Paper mache clay

 I know I can't focus...
So today I made a paper mache onit and a Sally Cat....Family members know what an onit is, and soon you will too...

Sometimes we need to be reminded

Sometimes we need to be reminded

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN
(a guide for Global Leadership)
All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things I learned:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don't hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don't take things that aren't yours.
• Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do                                        we.
• And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.
[Source: "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN" by Robert Fulghum.  See his web site at http://www.robertfulghum.com/  ]

the chair

The tree frogs think it's summer...

Okay...I'm a little punchy because it's 3:00+  a.m and I have jury duty in 5 hours...I should be sleeping but it's still 70 degrees
sssssssssssssooooooooooo

I'm browsing the internet, thinking about all the craft hours I'll miss while doing my civic duty

This week I painted the upholstery on a vintage cane chair  going in the new blue room. The green velvet was a little dated and dusty looking after 60+ years so out came my acrylics (just cheapo craft paints) a stiff paint brush, and nerves of steel...I thought about reupholstering the
seat and back but the thought of dealing with all those tufted covered buttons put that thought out of my mind.
You can use fabric medium with the paints, but using a really stiff clothing brush after the paint dries will soften the material again ...I'll post pictures tomorrow along with the garage sale find curtains (50 cents a panel)  that will look fantastic with the 'cottage y' I'm going for...I also found a topper in green that I am planning to make over in blue   with the paint brush as well because it has these really cool prisms hanging on it...you'll just have to imagine it for now.