Happy St. Patrick's Day

Top o' the mornin' to ya! I am writing this post after a full day of not working and celebrating my Irish heritage here in Baton Rouge. Due to fun times throughout the day, I am stuck at home working all night on my project and digesting the copious amounts of green food and drinks I consumed today.

This was me celebrating this morning before the parade struck and I caught about 10 lbs of beads and trinkets:

With the fun aside, tonight was productive on my end. I took today to order several samples for my project. I still do not know exactly the materials and finishes I want for my building so I thought I'd start now while I'm ahead. I ordered several different fabrics, many with crypton backing (for the messy kids; it's very durable and cleans easier) and mostly high performance fabrics that will withstand the constant flow of kids and educators. A majority of the patterns I chose for my fabrics are large in print and very geometric; almost contemporary. Children respond better to bolder patterns and brighter colors, so that was the aim I was going for. I also ordered many great wallcoverings and paint samples. I'm thinking of using dry-erase paint on a few of my walls so the children can express their creativity and imagination on the walls with markers, while also maintaining the cleanliness of the space. Hopefully that doesn't encourage them to draw on the walls at home or school :).

Unfortunately, our projects are never done until they're done. That may sound redundant, but really there is always something that needs to be changed or fixed or added, even when we print out our boards and pin them to the walls. With that being said, even though I ordered so many samples, I will probably spend many more hours going through catalogs and websites and ordering different flooring and paint samples, etc. I know I am not in this program for decorating, but this is one of my favorite parts of the project. I love mixing and matching the colors and patterns to help create the space.

That's all I have for now. It's late and I did a lousy job of saving images of the fabrics I ordered, but tomorrow I will try to put up images of the materials I ordered. I will post more soon as I will have had a lot of progress by Thursday.