The Writing on the Wall

It would be nice to say this was an original idea, but I stole it. I'm not sure from whom though. While stalking through the Kyd's Facebook profile and therefore her friends' profiles and of course those friends of friends profiles I wandered across a few senior portraits taken with graffiti-in-the-wild as the back drop. Because I have a lot of free time on my hands with very little ambition, I do a lot of driving around. Turns out I recognized the graffiti and knew where it was. YAY. The problem was with getting the time with the Kyd in a dress, good hair and make up. Again, another things we (I) talked about a lot but didn't quite do. Until Eighth Grade Graduation: The Day After.

For some reason a few of the girls decided to put their dresses back on and roam around the back yard (another post here soon) and let me take pictures. Then it dawned on me: UNDERPASS. GRAFFITI -- LET'S GO. Since the Grandma and Grandpa were visiting, we had their van and were able to get the girls to one place at one time. Thanks to a Kyd-Life-Long collection of dress-up clothes, there was even a dress for the 7th Grader (now 8th) who crashed the party.

What a fun time. The new graduates +1 had fun first reading the graffiti (learned the need to spell things correctly in order to get the point across. Misspelled graffitied words lose some of their angst impact and instead result in giggles), then posing for pictures and finally playing a game of "Ninja" in between the two underpasses -- throw in the occasional wave to the cars on the highway and you couldn't ask for a much better way to have mini adventure with friends.

And Let It Begin With ME! (US)

The redecoration of "The Room" continues - 6 months after it was stripped bare and repainted. Of course I'm talking about the Kyd's room. As ususal, intentions are honorable, but the execution is lacking. However, some months ago, Kyd was inspired and thought it would be cool to have a giant peace sign made out of hand prints on her wall. After some discussion and the desire to not EVER have to paint over handprints on the newly painted wall, I thought that we could possibly improvise. I quickly purchased two sets of canvas from Big Lots and even more quickly shoved it into the scrapbook/junk closet where it lived a not-so-lonely life with a million dollars worth of unused scrapbook supplies, forgotten about decorations from our old house and an assortment of other good-intentions and almost 22-year-old wedding memorabilia for several months. FINALLY, after several parties that had many friends and many hands and therefore many missed opportunities, we set out to try this little project on a spur of the moment gathering of three.

NEEDED: Four pieces of canvas, a variety of acrylic paints, pencil, string several different hand sizes. We used a pencil and a string to rough in the circle on the canvas. Of course we couldn't find the paint brushes so improvised by pouring the paint onto paper plates and squishing hands around in it. Then, the fun began and art ensued.