Last week a neighbor stopped in for a minute. She hadn't been inside the house for a while and said "Cute tree and owls!" about the paper decorations up over the school cubbies. She thought they were new.
Ahem. Let's take a look back, shall we?
Yeah, the Monkey's Totoro birthday decorations? Still up! Well, the tree and little totoros are anyway.
So, I kinda was like... ooohh... not owls, and not a cool fall decoration. Just procrastination!
I realized later what I should have said was: Thanks!
Because she wouldn't have known, would she?
Putting up those decorations (in April!) was a great excuse to take down the quilt that's been up on that wall since we moved in. I'm tired of it. It's pretty, and I hand-quilted it, but I want something new. And I kept thinking that I'd paint that wall first, so I haven't bothered hanging anything else up yet.
Also, whenever I'd think of taking it down, Monkey was around so I'd say to myself that I'd take it down that night when he was in bed. And then I'd forget.
Anyway, it was time (5 and a half months ago...) to at least change it. Since it's a festive week, what with Halloween and all, I kinda turned it into a fall tree. The kind that magically grows several different shaped leaves - heh.
With one lone owl Totoro sitting on a branch.
And it was a great place to hang some fall art projects!
Last week we talked about warm/cool colors. I luckily had a handy poster from college that we used. (Weirdly, while I know I made this poster, I have no recollection of when or why I made it. It's just vaguely familiar. And handy.)
And the kids went hunting for warm and cool-colored items.
Then we looked at leaf shapes, drew leaves, outlined in black crayon (or white for Monkey because he likes to do the opposite of what I suggest) and painted them with warm colors. The background was only cool colors (I know purple is questionable - we went with it).
I love Thomas' contours! I think it's pretty obvious who's work is whose - can you tell?
This week we followed that up with leaf rubbings - with only warm colored crayons.
I am, however, bound and determined to get those beach photos blown up and framed BEFORE CHRISTMAS. There. I said it.
