A little more ROY G. BIV

The kids are out of school for the summer and my craft time (and energy) are a lot more limited. Lots of paper airplane folding, gluing and cutting and taping crafts with the kids, but, not much time in the garage for woodworking. Which is okay- it’s HOT out there!

I needed to send out the Lily Blocks… and a month later (to be fair- I finished them RIGHT as the kids got out of school and swim lessons and playground trips and the chaos that is kids upended my days) they were on their way! With a hitchhiker!

I knew I wasn’t up to finishing name blocks for Lily’s little sister yet- and she’s a little young for blocks, anyway. And I’ve gotten halfway decent at free-handing rainbow arches (though, if I do anymore, I’ll be using a circle jig)- and they’re definitely one of those toys that “grows up” well, graduating from eye candy to stacker to tunnels and toy animal corrals. My 3.5yo and almost 6yo were using arches as steering wheels on their bed/speedboats recently!

I made this a more traditional rainbow, with 7 colors (I will not be convinced that indigo doesn’t belong), so it has thicker arch sections that will hopefully help it survive normal abuses better than our thinner arches (our dark orange has been repaired multiple times now).

So, off they go- to two lovely little girls. I hope they enjoy them!

And this rainbow is mine to keep (and make a mess of):

My latest batch of wool felt. I tried some Jacquard Acid Dyes for the purples, reds and pinks this time- great stuff! For some reason, my reds and pinks in my food coloring gels never dissolve well in water- they are fine in icing, but, leave clumps in water. And as I’ve mentioned before- getting a good purple with food coloring was really tough! The acid dyes do their job beautifully.