Whisper

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Getting Ready for The Children's Discovery Center

Well, I've spent the majority of my day getting ready to share details of my Arctic Expedition with the children at the Discovery Center in Topeka tomorrow. I made a display board with photos and captions. Had my sister-in-law show me how to let young students put together a reindeer head, so I have the supplies for that. Also taking coloring sheets and puzzles and I'm getting ready to make some easy question cards. I'm thinking they can answer a question and get a piece of wrapped candy. Oh, yeah, I'm making a spongy tundra feel station for them to walk in too as I really enjoyed the way the tundra felt at Hamburgbukta. I'll also have my parka and boots there for them to look at and try on if they want. Here's the display board. Hours of work went into this thing even if it doesn't look like it. It took some thought to figure out what to put on the board. Of course I had fun looking through all 3600 pictures that I took on the trip. LOL

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

It's a terribly hot day here in Kansas. And I felt the heat as I worked on projects. Since I was doing some spray painting I had to be outside but luckily I worked on the patio below our deck so it was totally shady and not too extremely hot. I finished up a couple of projects today that I want to share. I'll be taking these items in to our booth on Friday night.
The first is this little bench. It started as just raw wood and there were some of those ugly heart cut outs along the back. I began by attaching some bird cutouts over the hearts. Then I spray painted, then used some chalk paint by dry brushing it on, then waxed with dark wax. It came out looking rather distressed which is what I wanted. Plus, I think the wax will allow someone to use this outside. I can envision it with a plant on the seat and sitting on a patio or stair.
I had alot of fun with this little table. I love working on projects for kids. A friend who quit our booth sold me this colorful table. It had been in the booth for a few months without selling, so I decided a re-do was in order. I found a little school chair to go with it and then simply spray painted both the chair and the table the same apple green color,then painted on a chalkboard top. I can see some little kid spending hours happily drawing on the top of this table.
My last project for this post is the nightstand redo. I found this nightstand at an auction. It was homemade so it's very sturdy. But boy was it dirty. I cleaned off all the spiderwebs and scrubbed it good. Then used Annie Sloan's chalkpaint in Duck Egg to repaint. It was then distressed and waxed. I had to paint the handle too. I like it much better this way! I'm also working on two chairs. They are painted and waiting for me to upholster the seats. I really went with a wild color! I am loving it so far. You'll just have to wait for the next post to see the color and fabric I've chosen.

Friday, June 22, 2012

It's been a full day. My day included picking up my sister-in-law and heading to Atchison, KS to visit one of my favorite home decorating stores. My purpose was to purchase two metal urns for the front porch. Well, I did get the urns but not in the color I was wanting, but that's ok, because I can paint them. :) I then was able to buy a few vintage pieces for my booth. That is always fun. This evening included a party with friends with some good entertainment. On the agenda for tomorrow: yard work and house work... how boring but essential.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

I'm happy to say that Kim's Korner just expanded. I'm home from my trip to the Arctic and I had a marvelous time. I traveled to the Arctic as a recipient of the Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship. I was selected for excellent in geographic education. It's really quite easy to integrate geography and biology. National Geographic, Lindblad Expeditions, Google, and Oracle all are sponsors for the fellowship. I'm ever grateful to all of them for selecting me for this once in a lifetime opportunity!

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Well, it's the night before I leave for the Arctic Expedition. I'm excited and nervous. I have one bag packed and still deciding what to put into my carry on. We'll be working with some students on board (4 of them) so I'm still working on a trivia game for all of us to play. I'm going to cut this short to come work on my Arctic trivial questions. If I can't blog from the "road", then I'll just save some posts and enter them all when I get back. Wish me luck!

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Well, so far this blogging has been frustrating since I can't figure out how to improve this page. But I'm not giving up... I'll keep trying. I mentioned that I'd tell about the parka story. Well, about 6 weeks ago, I decided to order a new parka for this Arctic trip. Some time goes by and the parka shows up at my doorstep. I tried on the parka and it was huge...big enough to fit an adult male polar bear. I went back to the web site and it did say that the jackets are unisex and run large. So, I call the company for advice on what size to order and talk to them about mailing the parka back for a medium this time. I put the parka in the mail and wait for the new smaller size to arrive. Well, when the new parka did arrive it was another XL. I called the company again. They assured me that they would get that medium right out to me and that it would arrive before I leave for my trip (3 days from now). So far, no new parka has been received. I have a back up plan so that I don't freeze while in the Arctic.