last week of summer

I had a whole list of projects I wanted to finish this summer and so this month I didn't have just one Finish It Up Friday, but a whole week of them! I only have photos of a few to share right now, so stay tuned for more.

I finally got around to decorating the kid’s bathroom. I used starch to stick fabric circles to the walls using all the fun colors on the beach towels that we have in there.  It was a big hit with the kids.  I used a few commercially produced wall stickers too - pros: fast, with clean edges.  The pros for using the starch and fabric: unlimited colors & sizes, cheap and when you decide you need a dozen more at 11:30pm, no problem.  (note: I just used laundry starch instead of cooking up my own as shown in the link above...worked great.)

The best art project of the week, maybe the summer, was an exercise in positive & negative spaces.  S originally cut out a much more simple shape, but when she saw my curlicue she wanted to start over and came up with this red & yellow master piece.  J isn't really into being tied down to the outlined agenda and that's what's so great about being four years old.

We ended summer with the all-American tradition of the county fair. Collectively, our family won a blue ribbon, 5 red ribbons and 2 white ribbons. S is already planning next year’s entries.

This one was my favorite thing I drew this summer so I entered them in the fair too.  Do you think it would permanently scar little AJ if I decorated his nursery in these adorable little monsters?

In the imaginary world, all week we’ve been pretending, as directed by S, to be “Arctic Neverland Sea Turtles” which, in case you didn’t know, are all white except their shells & eyes which are the color of the aurora borealis. Arctic Neverland sea turtles spin themselves cocoons and emerge as anything from a butterfly as big as a house to a saber-toothed tiger. An old blue blanket that M used as a kid, who the kids have named Spike, is easily the Arctic Neverland sea turtles’ cocoon of choice and always in high demand.  Seriously, who needs a TV when you've got this much imagination!?!?!