A new path…

Remember last year, when I fixed up the path in our back yard and it looked super pretty and I was so proud of it?  I posted about it here.  Well, the kids loved it, too, but for very different reasons.  They loved it because they could pick up all of the stones, turn them over and find BUGS.  But, unfortunately, turning all the stones in a stone path over is a really good way to ruin a path.  Boo!

So, I started over this spring.  At some point over the winter I stumbled upon this blog post about a paver hopscotch pad and fell in love with it.  But I wanted mine to be longer and a bit more hardy.  Finding the paint for the hopscoth path turned out to be the hardest part of the whole thing.  The big box stores were no help, so I finally ventured out to paint stores and Benjamin Moore sold me a quart of cement/patio paint and seperately, the tints for all of the rainbow colors I wanted, so that I could mix them myself.  Then I painted nine 16″ pavers in rainbow colors in the garage.  My little helpers were only too happy about this.

We let those dry for a good week with the truck parked over them, then I set about excavating, graveling, tamping, sanding, tamping, placing the pavers, and mulching. Oye! This was one of those projects that seemed like it would be super fast and easy, but then took on a life of its own when we decided that we should do it “right” and took much longer and was bigger than expected. But, we LOVE it.

You can see that we ended up putting the hopscotch in the middle and the ends and sides are all a “normal” pattern of pavers. I hope that the paint stands up over time, but I do have a bit of extra paint in each color for touch-ups after the winter if necessary.

The kids love hopping down the path, too. Here’s some proof:

Collages, the second born edition

Remember way back, about three years ago, when Clara was obsessed with collages and I put together a collage box for her so she could collage anytime she wanted?  Here’s a link in case you have forgotten.  Well, it turns out that this is a two and a half, going on three year old phenomenon and when I remembered how much fun it was and realized that Nancy also loves glue, I put together one for her, too.  This had all sorts of bit and pieces that I collected (and Kristen helped collect) from my art boxes.  Just add art schmutz, glue sticks, and paper.  Super fun times!!