One of my major small successes during the doldrums of any dark and rainy February is to brighten up the house with signs of Spring in any way humanly possible.

If I could paint sunshine and blue skies on all of the windows and not know that if I went outside the sky would be five shades of gray, the painting would already be done. But, hey, life in a rain forest requires a bit of imagination to survive the toughest month of the year.

Mine always strays in the direction of tulips.

They are such happy flowers, and I love that I can load up on them on a trip to the grocery store without breaking the bank. But, they also fade fast. We need 28 days of solid flower power around here.

So, the tiny person and I spent some serious time at the craft table recently making our own paper tulip gardens, blooming gorgeous shades of Spring in the kitchen window, no watering required.:)

This was a great project to do together, and use up some crafting supplies that would have otherwise gotten trashed or recycled.

Here’s what you need:

- An empty egg carton

- Old playdough (we used up stuff that was getting way too old and dry to be fun for molding any more)

- Popsicle sticks

- Craft paper in great Spring colours (you could also use dried water colour paintings or use white paper that is painted with tempera for an even more homemade look (and an excellent extra creative project for the kids)

- Scissors

- White glue

- Optional heart punch

Directions:

1. Make a cut out of a tulip. Trace it onto one sheet of your craft paper and then cut out the tulips. I bunched six sheets of paper together and cut out two sets of six to make a dozen tulips.

2. Take your egg carton, cut the top off. Then, fill each egg holder about half full with clay

3. Let you kids count out the sticks (you need 12)

4. Glue the tulip cut outs onto the sticks.

5. Use the heart punch to make little decorations for the tulips, glue them on.

6. Let everything dry for about 20 minutes and then stick the tulips, one per egg cup, into the clay to make your paper tulip garden.

Quick and easy Spring.

We’re all about brightening the day right now!

SMALL SUCCESSES: A long walk

The truck was in for service yesterday afternoon. So, M and I headed out on foot to run errands, sneak some snacks and pick up some Valentines supplies. It was really relaxing to spend a few hours in the fresh air, bopping around town and just hanging out away from the house. I’m just starting to feel physically able to get back on my feet for long periods of time. Otherwise, yesterday would have been a very rough day as I just couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that I’d lost large chunks of days and time, just forgotten about them.