new work: vitamin-rich refreshments for happi kids...

Well I need to let you know, it’s not quite new work, it’s just taken me this long to get around to posting it! This story came out in the Winter edition of Happi Kids in November, and it’s all about drinks that are focussed on the vitamin content, to boost the vitamins our kids need. It was as always, a lot of fun shooting food, and coming up with the recipes was as much fun as the rest of the production. And just for you, I’ve attached the recipes with each photograph so you can try them out, they’re also nice and easy for kids to join in making too - I have to say my absolute favourite was the carrot soup. In fact, I think I’ll make it this weekend again, it was a hit - both Laly and her friend Eloise loved it when I served up the left overs from the shoot that weekend. It’s delicious warm or cold.

Keep in mind that all my recipes are intuitive, which means you don’t need to follow them precisely - I tend to make them up as I go so you can do the same and I recommend it!

Also for this story I focussed on colour, so each recipe was as much about the vitamins as it was about the colour because colour is a powerful healer.

The first elixir above is of course, all about…

Vitamin C: dark orange/red

INGREDIENTS:

A bottle/half bottle of clear apple juice
Sparking water or plain water
3-4 citrus fruits of choice – orange, grapefruit, lemon, lime
Juice of one lime
1-2 cups beetroot juice

ASSEMBLAGE:

Place the beetroot juice into ice cube trays to freeze.
Put the apple juice, water and lime juice in a large jug.
Slice the citrus fruits and place into the jug as well as the glasses.
When the beetroot ice cubes are ready, place them into each glass and pour the drink over the ice cubes.

Vitamin A: orange

Chilled (or warm, your choice) carrot soup

INGREDIENTS:

A bunch of baby carrots, carrot tops removed or 3 large carrots, peeled and cut
½ onion
1-teaspoon turmeric powder
Drizzle olive oil
Salt
1-teaspoon honey
Coconut milk (optional)
1-2 Litres of vegetable stock

ASSEMBLAGE:

Preheat oven to 180C.
Place carrot and cut up onion on a baking tray and drizzle with the olive oil, honey, turmeric and salt – mix together so that the carrots and onions are well coated.
Bake in the oven until tender and roasted – about ½ hour.
Remove from the oven, allow to cool and then place in a blender with the veg stock – start with ½ litre of veg stock and then add as you go so you can check the consistency. Blend altogether until smooth.
Chill in the fridge and then serve! You can add a dash of coconut milk to serve if desired.  Bunny face created with micro herbs and edible flowers.
Makes 2-4 (depending on whether you serve it as an entrée or main)

Vitamin E : purple

 INGREDIENTS:

½ avocado
Handful of baby spinach  - optional
½ cup coconut milk (or try other non-dairy milks)
1 cup frozen blueberries
2 teaspoons honey
Beetroot powder – optional (makes it more purple)
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1-tablespoon nut butter – optional

 ASSEMBLAGE:

Put all ingredients in the blender and blend until smooth. To make it thicker, you can add ice, to make it less thick, you can add more coconut milk.

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If you’re child is not keen on eating anything green, this recipe below is great, as the colour is so vibrant and making the animal faces on top makes it playful. I recommend starting with very small bowls, even if it’s 3 big spoonfuls of the smoothie and then they can enjoy the fruit shapes. Even if they only have a small amount, you can then gradually increase the amount of smoothie you put in the bowl when you make it again. Let them play with the fruit to make faces. You can make one of the bowls up for them to see (that one can be yours), so they can see the face on top for inspiration, then let them make up their own with their own bowl. Kids love assembling, so this is a great recipe for that.

Vitamin K: green

INGREDIENTS:

Bunch of kale
Bunch of baby spinach
1 banana
A handful of grapes
½ cucumber
½ lime  - juice
1 tsp. psyllium husk (optional)
½ cup water
1/2 cup apple juice

ASSEMBLAGE:

Blend on high until smooth, place in bowls and decorate with pieces of cucumber, lime wedges, or any left over fruit to make green monster faces.

