your makes on my facebook page, or pop me an email – It’s always great to see interpretations on a theme!

Anna

www.dottydovesdesigns.co.ukwww.fb.com/dottydovesdesigns

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Living in another culture, or experiencing them with our children has always been a dream for my partner and I. We almost moved to Australia last year, but having just had my second baby, the timing wasn’t right. Looking back the opportunity wasn’t right either and we were just rushing into things. Anyway, things always have a funny way of working out and our current situation has enabled us to have much more family time and we are living in the heart of The Lake District, which is just a beautiful part of the world. The situation we are in, with my husband joining his familiy’s business and us living within the hotel premises has also given us the opportunities to go away more, as we have more disposable income and more family around to look after our dog! After the anti-climax of not moving away last year, we soon found ourselves looking for an adventure, so with limited budget and two small children, we set out searching for alternative ways to do this. We love Spanish culture and have since been on two amazing adventures, where we have met some inspiring people and delved into Spanish culture with our children. Here is how...

Budget Spanish Family AdventuresWords by Hatti Burt

WorkawayIf you haven’t already , check out the website workaway.com. You basically exchange work for food and board and there are opportunities all over the world. We found it a little harder to find somewhere that would take us with our two young kids, as with Felix being only 8 months old, I wasn’t able to do a lot of work. If you search through, you can find family friendly opportunities.

We found a British family who had sold their house and business and bought 26 acres of land in the mountains in Spain. They didn’t actually need us to do much work and were just really happy for us to be there and experience the lifestyle, so we spent the days exploring with them and their two children, harvesting almonds and collecting firewood. We were really lucky as their children were the same age as our eldest and they just played outside all day long. We hardly saw Jude the whole week, he had so much fun. We stayed in a caravan outside their house and ate all our meals with them. It was a great experience for us all.

House SittingThere are many websites where you can find house sitting opportunities, but if like us, you have friends abroad, you might be lucky if they decide to go away for a few weeks and need someone to look after their place. That’s what we did, we stayed in our friends flat and took care of the one they rent out on Air B&B in the centre of Barcelona.

We love Barcelona and have visited it every year for the past 3 years. I think we’d move there if we didn’t have the kids, but although we had a great time, it’s not somewhere we’d want to live with our children. Whilst there though we immersed ourself in the Catalan culture, visited parks and festivals, the beach, the local markets and ate lots of nice food.

The only downside was house sitting with an adventurous toddler. We were constantly on our toes, making sure he wasn’t climbing over the 4th floor balcony, or pulling breakable or dangerous things out of cupboards! And the lack of high chairs in Barcelona made meals times interesting. All great fun though, but just something to consider. Maybe it would be more suited to families with older children, although I would do it all again!

How would you like to relax with a cuppa and a real copy of Parent Tribe Magazine in your hands?

20 more pages with some inspiring articles to read!

Buy Parent Tribe Magazine here

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Young mother in the fabric souq by K. Grossman

Motherhood

Six months agoI first put on

my mother hood.It felt strange at first,

weighing heavyon my head

and on my shoulders.I worried how it looked

to others.Did I wear it right?

Gradually,I felt more

and cared less.I caught my reflection

in my daughter’s eyeIt looked good.Six months ago

I first put onmy mother hood

It suits me.I forget what I looked like

without it.

by Jessica Starr

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Three words to describe how you feel about your lifestyle?

Fulfilled, lucky and blessed!

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lifestyle and philosophy We began our home educating journey when we took our eldest three children then aged 9, 7 and 6, out of school at the end of 2007. We had read an article in a Sunday paper about a dad home educating his youngest daughter and straight away my husband said “we could do that!”. Our children weren’t unhappy at school, but they were always tired and there was always so much homework- reading, maths and spellings, that they never felt they had enough time to play. We always did lots of activities and visited lots of places with our children, so home educating didn’t feel like it would be so much different to what we had always done. Our family thought we were crazy, but we did it anyway. Our youngest son Ruben was 4 and still attending nursery but he wasn’t happy there and one day asked if he could do school at home too. So we never looked back.

We’ve been pretty much autonomous, with bits of workbooks, worksheets, projects and use of some learning websites like IXL, but we prefer to pursue the children’s own interests rather than force them towards something they don’t enjoy. Our eldest son Bailey decided to take an online GCSE English and Maths course after attending the Britannia Games Festival at Sheffield Hallam University. He decided he wanted to do an Interactive Media and Video Games Design course at Sheffield College and with his two B’s from the GCSE courses got a place straight away. He is very happy at college but we do miss him!

I’m not sure what lies ahead for the girls and Ruben, not sure if we will go down the GCSE road yet as their not sure what path they’d like to take so we continue to be interest-led. We like to visit lots of places and find learning things in real life much more fun than in books.

Zoe Barras (34), her partner James (36) and their children Bailey (16), Piper (14), Cordelia (13) and Ruben (11), live in Sheffield and share their story about entering into home education.

