"The Big Ole Boat"

In May Kenly and I went to Augusta for a short visit. We had a great time as always. Summer hits Augusta hard, and it starts in April. We started the trip off my watering some flowers with Nana and Grandma.

When the temperature soared, Kenly cooled off by playing in the sprinkler in the backyard.

We spent a day at Lake Thurmond (or Clarks Hill if you're a local). Kenly got a chance to ride on Papa's "big ole boat." The boat's name is Papa's Folly and it is fantastic fun. Grandma came with us to the lake. I don't know who had more fun--Grandma or Kenly.
Papa was in the running for best time too.

Both Grandma and Kenly had "permagrins" while we were on the boat.


We had a picnic on a beach and then spent some time cooling off in the water.


Papa and Kenly did a bit of crafting while we were there too. Papa broke out the watercolors, and the creativity flowed.
Kenly got a bit distracted and started painting Papa's nails.
He let her paint all of his nails red. Look at him letting those nails dry. It's like he's been getting manicures his whole life.
Then he painted Kenly's nails the color of her choosing. She picked brown.

Creativity

Before the craziness of summer set in, we were still doing a bit of crafting around here. I'm trying to stand back and let Kenly's own creativity kick in. It's hard for me, but I'm learning. I've enjoyed watching her color this summer. She's being more deliberate about her color selection. Purple strawberries and green cats. I love it. I adored the phase of scribbling with wild abandon, but she's trying to color objects now instead of smearing the page with color. I've never told her she had to color in the lines. She's just watched and learned. It's a sobering fact. She's always watching and learning from me. Most of what she gets is good, but on occasion I'll see her roll her eyes and I know that I'm responsible. I hear my voice come out of her mouth, and I'm even more aware that I always want what she's learned from me to be good and wholesome.

Playing with glue and scissors to make a collage is one of her favorite crafts.



Paint with water books are great if you can find them. I've only found three since her birth, and I've been looking.

Watercolor Recipe

I was perusing a few new blogs the other day when I happened upon Pocketful of Posies and this nifty watercolor paint recipe. The detail for making the paint can be found there, but here is a picture of all the ingredients. (Warning: Make sure your Styrofoam egg carton is structurally sound before adding your ingredients. We made quite a mess on the kitchen counter because we didn't check for holes. Live and learn.)

Kenly loved watching the white vinegar and baking soda put on a show.
This is the paint base just before we added the food coloring.
I loved how the food coloring reacted with the paint base.
We made enough for eight different colors.
The paint can be used right after it is mixed, but it can also dry for a few days. We opted to let the colors dry. About 72 hours later we decided to try out our creation.
Who is unhappy with Mommy? I get this look with frequency these days.



I loved the rich color the paints produced.
Overall I was very pleased with the paints we made. I discovered that the colors mute as they dry, and the paper takes on a chalky texture. I'm not sure if these paint will wash out of clothing either. I'd suggest a smock or messy clothes as food coloring can be a staining nightmare.

Ordinary Crafting

We haven't been too creative around here. I've wanted to decorate the house with crafts for St. Patrick's Day, but my creative juices are a little low these days. I'm sure we'll make a rainbow or cut out a few shamrocks to hang from the Valentine's Day Tree that is still up on the mantel. (Sad. I know.) Kenly has been taking the lead with the crafting these days.


Kenly is enjoying drawing balloons these days. She's actively drawing a balloon in this picture.
Here are some close pictures of her first identifiable art. She asked me to draw balloons in various colors, and then she added a bunch of her own. I love it.

Kenly's also been into making collages with construction paper scraps. She loves being "in charge" of the glue.

Happy (late) Valentine's Day!

Since I've been so behind, I didn't post many of our Valentine's Day crafts before Valentine's Day. Better late than never, right? We found these adorable heart shaped cards at Michael's, and Kenly made them beautiful with paint and stickers. Kenly still doesn't understand that mixing all the colors equals brown, but she still managed to make all the cards unique. We painted both sides and then added stickers for embellishment.









We also made three sets of heart shaped crayons. Kenly kept one set, and we gifted the others to her friends Ava and Davis. I bought a silicone muffin pan from Target for $2.50. It will be our permanent crayon maker. I highly recommend a silicone muffin pan for recycling old broken crayons.

I found S.B Creatively blog just before February began, and I found this Valentine's Day Countdown idea and decided to make one to use and two to share. Kenly loved counting down to Valentine's Day. The hardest part was explaining that we could only cover a heart with a sticker once a day.

The craft is really simple. Cut out shapes to make a tree. Cut out 14 hearts and number them. Glue it all together, and you have a countdown poster.




Here's our completed tree. We used foam stickers from Dollar Tree to cover each day. Kenly still wants to add stickers even though she knows that the holiday has passed. I'd say this was a huge success.
We also tried our hand at salt dough ornaments. My blogging friend at Elle Belle's Bows gave me the idea. The recipe we used came from here. Kenly loves kneading the dough. She kept saying, "Tiggers don't like that icky sticky stuff." It was really cute to see her try and discover whether or not she likes the goop on her hands.

She asked for the little rolling pin from her kitchen to help me roll out the dough.
We used cookie cutters to make three different sized hearts. Then we used a straw to poke a hole for the string we were going to use. I also made a few X's and O's for our end product.


I love how hard she is pressing down on this cutter. She wants to get it just right.
After we finished cutting everything out, we placed the ornaments in the oven to dry. The whole drying process took about 40 minutes. The ornaments were still a bit damp so we continued to let them air dry from a few days.

Once they were dry, we painted the ornaments with acrylic paints. Kenly felt poorly this day, so I couldn't get her to crack a smile for the camera. She just wanted to paint in peace.



We used egg cartons to facilitate the drying process. Some of the hearts have both sides painted. Others do not.

Once the paint dried, I added "conversation heart sayings" with a permanent marker. I clear coated the ornaments as a finishing touch. I used kite string to make the hearts into ornaments. I then found the perfect twigs from the yard to make a Valentine's Day Tree.

I placed the "tree" on the mantel. When Adam saw it, he was really impressed. He thinks it looks like art. I was happy that he thought it looked beautiful. He not a huge holiday freak like I am.
For Valentine's Day, Adam made me one of my favorite dishes--Saucy Shrimp. Doesn't it look wonderful? We think Valentine's Day is a commercialized holiday, so we tend to be very low key about the whole day. We feel you should express Valentine's Day sentiments every day, so we do. Kenly did receive a few gifts from us--Candy Land, a CD, a book, and some candy. She's our very special Valentine.
Earlier in the month, my friend Missy hosted a girls' night for a good cause--Hearts 4 Kids. This program accepts homemade valentines that are then delivered to children's hospitals across the state. So, eight women spent two hours making 76 valentines. It was so much fun.






Happy Valentine's Day!