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This one is another hit! Of course, it’s got chocolate. But it’s fantastic for adding some extra powders for added minerals, see below…

Vitamin B: brown/chocolate

INGREDIENTS: 

Small handful of cashews
Small handful of almonds
A teaspoon sunflower seeds
1 medjool date
½ banana
1 tablespoon cocoa powder or cacao
Small handful of baby spinach leaves
1 tablespoon unhulled tahini
1-tablespoon peanut butter
1-2 cups rice milk
Sprinkling of buckinis - buckwheat for the top

ASSEMBLAGE:

Soak the cashews overnight in water – simply put the cashews in a glass jar, and cover with water and leave on the bench. Do the same with the almonds and sunflower seeds.
Put all ingredients into the blender and blend on high until smooth and creamy.

This is a great recipe to add any extra powders to boost the immune system – you could add maca powder, zinc, pea protein, slippery elm, psyllium husk etc.

I hope you try some of these recipes and for the full story, it’s in Winter edition of Happi Kids (the issue before the latest).

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Production, styling & photography: Pia Jane Bijkerk
Publication: Happi Kids for Happinez

My next post is going to be all about the power of colour!

xx

PS There is a new post on Patreon too, for the Wandering Hearts Collective, and another delicious recipe there for this month as we strengthen our immune systems for what’s happening in the world. I’ll be writing more about what I’m doing this year on Patreon soon X

new work: unique symbols of friendship for happi kids...

wax drawing with watercolour as message: give someone a secret message that they have to discover by painting over the top of it: A beautiful version of those secret message pens that children have.

Loved creating this collection of photographs for the Autumn edition of Happi Kids which is well and truly out now in The Netherlands! The story is all about ways of expressing friendship and love. I’ve captioned each image so you can learn more about the ideas in the visual storytelling. I love how conceptual this is, and how the focus is once again not on purchasing things but creating things - making something from ‘nothing’, truly alchemical in process, it’s what I love doing! Aside from the backdrops and a few little props, everything in each image are from objects and foliage around my home. Each tells a story within a story.

a new take on the family tree - select a beautiful branch and add photos as well as significant textiles and objects that tell stories. It can be added to over time to create a stunning feature in your child’s room.

I especially loved creating this photograph, because the three women in the polaroids are my grandmother (top left), my mother (middle left) and me with my mother in the bottom polaroid. My grandmother died earlier this year, and my mother passed away four years ago. Creating this tree was a beautiful way to reflect on the gift of life and how I now share that with my daughter. I added the emu feathers as the emu is a significant symbol for my daughter, and there is a piece of indigo-dyed textile made by my dear friend Nat. Messages, memories and stories can be written on pieces of card and hung over time to create layers of meaning.

The Native Indian symbol of friendship which you can paint in red as the colour of connection, love, and strength on each other’s hand.

The friendship necklace - find a little bottle and fill it with tiny treasures and a miniature note telling your friend what you love about her. Attach a piece of string and gift it to her any day of the week. Or you could make each other one as a gift for Christmas. My wonderful stylist assistant and model in the above images is my daughter Laly, standing in the dappled sunlight in our back garden.

Friendship code stones - do you and your friend live in the same neighbourhood, and walk the same streets but go to different schools? Gather a bunch of stones and create your own symbols for each letter of the alphabet, making sure to double or triple up on more common letters. Or create symbols for special words. Be sure to memorise the code or write out the symbols together. Leave the pile of stones in a safe place you both walk past often so that on your way to school or to the park, you can leave each other a message. Ask a question and then find out what they will answer! It’s a beautiful way to connect.

I absolutely loved making these friendship code stones! It’s the best idea, I can imagine kids loving doing this. It would be such a fun thing to do with your own child or grandchild - a collection of coded stones that you can create messages for them to find in places in the garden.

