Long Summer...

Wow has it been THAT long since I posted?! Well.. It has been a long summer full of very high temps, no rain, stuck in the house all day due to the heat and no where to go! For once this year we didn't have a trip planned. My Granda was diagnosed with Alzheimer Disease a year ago June and so we spent a lot of time in Oklahoma. BUT we did get one of our summer projects done despite the heat. In the early morning we washed one of our big rocks made sure we got all the moss and dirt scrubbed off the top. It has such a great shape. It didn't take long for it to dry but we let it dry for that day because once the sun came out it was unbearable! Temps stayed at about 112f most of the time during this time or better. The next morning after making sure it was still clean we got out our paints and counted off our squares for the checker board. Because it was such a lovely dark rock we chose bright colors. A bright pink and a bright blue and using sponge brushes we sponged circle 'squares' on our board. It looks so unique and lovely! The girls were so proud of themselves. We had gathered some flat stones and painted them accordingly but they just didn't look right. So we later went back to the store and searched for something that we could use for pieces for both boards when we get around to painting the backgammon board.. which honestly I will probably end up painting while they are in school. What I found are the glass accent rocks you find in the craft section. Here is our finished

board.. It was taken before we bought the glass stones. We may change yet again the game pieces. Trying to find the right pieces. but the board is awesome! We started on our cloth backgammon sets but are having to do some revisions. We have all the pieces cut out and just need to glue the pieces of cloth onto the felt and paint the dots in the dice. Also need to make the pouch for the button game pieces.. this is another part of the project I'm trying to figure out how to do so we wont have a lot of pieces every where. I am thinking about making a pouch attached to the back to hold the dice and the buttons. Here is a pic of the materials we have to use. I've assembled the pieces and have taken another picture so you can get an idea of what it will look like put together. Another problem I'm having is the glue makes
the material stiff which is something I was expecting. I'm hoping with use it will become more pliable. The colors and patterns are all chaotic :) big smile. My girls have a good eye for making the the mind work. They wanted clashing patterns and colors. They did a wonderful job. But even tho they clashed a bit they still went together real well.. at least to me who loves clashing colors and patterns so this may be my chaotic mind loving it!

The buttons may get replaces at some point but they work for now. They are cheap game pieces and easily replaced if lost. But they have such cute buttons out that I can't help but want to buy butterflies or dragonflies. Its not perfect cuts which adds to its charm and the girls are excited to get them done. The same concept will be done with the checker boards. But I think,  like I did with the out side board, we will make mismatched 'squares'. I like the idea of a bunch of odd ball circles as our checker board 'squares'. And we may use pieces of cloth as the game pieces..We can glue together two pieces of cloth and make one side the 'king'. Ha as you can see the checker board is still in thought process after my fail attempt at the backgammon board. But we will not give up! They make such charming sets. Now as to the rest of the summer. The girls and I have decided to do some bird watching. We have been surprised at how much we LOVE this activity! I have made contact with some bird watchers in our area and I think we may be going on a birders tour soon. We have enjoyed learning what birds are in our own back yard. This includes visually seeing the birds and identifying them and hearing the calls and identifying them. We set up some feeders so we can take pictures of the various birds, but I will save that for the next blog. SO until next time!