The One About Creative Contemplation (Or What Will Happen to LMPC and Joujoux)

Recently, my husband and I said “yes” to an adventure.

An adventure quite awfully big and of it-wasn’t-even-in-our-bucket-list proportions.

Last summer I was feeling quite unsure in my teaching job.  To make the long story short, on one lazy summer day, I sent an application to teach in another school.  The next thing I knew, I was being interviewed, hired on the spot, and was sorting out all the visa and paperwork required in order for me to make the transfer to my new job.

It’s amazing how things can fall serendipitously into place when you let God take the reins.  One moment your nerves are shackled by uncertainty and restlessness and the next moment, by God’s grace, your soul is filled with strength, purpose, and calmness.  If you recall, my word for 2016 is GRACE and how I was intentional about allowing a lot of it to thrive in my life.  Last summer, I was only praying for enough strength and patience to endure the big changes taking place in my workplace.  But through grace, I was blessed with more than an answered prayer.

Two months since the lazy summer day, here I am.  In Japan.  With my husband.  Where a new adventure awaits.

This is where we will be based while I teach here.  We’re hoping to become very happy here.  To give you an idea, we’ve just found an apartment that we are absolutely in love with, are slowly purchasing items to fill our home, opening bank accounts, applying for a phone line, etc.  It’s been delightfully crazy and the past week has had our heads in a whirl.  We miss our families and the Philippines terribly but we are happy, nonetheless.  For the sake of designing the kind of life that we love, we know we are where we need to be for now.

I am not certain how long the adjustment will take before I can sew a new play food set or a new skirt again.  Or knit.  Or cook.  Or continue with my calligraphy drills.  It might take months or a year.  So here’s a little announcement - two, actually:

What will happen to the blog?  The blog will be quiet for now.  The graceful thing to do for now is to cut myself some slack and allow time to do its thing as far as adjustment is concerned.  I want my blog content to be purposeful and intentional and while it is gratifying to be able to post regularly, I don’t want to post only for the sake of doing so.

When I am fully adjusted, I shall post more regularly, possibly with expat living undertones in my post (Don’t you want to see snippets of living in Japan?).  Don’t worry, it will still be crafty!

Now, what will happen to Joujoux Playthings & Teachables?  The fascinating thing about doing business nowadays is that it is possible to run one from anywhere in the world — well, as far as online businesses are concerned.  Our lean start-up has been gaining a following and we are over-the-moon delighted with the way people have been responding to it.  So, your toysmiths will continue to create playthings and teachables and ship it to anywhere in the world where someone can give a child the gift of meaningful play…

…after the adjustment period, of course.  :)  C’mon, give us time.  Give us grace.  Give me a sewing machine manual in English, please.  Haha.  They’re all in Japanese!  We still have so many product ideas in our heads and we simply cannot wait to get started on making.  When we do, Joujoux Playthings & Teachables will have more handmade product offerings. 

I like to think of this time off from the blog and the startup as “creative contemplation" until I cross over to a better and bright Little Miss Pinay Crafter and Joujoux.

And so for now, I shall “trust the wait.  Embrace the uncertainty.  Enjoy the beauty of becoming.  When nothing is certain, anything is possible.” (Beautifully penned by Mandy Hale)

Attraversiamo.

The One About The Quietly Cool Book

After months of planning, designing, sourcing, and producing, look what our small toyshop has made…

It’s Joujoux’s newest plaything & teachable product; our version of the commonly known quiet/cloth book.  We thought we’d add “Cool” to it because ours is interactive and, like any cool buddy, it can be relied upon to teach and entertain your little one all on its own!  So it’s like having a cool teacher and a best buddy in one tome!

The Quietly Cool Book has 5 pages of teachable concepts and skills.  Page One has a paint palette for learning numerous skills:  color identification, color matching, and buttoning skills.

Page Two is the robot page for teaching shapes.  Kids simply refer to the basic black shapes at the bottom of the page and locate the corresponding shapes on the friendly Joujoux-bot!

Page Three is all about numbers…and pizza!  Kids will have ooey gooey fun identifying the numbers and matching the pizza slices with the corresponding number of pepperoni slices!

Page Four is for little ones to learn all about the parts of the face.

Page Five is Mr. Jellyfish introducing youngsters to various textures:  smooth, soft, rough, fluffy, etc.

Isn’t it super cool and kid-friendly?  What’s even cooler is that we will be launching this product at the 15^th Global Pinoy Bazaar happening this weekend at Glorietta.  

We’ll be selling a limited number of this book along with our felt food sets and lacing beads (at special bazaar rates!).  Our products make the perfect holiday presents so make sure to come by…and buy!