Keys to a special place - this idea got me thinking about the different spaces that could be shared - a treehouse, a beach shack, a creative space. And then I realised that’s what my studio is - a place I share with creative friends who come and stay, it’s truly is a wonderful way to connect!

I really wanted a compass for this photograph, as a way of symbolising direction to each other. I could not find one anywhere on short notice and it was driving me crazy. I sat for a moment of quiet, thinking about the present moment, which lead to me thinking about my family. I wondered how Laly was enjoying her day out with her friend Mya and Mya’s Aunty Tash, who lovingly takes the girls out on fun adventures together. I thought about their day out on this particular day, as Tash had taken them to the Maritime Museum. I wondered what they might be doing, and if they were on one of the ships, or were they looking in the shop? Then it dawned on me: they are at the Maritime Museum!! Surely there are compasses there! I called Tash to ask and when she got to the shop., they took a photo for me - there were over 3 dozen beautiful, old style compasses to choose from! I couldn’t believe my luck, I would never have thought of the Maritime Museum if the girls were not there at that very moment. So Tash helped me choose the one I wanted for the shoot and Laly brought it back with her. What a successful prop scout! A big thank you to Tash for her input on this photograph, the compass is the star of the shot. The piece of textile is from my friend Nat, who comes to stay in the studio whenever she’s in Sydney. And I realised this is what I have with her, this special bond of sharing my creative space with her.

With love,

Pia xx

School Holidays...

I love seeing the aftermath of painting as much as I love the process and final creation.

I seem to recall a few months ago I said somewhere on the socials that if there was enough interest, I’d post about what we get up to during the school holidays, and I do recall there being quite some interest but then life got busy and here we are at the end of another school holiday! So here I am, better late than never, offering a brief recap of some of the activities we enjoy during the holidays, to spark you if you’re feeling like you need some ideas…

Firstly, I thought I’d share what my intentions are during the school holidays. As you know, I am passionate about arts, music and nature education for kids, and the public school system here in Australia (and I’m guessing everywhere else in the world judging by the state of affairs and the current interests of the nations!) does not cut it. The kids spend a lot of time and focus on reading and maths and although I too feel those subjects are important, to me they come second to arts & music. In that art is the beginning of reading and writing, and music is the beginning of maths - which is guided by our intuition, so imagine if we learnt the skills of reading and maths through art & music! All the kids who struggle due to thinking expansively rather than linearly would benefit and those who are linear thinkers experience a new perspective. I feel everyone’s life skills would be much improved! I have much to say on this topic and will save it for another time.

So during the school holidays I focus this time on art, music and nature. While I do my best to not book in any work during this time so that I spend most of it with Laly, sometimes it doesn’t happen that way - this school holidays I had a week long shoot (of a two week break! with Easter in between!) but since I used my backyard as the set, and as the producer & photographer I create the shooting schedule, I made the shoot times short to fit in while Laly was occupied elsewhere. She also assisted me during the times she was around and she was fantastic, being my hand model and assistant set builder - this will be her first paid job at the ripe age of 7, and what a wonderful introduction to the working world, knowing you can make money from doing something fun that inspires thousands of people. I’ll share more about this particular shoot when the photographs are published in a couple of months.

A couple of afternoons spent like this, working on her bedroom painting, read on for more details…

