Green Urban Creative

🎉 Happy New Year! ✨
The Traceable Calendar is back for 2025 and ON SALE for a limited time!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1838086748/
Enjoy 18 months of traceable calendar pages from January 2025 through June 2026. Each page is designed with pastel rainbow days of the week to help your littlest learners begin to learn the rhythm of the week through color and sequence.
Features hand drawn watercolor artwork for each month, plus little drawings on each month to designate the season.
Get it 25% OFF thru Sunday, January 6th 🎉

Saying goodbye to my blog… it’s bittersweet, but definitely time for a rest and a change. The site will be up for a bit longer, so check it out soon if you want to read any of the old posts.
My family has been through so many transitions this past year that I’m not the same person I was when starting this blog… life has been painful, and change is inevitable.
I do hope to write again… but I’m not ready quite yet. In the fallout of much loss, I’ve become very unsure of my own voice. That’s ok. This time is for healing and listening, resting and quiet, slowly learning to find the words again.
♥️

Wednesdays we do a nature walk 🍃 and in Oregon it’s starting to drop hints that fall is right around the corner. That glints yellow-orange tint to the sunlight, little breezes beginning to twist leaves free, squirrels beginning their frantic pre-winter hoarding rituals.
We enjoy walking at a park nearby that has both an established playground + sports field and gorgeous nature trails with carefully curated native PNW trees. We get opportunities for spotting wildlife that can be tricky to find in the bright, bustling city: last week an owl swooped down over our heads, alighted in a tree across the stream, and proceeded to preen itself and show off his impressive head-turning abilities.
We also collected nature items to examine more closely at home: crabapples, bits of holey wood, just-turning-yellow leaves, rosehips, bits of twig, and of course acorns!
Once back home, my kids completed a page of journaling ✏️ and spent some casual time eating snacks and chatting about our discoveries.
I cherish these less-structured days as a sweet privilege of homeschooling. Do you take nature walks?

Hey friends, it’s been a minute!
If you’re new here, I’m Lydia — mama to three growing littles ages almost-8, 6.5, and 4! Our family has been on a (mostly) homeschool journey for five years, with a brief interlude in public school and two major cross country moves within a year. We love learning artfully — and our educational philosophy incorporates Charlotte Mason and Classical methods with a sprinkle of Montessori and foundation on the Bible. I like to make learning beautiful with rich stories, interactive art projects, and nature exploration.
After a long and much-needed sabbatical from content creation, I’m feeling ready to begin again. I’ve got new ideas and fresh perspective, and I can’t wait to share them with you!
As I get back into working, I’ve decided to shake things up by rebranding. Green Urban Creative is becoming Learning Artfully! I’ve wanted to make this switch for some time, but rebranding is a big undertaking and I’ve felt pretty daunted by it. I’m going to go ahead and give it a go — but please be patient with me as it will be an imperfect process. If you’re having trouble finding or accessing anything because of broken links —> send me a DM or email [email protected] (Yes, I’ll eventually get a new email address, too.)
I’ve written about our choice to try public school over on my blog. I always strive for honesty and transparency with you guys, so it’s important to me that you can have window into our educational whys and wherefores… and if they don’t jive with your POV that’s totally ok! We are all doing the best we can with what we have, who we are, and where we are with our kiddos. I love learning and growing alongside other families who may see things the same way I do — or not!
This past year has been an exceptionally hard one for our family (public school was not the reason for this). While I’m going to be careful what I share about it, I have learned a lot of hard lessons that could either have completely crushed me or refined me for the future. After months of heartache, grieving, and prayer, I feel like I am beginning to embrace the pain of peeling away dragon scales and beginning anew.
💚

Need something to explore with the kids while anticipation for Christmas Day is growing? Check out the Christmas Flora Art Study!
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The journal takes classical artwork and presents it to young elementary children in an approachable, guided way. This art journal is designed to coordinate with our Christmas Flora 3 Part Cards, and it includes 4 separate art studies featuring plants commonly associated with the Christmas season:
♥️ Chrysanthemum
♥️ Amaryllis
♥️ Christmas Rose
♥️ Mistletoe
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The art study includes a picture study page, an art exploration page, an art theory page, and an art study page for students to replicate their version of the artwork.
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IG: Link in bio
FB: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1131790307/