Family stories

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Do you work at Home?I’ve always been a stay at home parent, but James left his job in insurance two years ago to run our Ebay shop. It’s been fantastic because we have much more freedom and flexibility to be able to travel and spend more time as a family. It’s been great to have him around more, especially now we have three teenagers in the house who all want to be off doing different things. Much easier with two adults!

How we make it workWe try and strike a balance somewhere between allowing our children the freedom to be who they want to be, but occasionally we do projects/written work or sometimes we encourage a break from screen-time. I think it can be a little overwhelming growing up in such a digital age and I’ve gotten good at knowing when we need to step back from all the technology and just enjoy a simple walk with the dog!

What inspired your lifestyle?A newspaper article, I wish I had saved it. I would love to frame it! I can’t even remember the dad’s name….

education optionsHaving gotten Bailey off to college this is

something I worry about much less now. Whilst it has worked well for him, I’m not sure our daughters or youngest son would relish being back in a structured education. We try and encourage them to think outside the box a little and also since they see us running our own business, we try and encourage their own entrepreneurial skills!

Advice for other work at home parents?We find getting things done for the business works better in a morning, or late at night, giving us the majority of the day to go out, play board games, help with projects etc!

Favourite Family Activity?We like getting out for a walk in the Peak District with our rescued Jack Russell Tallulah, or playing a family board game.

Share your family story here >>

www.littlesignersclub.co.uk transforming childhood

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Share your family story here >>

www.littlesignersclub.co.uk transforming childhood

fall in LOVE with baby signing....

contented babies. happy toddlers. cherished memories.

What If....

Your baby could tell you what they needed, without crying? Your toddler could tell you about their big feelings, without tantrums? You could transform your parenting journey with a simple solution?

little

club signers

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Mother’s Milk BooksCelebrating femininity and empathy

through images and words

Mother’s Milk Books is anindependent press, founded

and managed by at-home mother,Dr Teika Bellamy.

The annual Mother’s Milk BooksWriting Prize, which welcomes

poetry & prose from both adultsand children, runs from

September to mid-January.Cash prizes and JUNO goodies,

as well as publication, areawarded to the most

successful submissions.

So for beautiful books, greetingscards and art & poetry prints that

celebrate the feminine andnormalize breastfeeding

please visit:www.mothersmilkbooks.com

creativesoula design studio with a consciencecs

thecreativesoulstudio.comgraphic design | wordpress website development | illustration

Family fun at a nature reservePhotos by Helen Kitchenbrand

Helen Kichenbrand is a stay at home mum and professional Family Lifestyle Photographer, living in Hertfordshire with her husband and 2 year old daughter. She started her photography business just over a year ago, after realising that there are limited options for families wanting more natural, creative looking family photographs that portray the beauty of everyday life as a family. So far she has been amazed at how many families have been after what she is offering and is thoroughly enjoying every moment. She loves in particular photographing beautiful unposed moments between family members and children’s portraits that show their true characters. She only shoots out and about in nature, or at people’s homes to truly capture a real day in the life of each family she photographs.

helenkichenbrandphotography.com

Every day I am thankful for those who are my family; my loved ones and our children.

I hope to enfold them in my arms, to impart to them a sense of love, belonging and strength.

Through all the little things I do every day it is my wish that my children feel the depth of my love for them, and that our home is a place of happiness, nurture and laughter.

I welcome in the highest, brightest light to illuminate our home and our hearts; may we all be filled with love and know that love so pure is who we truly are.

Our little ones, who began in our hearts, it is our wish for you to be nurtured in our love. Then to spread your wings and soar upwards and onwards into your life, spreading your

love and light, making your way in the world, knowing you will always have a home in our hearts.

May all children, everywhere be loved, cherished and nurtured.

Peace to All, Light to All, Love to All

Words by Clare Cooper

A Blessing for Our Family

One of my key memories in early mothering was visiting a family that had shelves and shelves (and cupboards) full of creative and arty supplies. Pencils, pens, paints, crayons, chalk, charcoal, papers, coloured card, wool, string, fabrics, glue, felt, pipe cleaners. The works! I felt both inspired and completely disheartened. We’d moved countries twice in a short space of time, and were living in a rural area on one low income. Our budget didn’t extend to what seemed like luxuries. I watched my children play with old toilet rolls and make dolls from sticks and grass. What sort of useless mother was I?

What became really clear to me was that play is something that happens naturally and instinctively and is not dependent on a bank balance. One day we were shopping in town and my elder daughter looked on in

awe at a little girl’s butterfly wings. Perfect, pink, sparkly. I can’t even begin to express how inadequate I felt at not being able to afford to buy her a pair.

Later that day, my daughter pulled a wire coat hanger out of the cupboard, shaped it, and turned it into butterfly wings by cutting up a pair of my beige tights. She stretched them over the wire, and stitched them into place. I swear she had far more enjoyment and pride from creating those wings than any ‘perfect’ pink shop-bought wings. It was an important turning point for me. I stopped beating myself up for what I perceived to be artistic deprivation.Creativity comes from within. Yes, there are things that make the creative life a lot more pleasing, and perhaps, fun, but if we want to create, we will always find it deep within

From toilet rolls and coat hangers to musical theatre and novels.Words and photos by Veronika Sophia Robinson

The Creative Family

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ourselves to manifest an art form.

