Monday, August 23, 2010

The Family Picture Wall

So Naomi and I went out to do sidewalk chalk one day at the very beginning of summer. We went in the garage to grab our stash of chalk like usual, but when we got outside there were a few pieces that had been left outside and gotten rained on pretty badly. They were still solid pieces,  but they were softened up and wet enough that when you tried writing with them it became a soggy paste.

The paste turned out to be fun. We covered a few bricks completely in the paste and it looked really cool (especially after it dried the next day). So we then decided that we would create a backdrop of thoroughly lathered sidewalk chalk bricks out in our little front porch area to do family pictures in when we had enough time.

It turned out to take a ton of time, but we eventually got it done. My mom and I actually did most of the work. We got a big 52 piece set of crayola sidewalk chalk (24 different colors) and also a few different extra bright 4 piece sets. We designed the pattern on excel. Thanks Dad!!!

After we designed the pattern we put each color of chalk in a ziplock back and pulverized it into a fine powder. Then we added water and mixed it up into a sort of paint/paste. Then it was just a matter of consulting our master plan and painting each brick. I forget how many bricks we painted, but I know it was a ton, and it took a long long time. I couldn’t have done it without my mom.

Then the last day my parents were in town we spent the majority of the day doing family pictures. We spent the first part of the day touching up the spots of the wall that had been rained on enough to drip actually, but then we did pictures. We took about a million pictures and some of them did turn out pretty good, so it all feels worth it in the end. Especially considering we have never really had a family picture taken.

Anyway here’s the fruit of our labor. I can’t really say this enough but thank you so much mom and dad for taking the pictures, helping paint the wall, getting so many supplies, and having so much patience during the whole thing. It really was quite an ordeal.

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So here’s an idea of the slow progression of the wall from Naomi’s 1st day of 1st grade!!!
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