Sweet Juniper (All)

I asked my daughter to write her own explanation of why she wanted to be William Shakespeare for Halloween. "When I went to camp last summer, I chose Shakespeare as my minor. Not because I was al...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2017/11/halloween-2017-william-shakespeare.html

The magician and escape artist Harry Houdini died in Detroit 91 years ago, on Halloween. Before his death, Houdini had added "spiritual debunker" to his resume; he was disgusted by mediums who us...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2017/11/halloween-2017-ghost-of-harry-houdini.html

Happy Holidays to you all out there. The Christmas holiday really crept up on us this year and we're busy sewing and hammering to get everything done in time. This year we are so happy to share t...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2016/12/2016-sweet-juniper-holiday-card-by.html

Last summer she decided she wanted to be Laura from the Little House books for Halloween (after seeing a woman playing the role of Laura Ingalls Wilder at Greenfield Village). I am proud to say I...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2016/11/halloween-2016-half-pint.html

He says he wants to be Hercules for Halloween, so I say let's start the lionskin. Lots of heroes wore lionskins, I tell him. Samson wrestled a lion with his bare hands. Gilgamesh killed lots of l...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2016/11/the-twelve-labors-of-little-hercules.html

It has become our tradition to commission an artist every year to do a family portrait for our holiday card. Part of the fun is looking at the portfolios of so many amazingly talented illustrator...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2015/12/2015-sweet-juniper-holiday-card-by.html

My daughter wanted to be a witch for Halloween. Not a striped-sock witch, she said. A real-looking witch. A creepy one. The classics are classic for a reason, I said (and got to work). We found a...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2015/11/eye-of-newt-and-toe-of-frog.html

My son decided to be a werewolf for Halloween. So I made him this mask out of felted wool. Then I made him those arms out of felted wool. Then I made him wear his wool suit and take some pictures...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2015/11/werewolf-in-sheeps-clothing.html

This year our daughter asked if she could draw the family portrait for our holiday card. She worked very hard and we're proud as heck to share the result. Hiring a favorite illustrator to do a fa...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2014/12/2014-sweet-juniper-holiday-card-by.html

This past summer my son wanted to learn to fence. At six he was still too young for most of the area fencing classes and camps taught by people who actually know what they're doing, so all he ha...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2014/10/halloween-2014-cyrano-de-bergerac.html

My daughter is a tiny thing. There's no use denying it. At school recitals and other events we see how the top of her head hardly reaches the chin of the next shortest kid in her class. She doesn...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2014/10/halloween-2014-big-friendly-giant.html

Hello all. Most of my blogging energy has been absorbed by another project for quite some time now. Otherwise things are pretty much the same here.  I've really been enjoying the liberation that...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2014/04/literary-giants.html

Photograph by Abelardo Morell. Check out his series Childhood .   Previous Week's Urchin Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Cong...

https://streeturchins.blogspot.com/2014/04/laura-and-brady-in-shade-of-our-house.html

This year we had the pleasure of working with the talented Phoebe Wahl who created this custom family portrait for our annual holiday card. We've been fans of her work for a long time and we wer...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2013/12/2013-sweet-juniper-holiday-card-by.html

1. Like most Michiganders we try to go up north every year and this past summer we rented a little farmhouse in one of the nicest corners of the state and we liked it so much we rented it again f...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2013/12/up-north-seen-summer-winter.html

 "Mary Christmas, nearly 4 years old. Picks cranberries sometimes. She is now picking up berries spilled at the barrels by Grandfather. Grandpa says, 'I make her pick sometimes, yes.' Locatio...

https://streeturchins.blogspot.com/2013/12/mary-christmas-age-3.html

We rented a little farmhouse up north for the Thanksgiving holiday and when we arrived there was already a foot of snow on the ground and it snowed all day while we cooked and sat around the wood...

http://www.sweetjuniperphoto.com/2013/12/northwoods-thanksgiving.html

Over the past year, an ambitious young Amish woodworker (and tool collector) named Dan Raber has stripped a nondescript storefront in downtown Millersburg, Ohio down to its bare elements and tran...

http://www.sweetjuniperinspiration.com/2013/12/the-colonial-homestead-millersburg-ohio.html

The kids decided to go with an ancient Egyptian theme this year. I loved the idea of taking a Halloween classic like a mummy costume and adding a bit of craftsmanship and educational quality to i...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2013/11/halloween-2013-anubis-and-king-tut.html

When Halloween arrives, the street urchins don't mess around.   Previous Week's Urchin   Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Cong...

https://streeturchins.blogspot.com/2013/10/street-urchin-ghosts-early-20th-century.html

Sweet Juniper (All)

http://vintagekidsbooks.blogspot.com/2013/10/my-daddy-dont-go-to-work-by-madeena.html

I always feel awkward promoting stuff, but here goes: I will be giving a talk at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts next Wednesday (October 9, 2013) at 7:00 p.m. to launch the Kalamazoo Art League's...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2013/10/attention-west-michigan-folks.html

They were both wearing shirts of that orange only hunters, convicts, and ten-year-old boys can get away with. I didn't know much about them---just what you can glean from conversations between st...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2013/09/mishemokwa.html

When I first saw this pinterest thing my first thought was What kind of idiot forms a social media site based entirely on violating others' copyrights? My second thought was I hope this goes away...

http://www.somethingfuneveryday.com/2013/09/sailing-kid-made-ships.html

Just look at this knit dress my wife made for our friend who had her first baby girl this past summer. I do think the only time I've ever seen my wife sad is when she can't think of any pregnant ...

http://sweetjuniperwoodcraft.blogspot.com/2013/09/sweater-dress-for-newborn.html

. . .then this one would surely be a saint.   Previous Photo This image is Copyrighted. No unauthorized reuse.

