An April's Worth of Paper

Well, we like what we like. That may be about all I can say about it.

For some reason, between the girls and me, what started out as just a simple paper chain to count down the days until the baby's birthday has...um, snowballed?

We make paper chains every day now.

I think the girls are pleased by the novelty of the new form--the strips of paper are fun to draw on and otherwise decorate, and it's fun, especially, for a three-year-old to see how her efforts add up into something concrete and hangable, and in one dark incident, it was discovered that a sister tearing up her sister's paper chain in secret can launch a day-long appetite for vengeance. Good times.

As for me, I think I'm mostly attracted to the paper chain's ability to mindlessly entertain. Often, while keeping the girls company in the work that they choose to do at the big table--pictures to draw, encyclopedias to page through, snacks to eat, dots to connect, random stuff to paint, etc., etc.,--I need something to do that is more interesting than just conversating (sorry, kids, but sometimes your conversation is boring, although I do agree, some dogs ARE brown, and yep, it IS weird that you can put a sock on either foot) and less interesting than writing a book proposal, or editing photos, or listing stuff in my pumpkinbear etsy shop, none of which will allow me to continue uninterrupted in the mindless conversating.

And that's why the living room has a little more bling, courtesy of a collaboration of scrapbook papers in blues:

And the bedroom has the more intellectual model, done with several pages torn from an old dictionary (we have better ones, I assure you, ones that are descriptive and not prescriptive, yuck):

I even posted some by-the-yard paper chainage in my pumpkinbear etsy shop:

You should totally check out that listing, by the way, because I discovered, in the process, how gloriously these paper chains photograph, and so my listing is stuffed with all these awesome close-ups and artsy takes on the subject "Paper Chain."

And EVEN THOUGH I started a paper chain cut from comic book pages today (I know--SQUEE!!!), with my excuse being that I HAD to watch those last two episodes from the first season of Supernatural because it was due back at the IU media library today, I have to put my toys aside for the rest of the week, I fear...

Remember the last dinosaur quilt? With the last panel to be pieced right here on my work table? And a tutorial on back-to-front blanket binding, intended to be photographed using this quilt, scheduled for Crafting a Green World this weekend?

Turns out that those things don't tend to sew, photograph, write about, or sell themselves. Huh, who knew?