The Joy Journal for Magical Everyday Play

The Joy Journal for Magical Everyday Play by Laura Brand showcases fifty engaging activities for creative, everyday playtime to encourage a connection to nature, sense of joy and bonding with your kids, while nurturing your own inner child too.

The activities are mindful, creative and, crucially, very easy things to make and do with children that you will enjoy as much as they will. From moon sand to flower soup and nature wands there are short, long, loud and quiet activities to take you from morning to evening - each with a focus on the risk factors: volume of effort vs child engagement and mess. Laura Brand has been testing these while writing and raising her two-under-two, and shares the happy accidents and road blocks she’s hit along the way in honest, open and often funny introductions to each of the exercises.

This beautiful handbook will help you to inject fun, mindfulness and craft into bath-times, rainy afternoons, long journeys and play dates and to resist (as much as possible!) the temptation to succumb to screen time. Chapters take you through the seasons, with indoor, outdoor and on-the-go activities that are easy and fun every day.

The Joy Journal will arm you with a variety of fun, focussed activities made with store cupboard and easily foraged supplies that you can turn to time and again. All activities are suitable for toddlers, pre-schoolers, grown-ups and everyone in between.

Laura Brand is an author and illustrator. She shares her crafty experiments and creative ideas for everyday play in her Sunday Times bestselling book The Joy Journal for Magical Everyday Play and on her online platform The Joy Journal. She has led workshops for children and adults at Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place Festival, Port Eliot Festival and others.

Laura lives in the countryside with her husband, their two daughters, two dogs, ten cats and chickens. Home is a place of muddy boots, half-finished creative projects and DIY decorations.

With chaos and calm in equal measure, Laura aspires to guide people in joyful crafting and a connection to nature that is accessible to all. Laura has discovered that having her own creative outlet positively impacts her mental health and wellbeing and provides a welcome tonic in a busy world.