December 18, 2006
Twinkle twinkle
Determined to meet my maternal responsibilities and ensure both a suitably festive atmosphere AND Jacob's creative development I spent an evening cutting out what seemed an endless number of cardboard stars of varying sizes from saved bits of it'll-come-in-handy-later cardboard.
The next day Jacob accompanied me to one of those el-cheapo shops lining Sydney Rd where to his delight we stocked up on waterpaints, brushes, glitterpaint and glue. It was a nice enough day to paint outside so we sat under the Japanese maple and started with the water paints. Jacob did about two stars before deciding they were boring and demanded pictures of reindeers printed from the internet to colour in. I finished the other thirty-something stars while Jacob rendered Rudolph black in a hundred different ways and mixed all the watercolours into a muddy mustard. Luckily, I'd kept the glitter paint in reserve.
The glitter proved only a short distraction (for him, ....I'm still into it.) so while I painted glitter over the dry watercolours Jacob finally unleashed his creative juices and proceeded to stick bits of dried grass on top. A move that was not only inspired but actually lookd really good. I resorted to painting the leaves from the gum tree with glitter in a feeble attempt to keep my end up and not be completely outdone by a three-year-old.
I was planning to adorn our gorgeous fifties-mantelpiece with the stars but in the end blu-tacked them to the doors opening from the side of the living room. The best ones ARE the ones with grass on them.
Posted by Faith