Pink Saturday Back to School…Old School

It’s time for our little ones to head to school…the Tuesday after Labor Day had been the traditional starting day for generations, but not any more. Texas schools open anywhere from mid-August to late August…by September, everyone already has a couple of weeks of classes behind them. I was listing  books for my Etsy shop when I found one titled, My School.  For Pink Saturday I’m sharing a children’s book from 1958 that reminds us of school days before standardized test became the focus and the measure of success. 

Look at those happy pink cheeks and that sweet smile… Now let’s look at his first day of school.

A sit-down breakfast…then car pool.

And when he gets to school…

They PLAY! In fact the entire book is about playing!

Not one picture of learning to count or read, or spell.

In fact, the only appearance of the teacher is at the end when the caption reads, “Cookies and fruit juice, we have every day. the teachers all tell us, “It’s hard work to play!”

And when he heads home to his June Cleaver mom in her crisp shirtwaist dress, what does he say?

“I’ll be back tomorrow ‘cause school is such fun!”

I hope all our children still think School is Such Fun!

I hope they still can take lots of time to play!

We all certainly recognize the value of play as we visit our Pink Saturday playmates. Beverly has the group all rounded up at How Sweet the Sound so swing back ther to see the list of who is playing today.  Hope your week is Pink and your Labor Day holiday is restful.

Sparkly Pink Scales from a Captured Mermaid…

I’ve been a member of a Facebook group that began years ago as a Flickr group…the Itty Bitty Book Club…and that’s exactly what we do. We make Itty Bitty Books! Our hostess, usually Mary Ann, posts an idea for a theme and invites us to create pages for a little book, usually about 3 inches by 3 and half inches. We send our pages, one for each person who is participating. Then the hostess collates and binds them.  So if 14 people are participating, we each make 14 pages. One of the projects for this summer is a Mermaid book with shaped pages rather than our usual rectangles. Sixteen people joined the fun for the Mermaid book. When I was working on ideas, I remembered that I  had a little box of iridescent shell-shaped “scales” from a mermaid’s tail!

She had become entangled in a fisherman’s net and as she made her escape, these scales from her sparkly tail were left behind… I used them to tell her tale. As I said, the pages are shaped…Mary Ann sent us each a die cut shell template and we cut our pages… 

For each page I added a  piece of the net, a few sea shells, and shiny beads and the beautiful mermaid. These are some of the most embellished pages I have done. Each of the 16 pages for this swap is about the same with only slight differences..

They were packaged up and sent to be bound with the creations of the 15 other Mermaid Book makers.

Mary Ann will create  Covers and a Table of Contents to include as she binds the pages together. And in a couple of weeks, a fat little book will arrive in the mail.  I usually wait until after supper to open mine. My friend Nancy of My Crafty little Page fame is often a fellow IBB participant. When the books arrive, I pour myself a glass of wine and then I call her and we go through the book oooh-ing and aaah-ing over each page and looking at techniques and unusual embellishments. It’s a fun way to connect and visit as we enjoy the talents of our creative group.

There are lots of pink iridescent scales that put me in the mood for more Pink…so I’ll head to the Pink Saturday crowd at Beverly’s How Sweet the Sound . You have yourself a Pink Week.