A Lazy Day of Painting

Today our two girls woke up with fevers and coughs. Brianne slept in until past 11am (with short moments of wakefulness starting around 7am). There is nothing sadder than a child who doesn't feel well, so it didn't take long to declare it a pajama day. We stayed in our pajamas ALL day long, and painted beads for our summer necklaces!

I was planning on painting the beads myself - maybe taking 20 minutes per bead and making them ridiculously cute. Couple of problems with this though:

Problem Number 1: I am not crafty. I have tried to be on several occassions. I've tried my hand at scrapbooking, party invitations, halloween costumes...Nothing really seems to go my way.

Problem Number 2: Really don't have the time to take 20 minutes per bead. And if I did have the time, I'd spend it doing something more productive - like eating. I love food. Always have, always will.

Problem Number 3: The beads won't mean anything to my kids if they didn't get to participate in all the prep work. The excitement of it before the summer makes it just as much fun as actually doing the activities together in the upcoming months.


So, armed with some plain wooden beads, popsicle sticks, random objects found around my house, and a freshly charged cordless drill (for hole-making), I began. And the girls helped me. Gavin tried too - but he stunk. He even put a freshly painted red bead up to his lips for a kiss...because he loved it so much?
As it turns out, we had a lot of fun. And a number of hiden pros in getting their help:

Pro Number 1: You have no idea which beads I painted, and which beads my kids painted, thereby eliminating all judgement of my poor artistic skills :)

Pro Number 2: They thought of ways to decorate these beads that I had not imagined. It was fun to watch their creative juices flow.

Pro Number 3: We made a memory. Woke up sick, wore pajamas all day, and painted beads with mom. We all had a lot of fun.

Pro Number 4: A time saver. This summer school project of mine is going to lose it's momentum quickly if I start thinking of it like a chore. I can't spend too much time preping or doing any particular activity, or I'll just get grouchy about it.

This whole project is really about enjoying the journey, and making fun memories with my kids. If they learn something - even better!

I started off handing the kids their beads to paint on the ends of wooden skewers. I thought this would cut down on the mess, and make it easier for them to handle the bead. It did both of these things, but in the end we all preferred just getting messy. The acrylic paint washed off our hands easily when we were done, and it was fun to dig in!