Sometimes art supplies are tough to find :(

As most of you already know arts & crafts are a passion of mine. I have found that it is a good way to express myself and to teach my son, while allowing him to express himself as well. He is always so proud to display his artwork and asks to do some sort of project every day.

Our current projects are based around repeating color patterns. As I mentioned yesterday, I have been trying to find ideas for decorating for the upcoming birthday party with crafts that Aiden does. Since the party is for three children, we are going to decorate with green, pink and purple, one color for each child. Most of the projects that I have found and designed involve colored paper. For a while I have been pulling from the leftovers I had from my days of scrapbooking, but I didn't have nearly enough purple, pink and green to decorate for a party. I checked at Wal-Mart with no luck, realized my next choice "If It's Paper" was gone and I didn't want to go to the crafts stores at the mall, so I decided to stop at a local party store "Fun Times Party Warehouse" on Colorado St. in Salem, VA. I had never been there before, but upon entering the store I was disappointed to find out that they did not carry construction paper. The clerk was very friendly, and she encouraged me to look around and see what they did have to offer so I would be familiar with what they did carry. I was in a hurry, since I was supposed to be headed to pick up the kids, so I was scanning everything as quick as I could. That's when I discovered a jewel in the rough, the store didn't carry construction paper, but they a had a really good deal on paper placemats in a variety of colors and I was able to get paper that was textured and available in awesome shades.

I have got flags cut out for the flag banner. There are two holes punched in the top of each flag to put yarn through and they will be strung up in the party area. Aiden will practice putting them into a pattern as he strings them and it will also give him practice with yarn and a yarn needle.

Tonight I found 3 needle point hoops that were the same size and used those for the crown bases. To make sure that the party does not appear too girly we made all 3 paper crowns out of green paper and then decorated them in color patterns using green, pink and purple pom poms. I let Aiden choose the placement of the pom poms. For each crown he chose a different level- top, middle and bottom, so they are all unique. We are going to add to the crowns another night and eventually they will become centerpieces that will hold the balloon bouquets. I will try to post some pictures of our progress tomorrow night. Have a great night everyone. :)