Stare if you must..........: June 2016

We got home from our trip only to find that our clothing dryer is now broken. So we have been doing the laundromat waiting for the repair person that Lowe's is sending out. Our dryer is about three years old and still under the extended warranty we bought. So far we have had to have both the washing machine and dryer worked on several times! It is getting quite annoying. We can't find appliances that will last more than a few years for us.

The Monday after we returned I had an Art Camp scheduled to start. We had kids at the shop all week for Art Camp and we had a great time. We did tie dying, paper mache, painting in all sorts of mediums. We were quite busy. Tasha helped me with the camp. We have two more camps scheduled for the summer, one in July and one in August.

We had two different age groups, younger kids in the morning. Although they all signed photograph waivers, I will try to not post their faces on this blog.

In the morning when the kids were arriving we had poster boards and paint ready for everyone to work on a project together. On the first day we had them painting circles.

We did a 16 by 20 painting that involved getting their feet painted, they loved it.

Another group painting was koi fish.

We had lots of dye flying on tie dying day.

Finished koi fish painting

Upcycling project, scratch offs using old cd's. We also made scratch offs by coloring paper with oil pastels and then painting them black. They enjoyed the scratch offs.

We painted them with black acrylic paint on the shiny side.

Scratched off with a toothpick.

We decided it was time for a dirty yet clean project and did shaving cream on the table.

We used tempura paint and had them drip it on the shaving cream.

They swirled the paint with a brush and then took a piece of water color paper and squished it into the shaving cream.

We would then let it dry for about 30 minutes and then scrape off the shaving cream. Do not brush it off (lesson learned). It made really neat designs.

The kids then spread the shaving cream all over the tables and cleaned them. The tempura paint did not stain at all.

Of course we did paper mache as well. At first the kids were hesitant about this project but as the week progressed they started to see results and worked hard on their projects. We worked on them every day from Monday to Friday.

We made some coater ink project with the older kids. It was addictive!

We also made color wheel trees. The kids enjoyed using their fingers to mix the primary colors together to make the secondary colors.

We actually did more projects but I don't have good pictures to share. We were busy, we kept them busy. We had a great time!

We are having our next camp in a few weeks and are working out the projects. Some things will be the same, tie dying and paper mache, but other projects will be different. We are always open to suggestions if anyone has a great craft we should try.

Sorry for the long break! If you watch my facebook page you will know that we had art camp last week, I am wore out! More on that tomorrow. I will finish our vacation with our rafting pictures. We had a great time and two boat loads. The only problem we have is that we have two little ones so John had to stay back and watch them. Next time he needs to raft.

We hit that big rock and for a moment I thought we might all fall out. However, our weight kept us grounded and we rolled off and away from the rock. My biggest concern was Kassi, she can't swim! I was prepared to help her out if needed.

The other boat went down much smoother. I think that our boat grounded on just about every rock out there. We felt like we needed to go back and catch the others that we missed.

If the picture were taken from the other side you would nitice that Michelle does not have an oar. According to adult eye witnesses she literally dropped it and said "ooops". I am not sure what was going on with her, she lost her glasses tubing because she hooked them on her shirt to keep them dry!? Yea, that didn't work, she lost her glasses.