Well, I attempted round two of the doily ball this week. You may recall that the lace version from this past post didn't work out. I decided to try paper doilies this time since the lace ones had all stuck to the balloon when I popped it. I had the perfect crafting environment.

Quinn was contentedly playing with her toy and watching me, Shinobi was lying in a sunbeam in the sunroom, and if you look closely you can see diapers getting bleached by the sun. Perfect!

But, unfortunately the doilies stayed stuck on the balloon again when I popped it. I managed to salvage it, but it looked frightful. I laughed pretty hard at both of these projects, but I couldn't bear to take a photo of them. I guess a lace globe just wasn't meant to be.

Luckily, I came up with an idea for a mobile that I should have done all along. I was tired of wasting money on doilies, so it was nice to be able to make this third mobile from things I already had. I found a bird template from dear Martha to get things started. I traced it onto an old file folder since I didn't have any cardstock. I made three different sizes of the same bird and mixed some red and white acrylic paint that I had to make a nice swirly pink paint. After painting both sides, I assembled the pieces and hung them from white string. Then I found a nice branch from the mystery tree outside my kitchen window for the main structure of the mobile. Jonathan blew up two water balloons for me (my hero - those are tough) and I dunked white thread into glue and wrapped it around the balloons and let them dry. This is what it looks like assembled.

I'm pretty pleased with it and Quinn seems to like it too.

We have some little Spring surprises around our yard. These little guys are popping up all over (I'm talking about the flowers, not the weeds, haha).

And one of our trees is sprouting beautiful blooms. Does anyone know what kind of tree this is?

I'm excited to see what other little treasures pop up this Spring.