It’s hard to let summer go, but it really is over now. School’s in full swing and the weatherman assures me the heat wave is over. I wanted to do one last summer journal entry, because there were so many little bits of our summer I missed sharing with you.

We picked our fair share of berries (including this enormous blackberry from our backyard).

We went to the farmer’s market almost every week.

We built ferris wheels and rode on some too.

We built forts…that were much, much harder than they looked.

We did silly thing too like coloring our hair with chalk…

…and making cakes out of watermelon.

Mostly we played: inside and outside and wherever we could. How was your summer? Messy? Busy? Too hot? Too long? I want to hear about it!

I never seem to remember to buy sidewalk chalk, but we always have the ingredients on hand for chalk paint. Making chalk paint is super easy; drawing with chalk paint takes a bit of practice.

Our first attempt turned out mostly colorful blobs, but the second time was a success. I was doodling quilt squares [sewing nerd!] and my kids wanted to learn how to make them too. They told me their log cabins had roofs, obviously.

chalk paint

materials

• muffin tin
• corn starch
• food coloring (the cheapy kind, not the gel kind)
• water

directions

1. Put one tablespoon of corn starch in each muffin tin cup.
2. Mix in a tablespoon of water (or a smidge more) into each cup.
3. Put one drop of food coloring in each cup.
4. Mix well.
5. Grab a paint brush and go outside!

Be warned, fingers and toes will get painted.

But other cool stuff will be painted too!

I’ve been meaning to write about this little project for a while now.  It wasn’t much work, practically none at all really, but it has been awesome. I got the idea from an old issue of Cookie magazine (well they are all old now– damn you, tanking magazine industry!).  I just slapped some chalkcloth–oil cloth that works like a chalk board–that I got on etsy, cut it to fit, and because I couldn’t be bothered to take it off again I just mitered the corners with some glue.  Done and done.  Now it’s someone’s job to draw the place settings for dinner (sometimes mine) which makes those 15 minutes before dinner enjoyable rather than the low blood sugar hell they usually are.