This school holidays, I invited Laly to make her own bedroom painting. I bought a large artist’s board, and talked about where this painting would hang in her room, that is would be something she would wake up to every morning so she could think about painting something that would spark joy for her. Not surprisingly, she immediately chose to paint a rainbow! So away we went with this idea. For me it’s a lot to do with the process and not just the final piece so I use these ideas as a way to show her what’s involved in making art. First we needed to prime the board and then paint the background colour. She chose blue. But instead of just using the paints straight from the tubes, I suggested she make her own colours - to make her own blue. I helped her with this. The next day once the background was dry, it was time to paint the rainbow. I let her know that the rainbow doesn’t have to be the colours you see in other pictures, they can be whatever colours you like - in fact, it can be a rainbow of colours that you love, what colours do you love? I said colours out loud that weren’t the normal colours (ie turquoise, acqua, rose, indigo, etc) and she lit up with ones that she loved, so her intuition was well ignited. Then we set out creating the colours. It’s not as easy as it seems it would be, which is why I love this experience because it gives them an understanding of what’s really involved in art making. Once she decided she was finished I offered her some special gold paint to finish it with. And then I encouraged her to sign her name at the bottom. Her art work now resides in her bedroom and I also get to see it every morning, sparking my joy. I will add, it’s also a great experience as a parent to go through this, as you really need to let go of your control and let them make their own intuitive decisions here - this was by no means what I thought she’d paint, but I didn’t interfere. It takes practice.

…….

I’ve noticed we’ve created a few traditions and rituals over school holidays now, here they are…

1. She loves being active, she has bundles of energy which when she was younger I found rather exhausting but now she is older this energy can be directed into things she loves doing…oh how I remember the hundreds of hours spent at all the local parks and how frustrated she was when she couldn’t reach the monkey bars or climb onto the roofed play equipment! Now she climbs up there and takes a book to read, as if she’s in a treehouse. So during the holidays, she has been enrolling in the wonderful Active Arts, run by beautiful Elena from Dance Domain in St. Peters. Active Arts runs for 4 days, 9-3pm, and the kids get to try everything from rock climbing, trapeze, dance, drama, martial arts, and clay making with local clay artist Agatha who I’ve done a few mother & daughter workshops with as well, and have absolutely loved it, Agatha is a wonderful teacher.

2. MCA school holiday workshops - this is something we’ve been doing for two years and it’s the most wonderful experience. Laly and I make it a date, we set off from my studio in Balmain and walk to the ferry, and take it under the harbour bridge into Circular Quay, then walk the five minutes to the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art). We love watching the buskers along the way and Laly brings some of her money from her donate jar to pop into musicians hats she likes (there’s some music appreciation right there!). We head up to the kids area to buy the tickets and then find out what we get to do! As an adult I find it a fabulous way to experience the art in the galleries, from the perspective of a child who is encouraged to interact with the work and find ways of connecting with it. The kids (and adults!) then get to make things in the atelier space which is always the most fun, this holiday it was about making sound with art, using all sorts of found materials and objects. Laly made three, she was very inspired by this project! After that we head up to the restaurant for lunch which is always a treat, the menu is fantastic. Laly and I have been invited to be part of the kids committee this year which means we help the creators of the workshops design them and figure out ways to connect kids to art. Which means more dates to the MCA for us two! Happy days.

At the MCA this school holidays, playing on a handmade ping pong machine. So.Much.Joy.

…from a kids workshop at the MCA in January. The idea was to think of a place that is special and create a textural collaged ‘map’. Laly chose her Mamy’s (her grandmother in France) garden and got busy picking out fabric swatches that made her think of playing with Mamy in her garden. Heart-melt.

…from a past kids workshop at the MCA making posters with their own messages. This was Laly’s message to the world: LOVE YOURSELF.

3. Beach days or nature walks. I try to get a few of these in if we are not planning a holiday away, then I make sure we do a few local day trips.

And plenty of playdates with friends, where there is always some magic potion making happening in the backyard…

…Laly and her friend made this wonderful array of mud treats yesterday!

And a number of nothing days in between! I’m not a big planner as I like days to flow naturally/intuitively especially when school is so scheduled, however, I found this particular break busier than usual which happened because I had the shoot as well as my regular mentoring connections.

Also, during this school holiday I’ve also set a great screen time intention that incorporates art & music, I think it might be of interest to some of you, let me know if you’d like more information and I’ll write it up a separate post. Today was the first day I implemented it and it worked so well.

