Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Labor Day Weekend Art Project=Grandparents Day Gift



With Grandparents' Day just around the corner (It's Sunday, Sept. 10), I wanted to get moving on finding just the right gift for 2 sets of hard-to-buy-for grandparents.

(Hopefully, my daughter's grandparents aren't reading the blog today.) Yesterday, we visited the Mad Potter on West Gray to try our young hands at make-your-own-pottery. My little one is only 17 months old but she did a great job. As you'll see from the photo, she enjoyed it.

For very young artists, the staff recommended painting with different shades of the same color. That way, the youngster's masterpiece doesn't turn brown with the mixed color palette. We chose a container and after the top dried, my daughter added her handprint in a dark blue. I even worked on my own project: a bowl with harvest colors for the autumn. Now I will tell you that after almost an hour, my daughter's attention span was nonexistent and she wanted to run & play, but she completed only one gift for Grandparents' Day. Looks like we'll be headed back for a second gift item later this week. Mad Potter fires the pottery to lock in the colors and add a nice gloss finish to the item. That process takes a week so consider that timeline when you're planning. This makes a good family project over Labor Day weekend and then you'll have grandparents gifts in time for the following weekend.

See http://www.themadpotter.com/index.shtml for locations near you!