Hello and welcome to the Get Your Globe Up podcast. I'm joined today by Laura Brand, author of

The Joy Journal to discuss all things creativity and parenting. Laura's helping parents

to connect to their children, making use of what we already have and finding connection

through nature. On today's episode, we talk all about the importance of

creative outlets in Laura's life and how she hopes to pass them onto her children, the parenting

practices she believes in, and some fun and simple creative play activities for you to try at home.

I really love speaking to Laura about this topic. She has given me so many ideas and

definitely inspired me to bring out the paints, bring out the play dough and get stuck in.

Let's bring on the wonderful Laura. Welcome Laura to the podcast. Hey, thank you so much for having

me. It's such an honour and I'm really excited to be talking about your new book,

The Joy Journal for Magical Everyday Play, which is out now.

I would love to know what the inspiration for the book was.

Well, the inspiration would have to be where it was literally my daughters. I've always been somebody

who's been into making, creating arts and crafts. Ever since I was young, it was always sort of

one of the most important parts of my life being creative. And I would say like, you know,

in my 20s, I totally came off page and, you know,

I had a job in the hospitality industry. Everything was quite fast-paced. I felt, you know,

quite go, go, go. And I didn't really nurture that part of me at all. And then coming into my

late 20s and early 30s when I have my first daughter, Mabel, I started just to slow down. And it was in the

slowness, in the pregnancy, and when I was a sort of new mom and trying to work out, what am

going to do with this small baby? And then going into like when she became a toddler, I realized,

not even a toddler, probably around 10 months, I realized I needed to find new ways of playing with her

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