Thank goodness the sun came out this morning

Yesterday was wet and cool. It's been that way all week, and it looks to be the same. So, unfortunately for you, you are getting subjected to ridiculously long posts on my part. I figure just about no one made it through yesterday's essay. What can I say? The nice thing is you can click off and never have to respond, eh? I am definitely starting to feel stir crazy. The kids are too... it's not good. At some point yesterday we all lost it, each in our individual ways. It was not pretty. We walked in the rain... TWICE. We had already maxed out the library this week. We've done drawing and painting, exploring for bugs in the wet, wet garden. I even let them race around outside in the rain without me one day, and I seriously debated whether or not I would allow them back in the house. So... I had to break out with some creative projects in a big way.

I recently met Jean who writes "The Artful Parent" when we were picking blueberries locally. She is so talented and has such a wonderful blog; it's an incredible resource. We used the directions from this post to dye our silk scarves with Kool Aid. The only problem with my plan was that I had only purchased two packs of Kool Aid and we had four silk scarves. Going out to the store in the rain was not something I could even fathom. So... on to Plan B in addition to Plan A.

Plan B:

We used food coloring and this link helped me navigate my way through the process. (How did I live without Internet access when the first was born? That was surely a mistake.) I was thrilled with the results and will do it again. We had some "neon" food dyes from McCormick. I got these just before Easter this year, and we used them for egg dying instead of buying the prepackaged tabs. I love the colors in this set, and I love the chartreuse green and turquoise blue for the scarves. (This pic does not do the the vividness of the colors any justice.) In fact, the purple came from the Kool Aid and was our least favorite; the other three were food dye. The food dye did just as well as the Kool Aid, better I think. The only difference in the prep was that I pre-soaked the intended food dye scarves in straight vinegar, no water.

I intend to purchase some more silk scarves from Dharma trading post... we use the heck out of the ones we already have. They are also such nice gifts. We can say that because we have been the recipient of some in the past. Next time, we will only use food dye and we're gonna go for some red, orange, yellow, and another in that green, I think.

The second "fly by the seat of my skirt" project was the old melt the crayons in muffin tins. The peeling of crayons did last for quite a while, accompanied by some good music. My little guy became more absorbed in sorting and pouring them all, even though he's great at peeling. We had borrowed my friend's silicone candy forms back in April. Fortunately, we're slackards and hadn't used or returned them yet. What a nice thing they were to have yesterday! When I was googling to find you a link for melting crayons, I found this. Next time we're trying it. I'll let you know how it goes.