One of the big projects in third grade is to do a big animal report and then a diarama showing your animal in its natural habitate. Matthew studied the lynx. He had a great time making the diarama. 
I did learn the key to his success was having some good supplies to give him. Since we have a five year storage of craft supplies it wasn't too hard! But don't come to me when the grocery store runs out of food. However, we can craft at my house until we starve! 
I did try it on the mantel with the new Spring decorations. I decided I hadn't painted in awhile so I took these frames which has some lovely lady's paintings of teapots from the 70's in them. Can't find my before pictures. Anyway I decoupaged layers of paper on top of her art and them painted my own. Oh, and painted the old wood frames cream. 
Lets pretend this is a tree of life. 
And that this is a Spring robin. They make me happy. 
Somewhere in blogland I saw an idea using old bottles and pouring a little thinned acrylic paint inside to color them. It wasn't quite as easy as it looked and involved using my blow dryer to try and speed things along but I am happy with the results. Now if Spring would just come to the outdoors... 
No, I couldn't possibly have made that bow bigger. I am afraid to admit how quickly I channeled my 80's hair skills and recreated that awesome wing you can' t see clearly enough. I remember dressing up when I was in junior high but you were supposed to dress like the 60's or sometimes the 70's. Guess this was a rite of passage for us both. 
This is the finished product. I love this fabric. I would be draped in it all day if I could.
I forgot to take before pictures but this is half way through. That blue fabric is older than everyone in my house combined. Not sure where this chair started life but my grandpa found it sitting at someone's curb on his way home one day and brought it home. He recovered it, my mom then later recovered it and this is at least the third time I have recovered it. Neither my mom or I used that blue fabric so it is OLD! 
Found this footstool at the thrift store for $4. We need at least three footstools in our family room. When we watch movies we all need one. Three of us have been sharing the big one but it was just not working.
So this is where I look crazy. This is the footstool almost entirely recovered using hot glue. The only thing I sewed was the piping. I even hemmed it with glue because I had no black thread and it was midnight. Oh, and the plastic tray became the top which I cut the batting to fit and then glued. That way I could more easily cover the top. Needless to say this footstool may not have too long a life span if boys decide to abuse it but they have all been threatened and it will be nice while it lasts.
Finished footstool.
The whole thing together. It makes me happy whenever I walk by.
This chair and footstool were brought to us by Diet Dr. Pepper. Lots of it! 
The big kids and I went to the local High School production of the Drowsy Chaperone last night. As always they did a great job. I knew nothing about this one except that one of my friends had seen it at Hale theater and said it was cute. It was an added bonus to find that one of the girls in our ward had a nice large part. She was darling, now I am thinking of asking if she would consider giving Brittany voice lessons. This has become a Spring tradition for the big kids and I, we really enjoy it, even Matthew who may not look it in the picture. I love that our high school does such a great job, making it easy and cheap to expose my kids to live theater. It is still playing tonight and tomorrow if you are in the area!
Hope a nice leprechaun finds you some treats not tricks!
Hope you find a yummy rainbow!
Just in case anyone wondered I still live with Batboy, well Batman if you ask him. He goes with me to the store, to lunch basically he will do all errands. Although his apperances seem to be getting farther between. I will be so sad when he doesn't visit anymore.
Oh, and he still likes cars. And my camera.
My dear friend Tiffany is having an awesome giveaway. Go here to enter and you might win a custom Birthday cake topper!
These are the birds. They are painted resin birds. Realistic looking huh? I sprayed them black and then painted them with blue acrylic paint which I quickly wiped off.
They needed a home so aftr much hunting I found this lovely clock at the thrift store. I was very excited, I have been watching for awhile.
I made a little nest out of some Spanish moss I had around and now this little fella is bringing Spring inside.
I went with my sister for the day on Saturday and left Brittany in charge. When I left they were watching Swiss Family Robinson so of course one should expect that upon return you should find a new tree house inhabiting a tree at your house. Yep, I helped make these kids this crafty and not that Brittany can work the glue gun there is no stopping them.
A close-up of the rabbit in his new digs.
He even has a rope from his house for quick escapes. Yep, they are crafty these kids. The down side is that craftiness is not in anyway related to cleanliness. Oh, well...
My kids have always been tent builders. They come from a long line of tent builders, my sister and I were really good at it when we were kids-my mother taught us well. So last week when they asked if they could build one in the basement I'm sure they were pretty sure the answer would be yes. They got busy, built a beauty of a tent and then of course wanted to watch a movie in there. Well, until the cold of the concrete floor seeped into their bones and they came upstairs to finish the movie.
I know one day not too far off they won't want to do this anymore so I am going to enjoy my little tent-builders as long as I can.
Here is a close-up, happily I had all the supplies on hand when the idea struck. Sometimes it pays to have a craft stash.
Another close-up. She seemed to love it, the perfect pay-off for an afternoon of crafting!
We just watched this as a family. Now I am all nostalgic thinking of the days when I was a teen-ager. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't in 1959 when this movie was filmed. But when I was a teen-ager in the 80's I had a friend named Leslie and we spent many a hot Summer afternoon in her perfectly air conditioned house watching all the Gidget movies we could lay our hands on and dreaming of the days ahead that would surely be filled with romance and boys. The cute old clothes didn't hurt either. So there I sat tonight with my three kids scrunched around me and hubby across the room. Not quite what I pictured all those years ago but still good. I think we may have to watch Gidget goes Hawaiian next!
The girls that I lunch with have been talking about this book for awhile now. I don't know why I was so slow to jump in. My friend Sarah lent it to me which was wonderful. However, she and my other friends should have warned me. This book was not healthy to the life of my family or cleanliness of my house. Not to mention the dark circles under my eyes from staying up too late reading it. I just wanted to lock myself in a room and not stop reading until my eyes couldn't read anymore. Of course I was also determined not to read it too quickly because then its 545 pages of wonderfulness would be over. Like it is now. Now what will I read? I have been thinking about the characters all day and I miss them. Always the sign of a good book.
I found myself getting grumpy last week. Why? Lack of crafting. So last week a few friends came over and we went to town. I mean we all need new Spring crafts right? And I have this hanger on my front door that looks really dumb if there isn't something hanging on it. I saw this idea here. I love it in white like she did but I am craving color in this gray Winter world so this is what I ended up with.
There it is on my front door.
This is my friend's first wreath. Doesn't it look lovely and Springy?
Then we decided to hurry and knock out another for a birthday she had that week. Another friend made it in brown but she left before I remembered the camera. It was super cute too. I have the bug again, more Spring crafts coming!
