I’ve been absent from this blog for a few months, and I’m so sorry!
In September I got a new job, transitioning out of the world of 100% Maker Ed and into a more literacy-based educational role with Reading is FUNdamental Pittsburgh. I’m the director of the Everybody Wins! mentoring program, which matches adult volunteers with 1st 2nd or 3rd grade students as “Reading Buddies”. It’s a pretty great program that gives these students a space to learn to love reading and grow a relationship with a caring adult, but it doesn’t leave much time for maker ed…
Luckily, I have no concept of being TOO busy or overcommitting, so my after-work life consists almost entirely of projects.

Current projects include:

• Stitch Party (check it out we’re dope)
  We hand-dye our own yarn, design our own knitting patterns, and create hand-curated beginner knitting kits for those of us who still haven’t learned or who need a little extra support.
• Picture Book Maker Prompts
  I went to SXSW to present this project. You should all know about it by now… book-based maker prompts printed onto stickers and stuck on the inside of children’s books. Since I don’t work at the MCL anymore this is a completely hobby-based project of mine. It’s still happening, just quite slowly.
• Nelly’s Nose Children’s Book
  If you don’t follow Nelly’s Nose on Instagram I don’t know if we can be friends. Nelly is my parents’ dog who is more famous than I will ever be, all because she can balance almost anything on her talented little nose. She’s adorable, and I love her, and am working with my friend Adam Dove on a children’s book that has changed forms about 100000 times, and will likely change a few more before it’s release.
• Marshmallow Magazine
  I don’t have a link for this one because it’s the newest, but potentially one I am most excited about. I am partnering up with one of my talented pals, Murphi Cook, to create a small-scale children’s magazine for kids in the city of Pittsburgh. A quarterly publication, Marshmallow will be a free portal into a magical world that connects the ordinary with the secret histories and stories of Pittsburgh. Giving kids an opportunity to explore and discover, this project is really blowing my imagination wide open…

BUT, as you can see, I am spreading myself a little thin. I want to keep you all up to date on what I’m working on, so I’m making a goal to post at least once a week to this blog. We’ll see if I can keep it up…

Thank you to everyone who actually takes the time to read my ramblings… I dedicate my overabundance of projects to you. ❤

‘Til next time, Internet.
(next time will be before next week, I promise)