Countless dolls were made from string, toilet rolls, scraps of paper and fabric, wool, sticks, pebbles, leaves, moss, bark, and so on.

We also spent a lot of time together in the kitchen preparing meals. The journey to culinary creation began either in the garden or at the fruit and vegetable market. All those beautiful and vibrant colours on display!

As a homeschooling family, it was vital that we provided opportunities for our children. When you’re immersed in a way of being, it isn’t always so easy to see clearly. My daughters are young women now, and I truly give thanks for those toilet rolls and wire coat hangers.

At 16, my elder daughter was so inspired by reading a novel that she wrote a musical of the story. Beautiful and inspired tunes and lyrics flowed from her. She’s now 19, and just finished her first year of music at university. She’s actively involved in musical theatre productions and thriving on this artistic outlet. In her final year, the musical she wrote will be presented as one of her major assignments.

At 14, my younger daughter began to write a novel. She spent her days writing by hand in a journal. Many, many lined note pads later, it grew to become a published trilogy. At 17, she’s writing her eighth novel. Next year, she leaves home to do film and TV studies at university. Being raised without TV was an important part of developing their creativity.

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The deep impetus to create is something that is naturally fostered in a family which loves, laughs and lives together. I’m a huge advocate of sharing meals (without a TV on). Around the table, a family can share ideas. It is a place for offering support. It is here, that we learn to listen.

We did a huge amount of reading to our children, and storytelling is enormously powerful for activating the imagination. And this is even more so if reading from a book without pictures or telling stories which come straight from our heart. I have many treasured memories of my husband reading to us all, beside the fire each night, and using different voices for each of the characters as he read through such classics as The Secret Garden.

Creativity isn’t just something you pass down to your children. This magical way of living and being goes both ways. I doubt I’d have become a novelist if it wasn’t for being a stay-at-home mother. Family life has been deeply moving, satisfying, challenging, and has augmented my personal growth in many ways. My children constantly inspire me and move me to deeper levels within myself. I’d written about a dozen non-fiction books by the time my daughter wrote her first novel. Her courage inspired me to try something completely different. And as a result, I have forged a new career as a novelist.

Creativity always begins in the invisible realm of the mind and heart. The most beneficial resource for any parent to offer children, if they wish to inspire and develop their creativity, is to immerse them in nature as much as possible. No toys or equipment are needed. Just bare hands and bare feet. In Nature’s arms, a child feels the wind on their skin, the rustle of leaves in their ear. Observing the diligence of the honeybee inspires a work ethic. The fragile blue sky provides a palette for daydreams. Even city-bound families can see a bird soar in the air, or marvel at a persistent dandelion seeking sunlight through a concrete pavement. How many insects can your child find on a rusty railing? What sounds can they hear? Tuning into the natural world around us opens our hearts, and inspires our mind, and most importantly, it feeds our soul. Creativity is simply everywhere. As parents, the more we nourish our own creative lives through daily walks, breathing in the morning air, taking time to watch the Sun rise, living in accord with the Moon’s phases, walking barefoot on dewy grass, eating al fresco, making nature mosaics, wild swimming, playing on the beach, breathing in the scent of a woodland, frolicking in a wildflower meadow, the more likely our children are to feel inspired.

veronikarobinson.com

CeCeC lele elel bebe rarar tata etet yoyoy ururu Crerer aeae tata itit vitytytCelebrate your CreativityFamily camp hosted by Veronika, Paul and Eliza Robinson

August18th - 22nd

20162016Limetree Farm

near RiponNorth Yorkshire

Songwriting ・ Felting ・ Knitting ・ Weaving ・ Archetypes in literature ・ Writing fi ction ・ CeremoniesOrigami ・ Dream catchers ・ Art therapy ・ Yoga ・ Herbal medicine ・ Foraging ・ Forest school

Drumming ・ Singing ・ Healing spaces ・ Meditation ・ Market stall ・ Ventriloquist show ・ And so much more!

Limetree Farm is a beautiful nature reserve of wildfl ower meadows, ancient woodland, an Iron Age round house for workshops/ceremonies, a stone circle, a secret spring which has produced water for 3,000 years, and a bird/badger hide(log cabin) from which to view wildlife in the gill. Adult: £95 | Children aged 14 and under: £35 | Children aged 15-18: £50. This fi ve-day event will be catered for by Rocket Catering.

Join our Facebook page: Celebrate Your CreativityBooking forms from www.veronikarobinson.com/creativity-camp

Family camp hosted by Veronika, Paul and Eliza Robinson

Instagram Photo by @jaimerachel

You can’t use up creativity.The more you use,The more you have.

Maya Angelou

www.anorakmagazine.com

Thank You for taking the time to read Parent Tribe.

to read the full edition of parent tribe in print or digital download including 20 more pages click here>>

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