The One About the Playdough

In Joujoux, we place a premium on open-ended playthings – toys and materials that allow children to spend hours tinkering while using their imagination, creativity, and resourcefulness.  While we have nothing against one-purpose-one-design toys, we want our customers (usually parents) to realize that they are getting a lot of entertainment-and-learning mileage with each Joujoux purchase.

Playdough is one of my personal favorite open-ended playthings.  There are so many things to do with a lump of playdough.  Its malleable properties allow children’s fine motor skills to be strengthened as they make balls and coils with it.  Eye-hand coordination and concentration goals are achieved when they poke sticks and branches into it or when they emboss leaves as they engage in preschool printmaking.  Playdough is also one of the first media used when introducing a young child to cutting with scissors. 

The wonderful news is that one need not scour the shelves of toy stores for playdough.  With pantry basics, one can whip up a big batch of playdough in the comfort of your own home using the recipe below:

Playdough recipe:

2.5 cups of warm water

1 ¼ cup of salt

1 ½ tbsp of cream of tartar

4 tbsp of vegetable oil (you can add an additional tablespoon to make a more buttery playdough)

2.5 cups of flour

Mix everything in a pot over low heat.  It will look lumpy and then smooth but, given a few minutes, it will all come together into a beautiful ball of playdough.  When the dough is cooked through and does not stick to your fingers, take it out of the pot and onto a smooth surface.  Easy peasy!

Now the fun part begins!  Place a few drops of food coloring onto the dough and knead the dough until the food coloring spreads evenly throughout the dough.  I made a huge batch so I divided the dough into five parts and colored each ball of dough differently.  I didn’t want the usual rainbow colors and opted for softer tints so…

…I made playdough in the yummiest of colors:  pink, avocado green, lemon yellow, lavender, and teal.

Don’t they look dreamy???

Give it a try!  With materials such as rice grains, branches, leaves, alphabet tiles, buttons, and pebbles to play along with playdough, the creative play possibilities of playdough are endless!

The One About the Furry Friends

It's been awfully quiet around here.  I remember a conversation I had with a fellow craftpreneur several months ago.  We talked about how keeping one's blog updated would prove to be a crafter's problem once he/she succumbs to the call of entrepreneurship.  As you can see, it has never been truer than now.

I hate the silence!  Let's fix that!

Several months ago -- and blog posts ago -- my husband and I started Joujoux, a line of handmade toys for children.  We are starting small and so far, the response to our handcrafted playthings has been encouraging.  I do all the crafting myself and so while fulfilling orders may take some time, we are grateful that customers have been understanding of our situation and appreciative of the charm of handmade.

A colleague of mine scored an animal cloth book from a garage sale.  Thing is, the animal pieces from the cloth book were no longer included.  And so she approached me for help...and I guess I came to the rescue. :)

I came up with my own versions of the animals, created the patterns and all, and came up with these furry, velcro-backed friends.

And that's how the furry friends found their homes...or rather, how the homes found some furry friends to house.  :)

Should you have customized soft toy requests, let us know here or shoot us an email at joujouxplay@gmail.com.  We'll do the best we can to give you the gift of play. 

The One About Joujoux

When I first started teaching preschool, there weren't a lot of instructional materials available that were of good quality.  I remember the first teaching material I made then was a felt jacket with a letter "J" patch (J for jacket).  I had sewn it using our old sewing machine (it was de-padyak pa!  I still love that oldie, though, and had my mom swear never to dispose of it.) and I punched holes on it so it could be a lacing activity tool.

When I developed a deep love for making beautiful things, I would find myself browsing websites for toy and learning materials projects.  I had a long list of To-Makes which is still long, by the way, but I would always promise myself to getting around to making them.  

It could be the serendipitous marriage of my job as a teacher and my passion for crafting that led to the preference for toys and learning materials that are well-created and of great value.  Toys that are open-ended and provide hours of endless entertainment.  Toys that children love so much that they treasure them until they reach adulthood and pass them onto their offspring.

Hence, the birth a new "baby" for me and my husband -- Joujoux Playthings & Teachables.  Joujoux is French for toys and it is a very lean startup born out of love for well-crafted toys and educational materials.  We are starting off with the felt food sets that were sold last November at the Cebu International School Bazaar but we already have a lost of ideas brewing in mind for the next products.

Manila-based people can finally get their hands on these lovelies on February 28, 2015 at 3rd Mom Pop Up at Fully Booked at Bonifacio High Street.  Apart from the playthings, we'll also have our tunic dresses, kimonos, and a few wrap skirts to sell (our next clothing collection is in production!!!).  The clothes are still under the Little Miss Pinay Crafter label.

And so, here's to love for teaching and the handmade goodness that transpires from it.  Here's to Joujoux, to the old-school kind of entertainment it brings, to its educational value, and to treasured memories that it will bring forth to the young.