Bunchland

The Williamsburg Bridge, connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan

At Bunchland, we’ve got friends in different area codes: awesome families who want you to come visit them so they can show you around. In this issue, Sweet William shopkeeper Bronagh, her husband, Peter, and their 3-year-old son Fiontan invite you to spend a whirlwind weekend with them in Brooklyn. Her family will play tour guide, your family will be the photo-snapping, Hawaiian shirt-wearing tourists. Enjoy your stay!

Saturday

First, you meet up with Bronagh’s family at her Williamsburg kids’ clothing shop, Sweet William, where you rifle through racks of pint-sized ensembles crafted by independent and eco-minded designers. Your kids squeal with delight at the store’s plush menagerie wall display.

Sweet William’s wall of toys

Bronagh suggests stopping for brunch at her family’s favourite spot, Five Leaves. There you might nosh on truffle fries, ricotta pancakes or house-cured gravelax.  Read more...

Designated play area: The Playborhood!

As kids, we played for hours. After school, we’d knock on our neighbours’ door and invite our friends out to play. Then we’d play outside until the sun went down, or until our parents physically dragged us back to the house.  Our playtimes ruled. The Wii had not yet been invented, and still we managed to have a blast. 

Today’s kids aren’t enjoying the same long stretches of unstructured free play. Whether it’s because they’re  overscheduled, glued to their video screens and/or not allowed to roam outside unsupervised, it makes us sad. California dad Mike felt sad about this too and wanted his three sons to have something akin to the hazy, lazy days of his own childhood. So he decided to turn his own yard into the most awesome neighbourhood hangout ever, and in the course launched the Playborhood movement and its accompanying online hub where parents can read his blog posts and share ideas. He thinks that, with a bit of effort, our front and backyards can be the best hangouts ever too.

Spaghetti with Eyeballs Photo by Eric Staudenmaier from The Secret Life of Food by Clare Crespo

We’ve all got bins full of markers and drawers full of glue but one of the most fun art supplies is sitting neglected in your kitchen cupboard. Making crazy looking stuff out of food is wickedly fun. Today, we’ve got the world’s foremost expert on wacky food art standing by to inspire you and your crew to make monkey pops or jello aquariums. Clare Crespo is an art school grad who once played in a band with Beck and made experimental animated videos but now she gets her creative expression out by cooking things like spaghetti with eyeballs. Photos of her whimsical food projects are packed into her two books, The Secret Life of Food and Hey There, Cupcake! She’s also filmed three episodes of a completely mental cooking show in her garage, the YummyFun Kooking show (think Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, but with recipes), preparing candy bugs and monster heads and making time for dance breaks with the show’s house band, The Tastebuds.  Read more...

The birthday girl in full rock attire

Ella and her friends dressed up as rock stars

You know how you want your kids to share in your love of awesome tunes? Kelly and Colin’s kids Ella and Nolan love homemade iTunes playlists as much as most kids love candy. They have their own iPod in their basement playroom, where they love to dance and imitate their favourite rockers. Nolan and Ella both celebrated their birthdays with rock star-themed parties. Nolan’s 3rd birthday was a laidback affair that followed the simple formula of little kids dancing to music+eating cake=party. But Ella’s 6th birthday bash required a bit more planning to keep the 15 guests entertained.

Here is Kelly’s step-by-step guide for a rock star party at home:  Read more...

When you guys saw The Royal Tenenbaums, how bad did you want to live in that house? Here’s a family that’s captured the Tenenbaum feel for their daughter’s nursery with a great wall mural. In today’s post, they tell us how they DIY did it and give us a whole bunch of pictures of their house to share with you.

The mural feels Tenenbaum-y because it’s imperfect and hand-drawn,  which makes us optimistic that you could do it too.  Taylor and a friend drew the trees, as well as the banner and lettering, freehand, and the font was inspired directly by the one from the movie. The piano keys were added with a ruler and a Sharpie. Alternately, there are some great birch tree decals and stencils that you can buy and pair with a Tenenbaum poster, or even finger puppets and paper dolls from Etsy.  Read more...

Hamish Linklater stars alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus in The New Adventures of Old Christine, and Jessica Goldberg is an award-winning playwright. They divide their time between L.A. and New York and make an annual pilgrimage to Scotland. How does this family entertain themselves when they’re not entertaining others? Jessica shares their Play List with us.

Central Park’s Delacorte Theatre. This will be our second summer going to N.Y. while Hamish does Shakespeare in the Park. Last year, (after rehearsal), Lucinda “got naked” and ran the rolling hills of the Twelfth Night set. We’re pretty excited by her interest in the stage, after all, that’s how we met, when her dad auditioned for a play of mine. We’re excited to see what she does this year with The Merchant of Venice [starring Al Pacino]!  Read more...

This family tour of Melbourne is brought to you by The Mudcakes aka Rick and Sherry, kids’ music-makers and experts on all things awesome and Aussie. They live with their two kids in Williamstown, a historic seaport and (some say) Melbourne’s best-kept secret, but they met in Nashville, Tennessee. They moved to Sherry’s homeland down under following the release of their debut CD, Songs for Little Monkeys.  Read on to discover how their bunch parties in Melbourne, a city with the recently-discovered cultural cred of Austin and Montreal.

If you wanted to delight a kid, where would you take them?

Ye Olde Suckers in Nelson Place for all kinds of old-fashioned sweetie treats. Scienceworks Museum in Spotswood and Luna Park in St. Kilda are both also great kiddie fun.

Describe a perfect day spent with your family in your hometown, from beginning to end.  Read more...