The Big and The Little Of It !

It's a big deal becoming a BIG!! 
College Girl became a "Big" in her Sorority this year!
 Big/Little week is a fun, fun week.
But it is a BIG thing to get everything ready.
And it is a secret until the "big reveal"!!



First the girls who received bids into the sorority at Rush go to a local store and fill out an info sheet/wish list with their likes and sizes, etc. on it.
Then the future 'bigs' get busy. Mollie and her "twins" met to coordinate ordering of family shirts and other goodies their littles will receive throughout the week.

It's serious business. Big decisions and budgets to consider, too.

But it's fun, too :)

Then after they agree on color and fabric they have to find the right sizes on the crammed racks!!
 The looks on their faces - if only that much concentration went into classwork!
 Sorority girls are serious shoppers, if nothing else!

Looks like shopping was successful!

Then College Girl came home for a few days to craft like crazy!!
We set up a staging table in the Library (where her headboard for her apartment is hanging out until it goes to school - soon, I hope!)

We started gathering all the components for each days' surprises. Each day is assigned a letter, a theme and limits on items/costs but the requirements must be met so that each girl has an amazing Big/Little Week.

A canvas for "H", handmade day.

Awesome wooden letters from the Greek shop near the Georgia Tech campus - another reason CG came home to craft - lots of resources in Atlanta.

Hand painted bulletin boards are one of the most popular "H' day items and we went with chevron stripes. Love them - taping nightmare, however!

And another canvas ... stay tuned for an important Sorority Girl message.

Now we are cooking! CG says her favorite color is GLITTER!!! I helped her with painting details but she told me that she can "glitter like nobodies business!!"

This was Day 1 - the letter "C" for Cookies and Candy. We found a giant lollipop in Chi O colors, bought KitKats because her future little didn't list her favorite candy and another sister, Morgan, informed us that you can't go wrong with a KitKat. CG baked cookies and we used the Cricut to decorate the jar lids. A little cello and ribbon - which makes every gift look better - and we were good to go. The baskets are on display in the Chapter Room by a certain time and then the future littles are allowed to come get their goodies after a certain time. So organized and efficient.

Heavy glitter usage in progress. Not going to lie - we loved this!!

Chevron stripes. Check. Letters in red. Check.
 The amount of tape used for this was crazy.  Oy.

Another popular item is the fleece blanket. CG found one with owl fleece on one side so we used it for "O" day. We had the future littles name embroidered on it 
and then CG tied the fringe. So cute!

The artwork for "H" day all finished and wrapped in cello along with the letter H which CG glittered in silver.

 

 

 

Day 2 "H", Hand-me-downs and Handmade. The bag contains hand-me-down Sorority t's so that the new girls can sport their letters on campus. It gives them a head start on t's.

 CG forgot the glittered letter "C" on Monday so she added it to Day 2 with a note :)

The letters will spell out Chi O by the end of the week and then go up on the walls in the dorm rooms.

And Day 3 is "I" for Insignia. 

This is the day the girls get their "Big Letter Shirts" and items with their letters on it like car decals, tags, etc.

We wrapped it all up in Chi O colors and added the glittered letter "I".

And Day 4 is "O" for Owls. We used the Cricut to put a monogram on front of the bucket and an owl on the back. The blanket went in here along with a Lilly Chi O cup, the glitter letter O, an owl pillow,and an owl statue that has been handed down in CG's "family." Cello wrap and some owl ribbon completes the look :)

We added a big owl picture and a pretty vase with red and yellow flowers. "O" Day is complete.

Each day the "Bigs' include a note with 'clues" for the future littles. The hints are misleading as the intent is to remain a surprise until Big/Little reveal on the night after "O" day. It is such a fun week even though it's so busy getting everything ready.

And then the older sisters devise a method for 'revealing' themselves to the new girls for one last surprise!!

And then....

Big and Little are united... and mom gets a picture via text :)

Such a fun week and I love that the girls are so dedicated to creating a special and meaningful week and that making/crafting keepsakes is part of it! 

The Care and Keeping of Topiaries

I absolutely love topiaries.
Of all kinds - the clipped boxwood ones or ivy trained on topiary forms or tuteurs.
However, topiaries are difficult to care for, keep looking lush and green... or just keep alive, for that matter.
So my secret tip for the care and keeping of topiaries is...

...

 

.... Just paint one!!
Yep, that's what I've got for you. Secret's out. Cheater topiary.

(in progress on an old piece of scrap board.)

