Leaf It to Peanut

Peanut had a school project in her backpack the weekend before last. She needed to decorate a cutout of a feather that would be added to all the other kids' feathers to make a turkey. Sunday morning when we got up we decided that we were going to do things found in nature. We picked leaves from trees that had beautiful fall colors, acorns, acorn caps and berries. Just doing that felt like an adventure! Thought we could mix it with some glue and glitter and make a nice feather. Thankfully I already had the glitter. We sat down at her little table in the living room. Before we began to work I thought I'd put some music on. We've been watching the musical "Annie" and I thought it would be fun to dig up my old record and play it. I couldn't find it, but I did find The Brady Bunch album that I listened to in the late 70's. Brought back some fun memories and I was surprised how many of the words I remembered. Got the sillies out of our system and started to get to work on the assignment. Those of you who know me well know that I don't like glitter messes. At first I thought I was going to be the one controlling the use of the glitter...then I let go and had a blast. We had to put a heavier backing on the feather as the construction paper just would not hold acorn caps, etc. Used the back of a notepad. Then we traced a feather onto a red piece of construction paper b/c the bright blue piece that we were to use was just not "Fall-ish". I ended up bringing down the hot glue gun b/c I knew that Elmer's would just not do the trick. Did the first few leaves with glitter and then I thought it would be fun to use glitter nail polish (and less mess!). Despite the awful smell, it actually worked! We also put glitter on top of the nail polish for extra shine. I gave Peanut the job of glittering the acorns, leaves, etc...then she would place them on the feather (sometimes with my encouraging her where to place the stuff)...and then I would glue it on. We sat there with our heads bopping away to the music and just had a great time. We started picking leaves, etc at 9:30am and finished her special feather and two plates of decorative acorns, leaves and acorn caps by 2pm (with lunch in-between). We were still in our jammies, there floor was not messy, but our hands were...and we had the best time.

We decided that we're going to do an art project every Sunday morning that we are together. It was one of the best times we've had together.