Owls

Found some very cute Owl notecards for printing over at

http://www.mmmcrafts.blogspot.com/

Print your own here;

Then browse her lovely designs.

Her blog is filled with fantastic patterns and I can take no credit other than to give her a shout out and tell her I love her designs.

Oh My Gourd!

We officially kick off our homeschool year starting on Tuesday. I've been using the last few days for time for myself and catching up on some crafts. Last year, I grew of ton of gourds and was pretty happy with the crop at the end of the season. This year, I'm not sure what I'll get. The vines have just started to flower and no fruit is even set yet. I have a good two months to go before I would need to harvest them so I'm hoping that I at least get a few.

My gourds from last year have been sitting on a shelf, well, collecting mold. Mold is good for gourds. It helps them dry out and creates amazing patterns on the gourds.

I've been painting decorative gourd birdhouses. This one is my favorite sunflower. I love how all the shapes of the gourds are different. They all have to be sanded completely and it is only after sanding that the true beautiful pattern of the gourd is revealed. The ones that don't have spectacular patterning are the ones that get painted.

This one, is gorgeous with its patterns of sworls and tortoise shell pattern.

It looks like granite. All of these patterns are caused by mold. Mold is good.

I love this Goddess Gourd too. The shape spoke to me. It was all curvy and female.

Here are the three gourds together, all shiny from being polyurethaned. I'm very happy with them. I started sanding several more gourds today. I don't know what they will be yet.

Springtime Butterflies and seedlings

We've spent the last few days in a whirlwind of activity. I was able to get some of my seeds started. The Peas and spinach were planted in these cute little peat pots that I found. I used these last year and they worked well.

I am always surprised at how much water they suck up. This tray of pots took almost 10 cups of water.

The three kids had a lot of fun planting the seeds. When the weather gets warm they are always out in the garden with me. Usually it's to steal cherry tomatoes but who can resist them?

Tae was sure to count out just two seeds for each pot.

He also played his guitar yesterday. My brother in law just released his new CD called Put Yourself Out There, and Tae just loves to listen to Uncle Kevin's new CD.

This lovely little sample was waiting for me after I ran errands yesterday. I'm getting a lot of free items thru the mail. Two cups of Dunkin Donuts coffee in the afternoon. I love DD coffee. Could never get a taste for Starbucks but DD....yummm.
This is the craft room at our Meetinghouse. We are very fortunate to have this space for our coop group to meet.

This is the toddler room. The big kids like to play in here too sometimes.

Yesterday our coop made butterflies. We used watercolors on coffee filters and then scrunched them up and used chenille stems for the antenae. The whole craft room was filled with beautiful springtime butterflies.

There were lots of Easter Eggy colors.

And darker geometric designs.

And earth tones with swirlies.

And spirals with springtime green colors.

Even the little ones joined in.

Beautiful butterflies waiting to be hung up.

Flying butterflies in my window.

Aren't they gorgeous?

Beautiful colors with glittery antenae.

Springtime pastels.

More window butterflies.

Some hanging from the center of the room.

Sarah and Kiara sharing a snack.

Butterfly mobile.

This weekend we have to plow the garden again to get it ready for the seedlings.

Last night I was able to spend some time with a friend. She needed some help in figuring out her daughters IEP and what the public school should be doing for her. It brought back some really hard memories of our struggle with Patrick and the SPED at public school. I'll be posting somemore on Patrick's learning difficulties another time. I'm off to bake some bread and make some dough for our pizza tonight.