This week has been full of low pressure systems and cold fronts and lots and lots (and lots) of rain.  All of this wet weather has directly influenced the behavior of my offspring.

The five year old spends much of her day staring longingly out the backdoor and sighs “My sad, lonely sandbox!” occasionally.  My son audibles and breaks out into random football plays in my living room, scaring the cats (and his mother) out of their peaceful slumber.  My nine year old drapes herself across any available piece of furniture and whines about how she has nothing to look forward to for the rest of her life.

It’s just been boatloads of fun around here.

Desperate times call for desperate measures so we broke out the art supplies.  (Your gasp of shock and surprise, gentle reader, is a little uncalled for.  I told you that I turned over a new crafty leaf.)

We decided to make a project that I saw here, only instead of making kites flying in the sky, we went with balloons.

First things first, the kids painted themselves a lovely blue sky.  This involved breaking out the tempera paints and experimenting with mixing colors until we came up with lovely light blue and purple shades.

(I did not get a picture of the children actually painting because I was too busy keeping elbows out of water cups and paint bowls upright on the table.  Just imagine a scene of complete chaos mixed with tempera paints while I attempt to keep pleasant and not swear like a sailor and you have a pretty accurate idea of what happened.)  Here are the end results:

Obviously there are a few people here who really love purple.  And swirls.

Next the children went through my scrap pieces of paper that I have saved from my scrap-booking obsession a few years ago.  I am physically unable throwing something away if I think I might possibly use it in the future.  (In a past life I probably lived through the Depression.)

They traced balloon shapes on the paper and then cut them out.  It sounds simple, but horrible cutting skills apparently are genetically passed down.  Which means there were lots of sighs, the occasionally “I can’t cut these stupid things!” and much shaking out of tired fingers.

However, the end result is rather cheerful and happy, which made the rainy day just a little more sunny.  We put the pictures by the window to remind us of what blue skies actually look like.

Who knew that art could be so healing?