 

Fall Color

We had a little Art Camp yesterday and we had a great time watercoloring Fall leaves.

We used Dick Blick liquid watercolors
 and a couple of colors mixed from diluted acrylic craft paint.

Since leaf shapes are a little tricky and this is the beginning of 4 year old preschool and we haven't drawn together yet, I created a couple of leaf shape tracers to help us get started. I'm not a huge fan of tracers but I also wanted them to be successful and feel great about their first art experience of the year. Later in the year we will do this project and it will be all their work without tracers!

After they traced the outline
( tracers that you draw inside of are so much easier than tracing around the outside of a shape.) they drew the veins on the leaves.  This is where the art starts to reflect their personalities :)  Some are very evenly spaced, some drew one or two lines and others drew tons of veins on the leaf.

This is a Sharpie resist technique. The Sharpies won't run when we start watercoloring. The paper is a heavyweight but reasonably priced watercolor paper from Hobby Lobby.

 

We painted our Fall leaves with warm colors.

Then we painted our backgrounds with cool colors.

 

 

Aren't they gorgeous?

 

 

 

 

It's still Summer-y weather in Atlanta but we are looking ahead to a colorful fall.

I Don't Transition Well....

I don't. I accept it.
I do not transition well from Summer to colder weather.
And by colder I mean anything below about 70 degrees.
I'm a Summer-y beach girl
and, while I am all about 3 day weekends,
Labor Day is seen as the end of Summer.
.


So, while I like a cook out and the big art show on the square in town, the actual idea of the end of Summer being tied to this weekend makes it not my favorite. We have had cool, rainy weather and my friends are blowing up FB about pumpkin spice lattes and Fall and it makes me a tiny bit grumpy. Sorry. True story. ( I am a child of the South so, even though it's a bit contradictory, I am, however, completely jazzed about SEC football.)

So that everyone can understand my inability to transition well,
I am posting a salute to my porch.
 It is where we spend most of our time. We even use it in the cold- we have had Christmas, New Years and St. Patrick's Day parties on the porch. In the South it can be warm at those times or not. Just in case, we have heaters. In our family we go kicking and screaming if we have to vacate the porch. We sit out there in the rain and I will wrap up in a blanket to drink coffee and read blogs well into November, even December. People even call and say, "We're having a get together... on your porch!!"  LOL. Fine by me.
 

 

We call it the 'Jimmy Buffett Back Porch.' If you get within a mile on a hot, Summer day you can hear JB tunes blasting through the porch speakers. We think he'd be proud.
 

On the left you can just see the pool table covered with a blue tarp. It gets a lot of use. Challenges are made and games get intense.
When it's not being used it becomes my gigantic work table. Pretty handy spot to paint.

 

It just grew from an 8 x 8 basic builder deck tacked on to the back of the house. My husband is a contractor and he just kept bringing home lumber from completed jobs and we kept building, painting, and furnishing.
It is quirky but it is the scene of great times. 

This was a gift (he claims we stole it but who can run off with a 6 foot lobster??!!??) from a friend used to work for a seafood restaurant. This is a 6 foot tall wooden lobster. We changed the paint job from red to pink and he became our pink crustacean!
 

Many nights on the porch look like this.
The furniture was just accumulated and can't be hurt.
Every item has a bit of a story and we have used just about every "fun" color of spray paint revamping it. We just drag the furniture all over and get comfy.
BTW, Biscuit loves the porch and his foot is better. He's a cone head in this pic.

 

College Girl calls these three "the siblings she never had" :)  They are siblings.

And this is where the cooking happens. It is an addition on one side that we built just for grilling. It has a tin roof ( fabulous in the rain ) and holds multiple grills, including the mac daddy one behind them, and multiple chefs. The food they turn out - crazy good. We built this addition for College Girl's HS grad party because we had 200 plus in the yard and on the porch and serious grilling happened.

Here we are last December having a sit down meal at the big table on the porch -
room for 12. (It was probably a Low Country Boil- happens a lot!!)
We can squeeze in more, so come on.
Notice the lack of coats.

The porch gets its own Christmas décor.
Anyone have a gas insert they want to sell?? I want to kick that faux fireplace up a notch.

 

This is the opposite side with our hanging bed. I've shown you this before.

World's greatest nap spot.

So, Happy Labor Day Weekend!
If you need me .... I'll be on the porch.
and if I'm a little grumpy as it cools off, sorry, but at least now you get it :)