The Summer List 2020

June 30, 2020


I started The Summer List back in 2012. The lists were much smaller when I started because my son was smaller and I didn't want to overwhelm him with too many activities. As he grew older, the lists grew longer...but this year is a bit different.

To say I'm not disappointed in the fact that we cannot do as many things as we have in past summers would be a lie, but I also know that a lot of them won't be doable as they are either not happening (The Jazz Festival, Folkfest and the Fringe Festival), they are not open yet (closed due to COVID-19) or I am not comfortable doing them until I have an idea of how the opening will go.

So we are having to think outside of the box this year. These are the ideas that we have come up with so far, and looking at previous lists in preparation for this post has given me some more ideas to add. Like everything else this year, we will adjust what we are doing as we learn more information. Roll with the summer, and find new ways to have fun!

What's on your list this summer?


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Behind the Art: Light Bulb

June 29, 2020


Like all of my other wooden bezel brooches, this little light bulb came about after finding some beautiful wooden bezels at a shop called Art Base. Sometimes what happens is I come up with an idea that I believe to be absolutely amazing that everyone else will love, and it ends up being something that takes forever to sell and I cart them around to handmade markets for seven years. 

That said, I know that they are meant for the people that purchase them and that they will be loved in their new homes. At a market where I was selling my wares last winter, someone asked about a rabbit cameo brooch that I had drawn thinking it had already been sold. I had it with me, but I hadn't put it out on the table. They were so excited that I still had the brooch and purchased it that day!

This brooch is still looking for it's forever home, and that's okay. I drew this light bulb because I thought it was a cute idea. Just a simple little light bulb poking up from the bottom of the bezel. We don't know what it's lighting up, or where it's actually screwed in. I like leaving those kind of things open to interpretation.


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The Shop: Pride Month and Beyond

June 28, 2020


Earlier this year, I did a thing. I created looks for the Simply the Best t-shirts and tank tops using the main characters from Schitt's Creek as my inspiration (if you follow along on Instagram you may have already seen them). It was a lot of fun coming up with the outfits for each character and putting them together along with hair and make-up (kudos to those who do this work on a regular basis as it is not easy work for one person).

Last year I announced that any purchases from the Schitt's Creek Inspired Items section of the shop would be donated to OUTSaskatoon, and I have continued to do that this year as well. Then I made another announcement at the beginning of June that I would be donating all of the profits from the purchase of any Schitt's Creek items in the shop to OUTSaskatoon. It is something that I continued this June, but failed to mention at the beginning of Pride Month.

So while I have been donating all of the profits from the sale of Schitt'e Creek items for the month of June, I want to let you know that I will continue into the month of July so that you can have an opportunity to help OUTSaskatoon to the max!


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Talking about Racism with Children: Four Good Books to Start the Discussion

June 24, 2020

Don't Touch My Hair by Sharee Miller

Just over a year ago, my partner at work and I realised that we needed to do some teaching about our differences, especially skin colour, and talk about how we don't treat people differently based on the fact that they look different from ourselves. 

I went crazy in the book store trying to find books that were age appropriate (for 4-5 year-olds) that mentioned differences and made them into a positive thing. We wanted the books to spark a conversation so we could talk about the colours of our skin and teach the children that it is not okay to exclude people simply because of their skin colour.

The books that I found were We're Different, We're The Same and Happy in Our Skin. In the year and a half that I first purchased them, I have revisited them many times as we've had to circle back to this discussion time and again (it will never go away). 

Since then, I have been able to find more books at the library, including Don't Touch My Hair (a fantastic book about respecting people's bodies) and She Persisted (while not about race specifically, there are African American women mentioned in the book that started a discussion about slavery and race with my son).

**Please do not think that children do not see colour, because colour is exactly what they see. Their minds have the need to categorize things at this age, and unless we teach them that the categories they have created are incorrrect, they will stay that way. 

These four books have created a discussion both with my preschoolers and with my son at home. I highly recommend them if you are looking for books to start the discussion with your own little ones. However, this is an incredibly small list, and could use some improvement. 

Social Justice Books is an incredible resource that provides more than 60 carefully curated lists of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults and educators. I learned about them from Beverly Daniel Tatum, Ph.D on the Sesame Street/CNN racism town hall.


We're Different, We're The Same by Bobbi Kates and Joe Mathieu

She Persisted by Chelsea Clinton and Alexandra Boiger

Happy in Our Skin by Fran Manushkin and Lauren Tobia


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