Friday finally came around

While Mr. Neoclassic enjoyed a Friday evening out with a few of his good friends, I hosted Jazz and her friends for an overnight party. I'd planned to show a fun romantic, Valentine's movie (age appropriate, of course), but was outvoted. The crowd, including Irish Jig and Zydeco, voted for Despicable Me 2. We turned out the lights, hooked up the sub-woofer and covered the den in popcorn bits. After the movie and Irish Jig's bedtime, I pulled out the paints and had the girls finish a Girl Scout project for me.

Recycled Halloween tablecloth for spills.

Lower lip biting for concentration.

Cross-eyed stare for intense concentration.

The end product - painted soup cans and matching peg people:

for color sorting and for hand-eye coordination.

Kaitlyn and Hannah (my good friend Jannette's girls) are Jazz's closest friends.  They are also in our sweet little Girl Scout troop. The whole troop worked its way through a Journey book and decided their service project would be creating manipulative games for a local preschool (Irish Jig's). The troop spent a recent meeting cutting felt for a different project and we just didn't get to the painting for this matching/ sorting game. With all our lost snow days, we don't have Troop time to finish this last project and we were going to skip doing it...until I realized I had three wonderful painters at the ready.

Their commentary and conversation is always hysterical. They get into their "art" zone and start discussing events at school and church, funny stories, and the latest music, movies or good snacks. Their guards drop and I hear it all. It's great fun and very informative!

Once finished and dry, we let Irish Jig road test the game.

She had a blast picking up the correct colors for each can and then carefully placing the peg people along the can rims.  I am happy that our Troop used a bit of recycling in the project.

If you'd like to make your own set, here are some suggestions:

• Use a quality can opener.  Mine crimps the open edge to eliminate the sharp and dangerous edge. 
• Cleaning the cans well goes without saying, right?
• Apply a quick layer of spray primer.  This helps the paint adhere to the can much better.
• Use non-toxic acrylic paints.  For little people who might place something in their mouths, it pays to be safe.  We used higher-quality tube acrylics.
• Sand rough edges/ spots on the peg people first.  These were donated to the troop and weren't the highest quality, so there were some rough spots.  I didn't want little fingers to get a splinter.

The biggest hint/ reminder I must always give my OCD/ Type A self when watching smaller people create their work is to BACK OFF!  Not every spot of wood or can is perfectly covered with paint.  There are brush strokes showing.  That's okay.  These girls (and the rest of the troop that did the other projects) put their heart into creating something wonderful for someone else.  And that is the lesson no amount of badge earning can teach.

Today's post title from The Judd's Girls Night Out.