So, it is just 14 days to my due date and, according to the doc, it may well be that I give birth earlier than that. Which wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that I crazily accepted two writing assignments, both of which are due in at the end of next week, and both of which I have yet to complete. Of one, I have written about half. Of the other, zip, nihil, nada.

Which means I am now panicking about not being able to meet my deadlines. This may seem of little import to most people but, as every freelance writer knows, it may spell the end of a fruitful, gainful relationship with an editor. Normally, I’d consider a week ample time to get everything done, but what if I have the baby before I have finished? And alas, my planned strategy to work evenings and nights is failing miserably as I am simply too tired to do more than collapse in bed after supper.

So this in turn means that I have to spend every child-free waking hour on these two pieces. No more collages, art projects or fun stuff unless the articles are out of the way. Granted, I’ll still be doing something when I am with Nicco—most likely painting—as I have long found out that I can’t really work productively when he is around. But I doubt I’ll make much over the next week or so.

That said, I have yet to post this paper, which I made a while ago, after I saw Andrea Singarella’s new ribbon range on her website. She had just managed to find ribbons in the most perfect gelato colours and I wanted to capture them in some way. I came up with this.

Background paper inspired by Andrea Singarella’s ribbons

As with the previous background paper I made, anyone who wants to use it can download a printable version here (Letter) and here (A4). Just let me know what you make with it—lucky you who can still make something!

It was a casual discovery. I was flicking through some photographs of my grandparents when I came across several pictures of a very young man whom I had never seen before. I know my extended family pretty well, and I could have sworn he was not someone I knew. At the same time, though, he looked vaguely familiar, and in any case it seemed somewhat bizarre for my grandparents to have kept so many relics of a stranger. So I asked my father and it emerged the young man was his uncle Alberto—my grandfather’s brother—of whose existence I had not been aware until then.

I was shocked. Over the years, both my grandmother and my great-aunt kept our family history alive by sharing their stories with me and my cousins. But no one had ever mentioned this uncle. From what I have since gathered, he died very young. I suppose his memories were too painful, too raw, and my family found it easier not to speak of him than to deal with them—in the same way as my father and his brothers never speak of the little sister they lost when she was just a toddler.

Brothers: my grandfather with his brother Alberto a short time before he died

But the pictures, religiously stored for more than sixty years, tell me he was never forgotten. And this little collage, which I made for Theme Thursday, is to ensure that he will continue to be remembered.

As every normal three-and-a-half-year old boy, Niccolo has other interests beyond painting and penning words. The reason I rarely write about them is that they are my husband’s preserve. I am “books and crafts” mummy, he is “football and motors” papa. Beyond the odd occasion when I read Nicco Lightning McQueen’s story or show him a Ferrari video, I am rarely called upon to talk cars, motorbikes or football players because the little one has quickly latched on my profound ignorance of all three subjects (to the point that when he does ask a question such as: is this Colin Edwards‘ motorbike, and I dare pipe up an answer, he double checks with his father).

Over the last few days, however, Niccolo has started mixing his interests with gusto. First he decided he wanted to write Lamborghini. A feat for anyone at best of times, and particularly so for a preschooler who had only managed 5-letter words until then. It took a couple of attempts and a bit of coaching on my part, but I am happy to report he has now succeeded, and even progressed on to writing Ferrari and BMW 55 (numbers included). This, you will note, all happened sooner than he managed to write his own full name, which he only mastered last night.

Learning to write the really important words in life: Ferrari

Then he decided he wanted to draw Colin Edwards and his motorbike. Now, I can sketch some cartoon cats, the odd mouse and maybe a monkey if it needs be but I have never been able to draw a motorbike in my entire life, so I was no help whatsoever. The best I could do was to get one of his toy Yamahas and tell him to try and copy it. Put it this way: what he produced was a very abstract version of a motorbike but it was significantly better and more recognisably motorbikey than the figure he drew on top of it looked human.

Colin Edwards and his motorbike (with a bit of fantasy…)

I am not sure what this says about my son…

How I wish I lived in California, where Artsymama was teaching her Flower Banner class last week. Or, at the very least, I wish I had been faster in checking her blog and Etsy shop, where she was selling some of her banner kits. By the time I realised they were for sale, they were already sold out.

