Day 20:
Early in the month when we were deciding which pumpkin activity/recipe we would place on each day to get organized we knew that we would be out of town visiting our nieces, Maddie and Bettie. This would surely be the highlight of the month 🙂 We had to plan for the fact that recipes would probably not happen and we would need activities to contain 3 incredibly active young ladies while their parents were away. Pumpkin Tie Dye Shirts!! This seemed like a fun activity and kids love stuff like this, right? (http://www.curlycraftymom.com/2010/10/tie-dye-pumpkin-shirts.html)
This is the goal from the online photo we found.
Penny and Bettie were over the moon with excitement but Maddie was a little apprehensive. She did not want to make a pumpkin shirt although she protested she was the one who woke up this morning with the words “let’s make the pumpkin shirts!” This was still while I was waking from sleep so Chris held the girls occupied with mundane Sunday morning activities like eating bits of breakfast and playing games until I could get my stuff together.
We gathered most of the materials yesterday so that we would have it easy this morning. We hit the craft store on the way home from the Pumpkin Show in Circleville (see blog from yesterday for more on this) and although the girls were excited, they were tired and as we were about to checkout “we” started melting down. Now, the “we” that I mentioned was not exactly everyone in the group. These 3 young girls had been having fun all day and need a little time to unwind so instead of taking care of the lost fabric marker and the white t-shirts from store #2, we headed home to chill out and get ourselves together only to have to return to the store later in the day AND today. Did I mention that we are not incredible organized people? It seemed like enough to make a vague plan but then when details were needed things got tough.
In the end…WE DID IT! The girls were in charge of deciding what size pumpkins they wanted on their shirts and how many (adults made sure the rubber bands were attached as tight as possible).
Penny chose 1 big pumpkin
Bettie wants lots of pumpkins
trying to dye shirts without dyeing anything else in the house
The shirts achieved a really nice shade of bright orange. Now it was each girl’s turn to decorate the pumpkins with jack-o-lantern faces. They decided to do that and more.
completing her project
Maddie focused on her artwork
You will see from their shirts below something that I could never have imagined; the girls made these beautiful works of art that were creative and showed off their unique talents and interests. One part of me wanted to say, “no, no girls you are just supposed to decorate the faces” but I am so thankful that I did not interrupt their process. The shirts started out as an activity and became a little snapshot into their minds at this moment.
3 pumpkin shirt-wearing girls
From the Patch 