Butterfly Kaleidoscope

I am so far behind in my blogging. It has been a busy summer so far. I have been taking a lot of pictures and learning to edit on LightRoom. 

The first week of July, my great-niece Sophie came to visit from Arizona. She is 13, going into the 8th grade. One of the days she was here, I took her and two of my grandkids to the Butterfly Kaleidoscope exhibit at the Hilbert Conservatory, which is connected to the Indianapolis Zoo. 

There were beautiful butterflies everywhere!

Sophie was given her first cell phone to take on this trip and she enjoyed it thoroughly!

A view of the Conservatory from the Gardens.

At the zoo, we visited the aviary and saw lots of pretty birds.

Sophie tried for a long time to get this parakeet on her hand ...

and finally succeeded!

It was a fun day!!

Incognito

I have a lot of vacation pictures to share, but first I have a funny story about my granddaughter.
They went to King's Island this week and she bought a big stuffed mustache as a souvenir. 

Well, yesterday we decided to go to the library (we are in the summer reading program where the kids earn points and win prizes). Avery asked if she could wear the hat I bought on Catalina Island. She wanted to be in disguise.

She wore the disguise in the car, when we stopped at a garage sale, and then the whole time we were at the library.
Oh, the fun of being a seven year-old.

The Spool Bed

Here's how it started. One day I was shopping at my favorite thrift store and I found a little doll bed made of spools of thread. But it was marked $5.99, and I just thought that was too much so I didn't buy it. I went home and all I could think about was that spool bed. I went back the next day, and of course it was gone. I became obsessed with making my own spool bed. I started searching for spools and found they were hard to find. I ended up ordering plain turned spools on Etsy. I took the bag of spools over to my dad's and told him what I wanted to do. He said, "how big do you want it?" I showed him, and he got out his tape measure and measured the space between my hands. The next thing I knew, he came in from the garage and he had cut pieces of wood for the frame. I left the spools in his capable hands and when I went back in a couple of days, he had the frame all glued together. It was exactly what I wanted.

I took the frame home and spray-painted it white. Then I took some garden twine and wrapped it around the frame for the rope springs.

Then I found some fabric and made a tufted mattress.

I found a piece of a very raggedy old quilt in my stash and cut a piece to fit. And to finish it off, I made a bolster of embroidered fabric from an old blouse I had saved.

Wouldn't it be a lovely place for a nap? If you are a doll, that is.

Spring Fever

"It's spring fever.  That is what the name of it is.  And when you've got it, you want--oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!"

~Mark Twain

Busy As A Bee

 I have been working on crafts lately. Knitting, painting, just refurbishing things I have brought home. Take a look.

This pillow was meant to be a hat for St. Patrick's Day. I knitted and knitted, and when it was finally completed, it was ridiculously large. I hated to just put it in a drawer, so I made a pillow out of it. I added a vintage button, and maybe this is what it was meant to be all along!

This cute chair has been living in my garage for a long time. I had a vision when I brought it home - turquoise and a new cover for the seat. Oh, and a couple of those little round wooden screw covers were missing. It's finally finished!

I found this old gooseneck floor lamp at a thrift store on half price day. I already had the shade, but there was no way to connect the shade to the lamp. Do you see the round thingy with the screws at the top of the shade? I finally found those online and ordered a couple of them. A quick fix, once they arrived!

This was a fun project. I found this cute chair at Walmart for Nolan's 1st birthday, and stenciled his name on it.

It fit him perfectly!

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Prairie Girl

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to drive my granddaughter to Brown County State Park so that she could be in a movie. I went to pick her up only to find that she was supposed to look like a "prairie girl", sort of like a character on Little House on the Prairie. So we dug through her closet and this is what we came up with.

It was a beautiful but cold day in Brown County. While waiting, I took some pictures. This is a big shelter with two levels and multiple fireplaces inside.

At the stables, we saw this cute fuzzy pony. We also saw lots of people lined up to go horseback riding. It looked inviting, but we didn't have time.

While we were exploring the picnic shelter, a woman who was with her kids came up and offered to take our picture. 

It really was a beautiful day. There were lots of birds calling from the treetops and the sun was shining.

This is my granddaughter waiting for the movie people. We waited and waited and waited. They were two hours late. We were not happy campers.

But I had my camera and couldn't help but see how pretty it was that day, even if it was a bit cold.
The movie people finally arrived. It turned out to be a high school senior making his senior project, his two buddies and their dad. They had a script and knew just what they wanted to do. My granddaughter was the perfect little actress and ran through the woods looking over her shoulder for the bad guys, and slid down ravines multiple times. She had a ball.
Arriving in movie theaters soon ... !!!

Scenes from Easter 2013

Mom's lovely dinner table.

Yellow tulips from the Garfield Park Conservatory.

Easter cupcakes.

Ethan - age 11, letting his hair grow, has a boo-boo on his nose.

Nolan and Nathan greeting Great Grandma in the kitchen.

Yummy Easter ham.

Easter egg hunt participants.

There's one!!

Nolan's first Easter.

Nolan will be one year old on April 10th!

Mom checking the buffet.

John seems to be enjoying something on his iPad.

More pretty Easter flowers.

Coat on, it's time to go! Happy Easter!!