i made a sketchbook with my mom & started drawing tiny bugs in it

send me ur nature pics, pls

Baby's first "real" bookbinding, y'all! Mom, if you're reading this, close your eyes pls <3

Okay, embarrassing compliment time. My mom is incredibly creative and smart. She's probably the biggest reason why I've learned how to learn things on the fly — she's great at quickly picking up new information and problem-solving in general.

The latest thing I watched her learn on-the-task was bookbinding. Specifically, we made sketchbooks. We dug through a garage cabinet to excavate some giant sheets of watercolor paper she'd been hoarding (I get that from her, too), nestled around the table, and started cutting down our papers into notebook-sized pages.

She used a hole punch and fishing line to bind her pages, and I used a needle and embroidery thread. With a few spots of glue and several "ehhh, it'll be fine"'s, here's what we ended up with:

LEFT: The silly tiny sketchbook I made. RIGHT: The stunning, roughly A5 sketchbook my mom made, ft. one of her watercolor paintings on the front cover. Let me know if you’d be interested to see more of our wonky, inexperienced, DIY-binding process.

Then, a couple days ago, I asked a question on Threads:

“artists + writers + creative humans who can’t help but stop to take pics of weird bugs/plants/etc u see on the sidewalk, wya?”

And people absolutely understood the assignment. I got a flurry of nature photos straight to my inbox.

Without further ado, here are my tiny watercolor bugs (& more), inspired by new friends on Threads. Also, shoutout/thank you little sister who gifted me the very nice set of watercolors I used here.

And there are still at least 10 pages left, soooo … what bugs come next?

ways to get plugged in this week

—> ACT: Here's Southern California cause to pay attention to: No Canyon Hills, an ongoing effort to preserve a significant ecological area from private, luxury development. And another one with a similar mission but located slightly farther south: No Orange Heights. We need more housing across California, but from what I’m learning, these development projects don’t at all seem like they’re being executed in a way that will truly benefit the people and nature in the area.

—> LEARN: Take the Community Environmental Council’s Climate Stewards certification program! It’s based on a curriculum designed by UC ANR to equip local community with connections and skills to build climate resilience. I took the course in Fall 2023 — and fun fact, it was quite a catalyst for turning Filter Feeder into what it is now. (Psst, I’ll be TA’ing the upcoming session … see you there? 👀)

—> CONNECT: Join the Filter Feeder Contributor Network! <3