Oh and I nearly forgot, Tiny Doors! This was one of the highlights of our last school holidays, Laly and I had an absolute ball treasure hunting these all around the Northern Beaches. I’m not sure if it’s still on but here is the link, and you can start at Manly Library to get a map and go from there (call the library first to check the maps are still available and that the doors are still around) - we’ve almost found every door, there are only a few we haven’t been on the search for yet. I highly recommend it. And I hope every council picks up this idea and runs with it!

So, school holidays: art, music, and nature. I feel these ideas can be adapted to wherever you live, as there are always art galleries, nature and music venues around. I tend not to do the expected school holiday activities as, if I’m honest, I find them boring, exhausting and some things are torturous - like kids concerts and some kids movies (the exception being Moana, I will happily see that at the cinema a dozen times!). My idea is to make it joyful for both of us, so it’s not just about her but us together, to find experiences that ignite us both, as these will create ideas and memories for her forever. Let me know what you get up to and please do share your ideas here so others can find out, or link to any posts you’ve written about too for others to find you.

Vivent les petites artistes! xx

Sweet Nourishment: a tasting workshop for kids...

A few months ago, I was having a chat with my daughter Laly about the amount of sugar in snack foods, and what she calls “treats”. She loves to snack, and I’m fine with that as long as the snacks are nourishing. We got talking about why there is so much sugar in these packaged snack foods, and what the difference is between a nourishing treat and one that is, well, the complete opposite.

It’s a hard concept to explain to a 6 year old! That’s when I got an idea: Children (and us too!) learn so much through experience, so I suggested we make time on a weekend to create a nourishing treat tasting platter and she was so excited, she began brainstorming about all the foods we could put together! It went from being a ‘boring’ conversation to planning a visual feast!

Soon after, I attended one of my friend Emma’s events, which was in collaboration with a beautiful new local waterside café called The Galley. Emma is a renown naturopath with a passion for food. The Galley team was celebrating their arrival into the neighbourhood and wanted to share some of the wonderful dishes they offer on the menu, their focus being on fresh, seasonal ingredients. It was a beautiful sampling experience, with Emma sharing her incredible knowledge and passion for nutritious, delicious food, introducing us through our senses to the 5 best foods for cleansing during the spring season.

That’s when the next idea struck me: in collaboration with Emma, we could share the nourishing treat tasting with other children, creating a fun, interactive workshop! She loved the idea, and within an hour discussion we had nutted (perfect pun!) out the details. So here there are!

If you have a child between 6-10 years old and live in the Inner West of Sydney or beyond, and want to empower your child to make healthy eating choices, we would love you to join us!

It will be on Saturday November 24, from 3-4:30pm at Emma’s beautiful clinic, Studio You, in Balmain. 

In between Halloween and Christmas, this is a great time to teach them what it means to nourish their mind & body through food, and to learn the difference between healthy sweets and damaging ones. They will be sampling all sorts of delicious treats, and you will both come away with your senses filled, empowered and ready to enjoy the approaching festive season in a nourishing way!

 You’ll find all the details here, please click to find out more and place your booking.

Here’s a little more info about Emma & I:

Emma Sutherland - Founder and director of Studio You, an integrated clinic supporting kids to thrive and grow into healthy adults. With over 15 years clinical experience working with families, Emma is a wealth of knowledge and inspiration. Emma is mum to 6 year old Sophia.

Pia Jane Bijkerk - As well as being a published author and photographer, Pia has worked as a food stylist for publications around the world, focusing on taste, colour, texture and nourishment. Her passion is to connect people to their creativity and intuition through her work. She loves working with children, creating interactive workshops that ignite creativity through play. Pia is mum to 6 year old Laly. 

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I LOVE creating interactive, intuitive workshops for kids, and I can’t wait to host this one with Emma. Hope to see you there! Let us know if you have any questions.

With Love,

Pia xx