http://www.sweetjuniperphoto.com/2013/09/if-dogs-had-church-in-rome.html

"At a party filled with the denizens of the mainstream of Human Progress, I was once introduced to the smiling ensemble with a good deal of gratifying enthusiasm as 'the fellow who makes toys.' T...

http://www.sweetjuniperinspiration.com/2013/09/on-why-to-make-handcrafted-toys.html

My wife puts a note in our daughter's lunch every day. Our eldest still has some anxiety with school, and the notes are always designed to help her conquer some of her challenges, to let her know...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2013/09/back-to-school-project-favorite-animal.html

A lot of the projects I share on the blog are for the kids and their imaginative play, but I've been enjoying branching out and making some other kinds of things lately. I very rarely make anythi...

http://sweetjuniperwoodcraft.blogspot.com/2013/07/leather-tool-roll.html

This is the stone bench where I work on all my wood and leather projects while the kids play on the playground just a few steps away. I can't get much work done inside during the colder months so...

http://www.sweetjuniperphoto.com/2013/07/my-workshop.html

I started this project a while back as a way to use up some smaller leather scraps lying around. I twisted them into dragon's teeth, tendrils, and horns and designed the dragon mask so the kids c...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2013/07/here-be-dragons.html

From the photographer's notes: Six-year-old Junior Johnson, of 14080 Northlawn in Detroit, pours water on the head of his girlfriend, 3-year-old Sally Salsinger. Photograph taken by Detroit Ne...

https://streeturchins.blogspot.com/2013/07/cooling-off-1934.html

Several readers have sent me links to this great image taken forty years ago in a Detroit suburb. It reminded me of a picture from my personal collection of old press images (found at a local boo...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2013/07/kids-at-jeffries-projects-1953.html

The kids and I stared at this giant painting (it's 96 by 66 inches) for about ten minutes the other day (you can click on the above image to see it huge). There's a bit of a trompe-l'oeil effect ...

http://www.sweetjuniperinspiration.com/2013/07/grandmas-hearthstone-by-john-haberle.html

When your kid breaks a bone, everyone wants to know how it happened. Like with divorce or some freak accident, there is a natural, selfish curiosity that surfaces when someone else breaks somethi...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2013/06/broken-may.html

Arthur Rothstein, Children playing near latrines. Saint Louis, Missouri (1936). Previous Week's Urchin s Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Li...

https://streeturchins.blogspot.com/2013/05/craps.html

I was working on a project on the west side when suddenly this raging plume of smoke appeared like an angry god just a few blocks away. Previous Photo This image is Copyrighted. No unauthorized r...

http://www.sweetjuniperphoto.com/2013/05/pray.html

A few weeks ago our friends had a birthday party for their son, and the theme for the party was simply "battle" and you can trust everyone in our house was looking forward to this for a long time...

http://www.somethingfuneveryday.com/2013/05/birthday-party-battle-royale.html

As a man who has been the primary caregiver to my children for over six years (I don't like to say stay-at-home dad, but, well: yeah), I have spent years collecting propaganda images of fathers b...

http://www.sweetjuniperinspiration.com/2013/05/my-favorite-dads-from-anti-suffrage.html

When writing up the post about my son's samurai costume the other day, I forgot that we'd taken some pictures while visiting our friends Zan and J down in Cincinnati a month or so ago, and when w...

http://www.sweetjuniperphoto.com/2013/05/a-samurai-in-cincinnati.html

Sweet Juniper (All)

http://vintagekidsbooks.blogspot.com/2013/05/terrifying-nixon-era-childrens-books.html

Hell yes.   Previous Week's Urchins   Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Library of Congress (and available without copyright restrictions on...

https://streeturchins.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-ambush-children-playing-in-new-york.html

I received an e-mail last week from someone interested in what specific inspiration I used to make the samurai armor for my son, and I thought it would be cool to share some of the images we look...

http://www.sweetjuniperinspiration.com/2013/04/samurai-armor-inspiration.html

It turns out it's not so easy to explain the concept of honor to a five-year-old. This is one of the wonders of parenthood: knowledge that you have spent decades taking for granted suddenly requi...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2013/04/the-honorable-samurai-age-five.html

  He said his name was Asterix Snowsmasher. I said, "Cool, let's go smash some snow." None of the neighborhood's stubborn snow boulders were safe that morning.   Previous Fun   This image is ...

http://www.somethingfuneveryday.com/2013/04/go-ahead-smash-as-much-as-you-want.html

Via The Wiltshire Photographic Collection , National Library of Ireland   Previous Week's Urchins   Nearly all of these urchins were discovered in the photography archives of the Libr...

https://streeturchins.blogspot.com/2013/04/children-feeding-goat-grand-canal.html

Just a few pictures from our trip down south (Lexington-Knoxville-Asheville-Columbia-Charleston).

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2013/03/down-south-seen.html

Congaree National Park is a relatively new park in the federal system. It used to be called Congaree Swamp National Monument, but when they realized (a) it wasn't actually a swamp, and (b) people...

http://www.somethingfuneveryday.com/2013/03/a-visit-to-congaree-national-park-south.html

I made these hobbit feet for the kids a few months ago but the weather has been too nasty to wear them outside to go on a proper hobbit adventure. One day my son decided he didn't care and wore t...

http://www.sweetjuniperphoto.com/2013/03/a-hobbit-at-grocery-store.html

I'm sitting in shirtsleeves somewhere in Charleston, South Carolina and a few dozen voices on the phone screen are complaining about how cold it is back home. We came here, in part, to escape the...

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2013/03/winter-unraveling.html