Kit or no kit, however, Artsymama’s banner idea was too good to pass up, so I adapted it into a project I could do with Niccolo—a flower banner with his name on it. Which meant using cheap leftover supplies (Ryman the Stationer’s pastel paper from last year, pattern paper out of my own printer, a remnant of crepe paper from Christmas and millinery flowers which dated back to Nicco’s christening…three years ago!) rather than pretty vintage stuff.

Niccolo’s flower banner takes pride of place among books and CDs

Of course, the end result is nowhere near as lovely as the Artsymama original, but Nicco and I had great fun making the banner and hanging it. It was good for letter and name recognition too. So thank you, Artsymama!

I was tidying up my files—not something I’d ordinarily do of my own free will, but my husband threatened all sorts of dire retributions—when I came across a little digital collage I had made a few months ago. It was February 4, I had just hit the seventh month of my pregnancy and felt like a hot air balloon.

I thought I felt like a hot air balloon then…imagine now!

Ha. Little did I know—I was positively skinny then. You should see me now. The Montgolfier brothers would be proud of me.

Twice in a day. It must be “putting mummy on the spot” day, or something similar. Nicco and I were reading another of Laurence Anholt’s fabulous artist books, Camille and the Sunflowers, about Vincent Van Gogh, when he asked: “Who is the better painter, Van Gogh or Leonardo da Vinci?”

Uh, oh. How do you answer that in a way a three-and-a-half year old will understand? I am ashamed to say I rambled on and on about artistic movements, techniques that change with time, personal preferences—none of which clearly cut the mustard, as he kept asking: “Yes, but which one is the best?”

In the end, though, inspiration struck. I asked him: “Which one do you prefer—Mona Lisa or the Sunflowers?”

“Mona Lisa,” he replied.

I seized on that to discuss taste. I am not sure I succeeded, but at least it was slightly less abstract than my earlier explanation.

However, I had just managed to pat myself for having overcome this hurdle when the little critter came up with something else. We were “drawing” words and numbers, when he suddenly asked:

“Can you draw me Jupiter?”

Excuse me? Where did that come from? I guess some of the stuff we read about planets and space exploration must have made a longer lasting impression than I had initially thought.

Never one to shirk a challenge, though, I got paper and marker and produced the ugliest looking drawing of Jupiter the world has ever seen.

Jupiter, anyone?

And then I made a fundamental mistake. I drew the spot. Which of course prompted the question:

“What is this, mummy?”

“It is a place on Jupiter where a storm has been going for more than 300 years. Seen from Earth, it looks like a big red spot.”

“Why has a storm been going on there for 300 years? What is it like?”

Blast me if I know. But I guess I only have myself to blame for eliciting questions to which I have no answer.

My preschooler, that is. Niccolo is back from his holiday with the grandparents (the “nonni”) and, of course, we have resumed our artistic endeavours. Just now, he has three favourite activities, in this order:

1. “drawing” letters and words. No matter how much I call it writing, he insists he is drawing. He started off “drawing” single letters, but has now graduated to two or three words (papa, mummy, nonno). He has also tried painting the letter N with a brush.

Look, I have drawn the word papa!

2. painting with a big brush. I had a stroke of genius one day (if I say so myself..) and bought him a brush and a roller of the type used for household paint. He loves them both—especially the brush—because it allows him to paint in big fat strokes.

Big brush strokes are great

3. collage. I guess it’s in the genes, as I love collageing, but he has really got into it recently. He is not quite making shapes out of his scraps of paper yet, but loves to mix and match colours and textures. In the latest collage he made—yesterday, for nonno—he even added cardboard and a few scraps of fabric.

Oh and all this art is paying off at least on one front. It may be a coincidence but he has become a lot more skilled in describing colours. Yesterday he told me he went with nonno to the market and bought some “dark gold” honey. Then he qualified: “It was between golden and brown.” Which is already a better description than my colour-challenged husband can ever hope to achieve!