Good Times and Signs

It's Bar-B-Q Days in Belle Plaine, this weekend.  This Friday night, while others braved the fairgrounds in mud boots to dance to the first band (wicked torrential rains here today, well into the afternoon), I finished signs for booths that will open tomorrow after the parade.  Somehow, the couple of signs I was painting for St. John's Catholic Church multiplied like rabbits, then invited in friends.  Lots more to paint in the wee hours tomorrow morning.


About 1/3 of today's sign projects overflowing the dining room table.  Almost a dozen pizza boxes, and not a sliver of pepperoni to be seen.  That's just wrong.

 I took time off from work this week, to share my home with an old friend, and a new one.  Peggy is a dear friend I haven't seen in about 18 years, who now has a three year old daughter.  When she emailed to ask if she could come visit, her one request was that we not go do the sights, but hang out and make art instead.  She just wanted to relax and recharge, and catch up on each other's lives.

Artgirls come in all sizes.

The weather was perfect, so we spent some time outdoors, too, decorating my sidewalk, playing soccer, and introducing her small daughter to croquet, at which she soundly whipped us.  We didn't keep score on the soccer.

Future floor painter?



She definitely has the jeans of a floor painter, now.

  While Peggy worked on her project,  I baked her a birthday cheesecake, and Dana did some designing...


Designing requires serious concentration.

  Then she did some hammering...


Dana didn't spend a lot of time playing with toys while she was here.  Maybe if I had started like this at age 3, I could pound in a straight nail today.

  Then she took a break to experiment with making music...


Just like my regular Artgirls, Dana played me some pretty good notes on the old piano.



If she lived close enough, Dana would be my youngest Artgirl.  She has an insanely long attention span, a full vocabulary, which she isn't hesitant to use (she has great mastery of the "well, yeah" that indicates you have just asked the most moronic of obvious questions), and excellent logic and fine motor skills.  She and I built a cardboard model car (her backpack of toys contained about a dozen toy cars, and four fairies), and though I was a bit taxed by the instructions, she sailed right through matching up part numbers and fitting tiny tabs into slots.

Peggy and her fabric collage moon.

Today it was back to work for me, and with taking time off, I'll have to be up in just a few hours in order to finish all the sign orders in time, but it was so worth it.  The whole point of having the home of your dreams is to have a place to live out your dreams with the people you love.  Belle Ami was filled to overflowing with the dreamiest of love, and the loveliest of dreams, this week.  Bliss.

Is your home ready to welcome the people you love?  If you think I can be of help, check out my portfolio and the information on how to hire me at theartofthehome.com.

Making your dream home yourself?  If you run into decorating questions, feel free to email me.  If I know the answer, I will gladly share it. dawnmariedelara@gmail.com.