5th Annual Auntie Summer Camp! Weird Arts & Crafts, Redwoods, Beach Adventures

 5th Annual Auntie Summer Camp! 

Weird Arts & Crafts, Redwoods, Beach Adventures

 

5th Annual Auntie Summer Camp! 

Bffs Since Birth

Well we just finished up our 5th annual Auntie Summer Camp and it was great. Ash and I are birthday twins (+1day) and have always been close. From day one, or maybe about year 2 or 3, I've been bringing various art and craft projects for us to do together. 

For the past 5 yrs since we moved to our new property, we've hosted her for a week or two of various activities and outings. And we call it Auntie Summer Camp!

 

Last year we made an animation as one of our projects, all about Auntie Camp. It's pretty cute! Here is the link to that video. 

 

Video: 5th Annual Auntie Summer Camp! 

Bigger Kid = Bigger Craft Projects

So this year, with a big 12 yr old kid, we really had a lot of fun. Nearly at teendom, we are starting to have some neat conversations. And the skills are getting bigger and better! 

 

We started off with a big Rainbow Loom kit I found, which was a hit. I know at 12 I would have loved something like this! And Ash concurred, spending 2 days straight making stretchy bracelets like crazy. Fun! 

 

Next project was to use the sewing machine to make a skirt. We hit Joann's to pick out fabrics which was fun. Then learned to sew a simple tube skirt with gathered elastic waist. Success! Initially I wanted her to follow a printed pattern, but there are just no easy patterns for a 12 yr old tween. Oh well. We got enough stuff to make a second skirt and scrunchies, but I guess we were done after the one skirt. Neither of us thought to do more. ha.  

 

Maybe we were just eager to get started on our painted mannequin!! yep. This project seemed the funniest and weirdest to Ash, who was telling her friends and laughing a lot. Idk, pretty normal to me but whatever. Ha. I chose this vintage torso because I thought it would look happy covered in rainbow stripes. 

 

The plan was to make swirls that follow the curves of the body and spiral around it a bit. And to use 2 shades of each color of the rainbow. I thought that would make it look less uh primary crayon rainbow and more weird 70s rainbow. And I was right! Looking cool as shit. 

 

Of course it took 10x longer to do than I thought, what else is new. So I'm finishing it up myself and attempting to make a video about it. Also a little harder than I thought, but I'm learning!! It's fine. ugh. 

 

So our visit was for 2 weeks, and when we realized we had just 4 days left, we realized we hadn't really gone anywhere. Except to the farmer's market one day to get the magical peaches and amaaazing strawberries.  But we had other things we wanted to do, so we had to hustle for a few days. 

One day we hit our local dinky zoo, the Sequoia Park Zoo. I hadn't been in yeeears, but it's still cute. They added a Redwood Sky Walk platform thing that goes through the trees. I had been wanting to check it out for a while, so that was great. It's really neat! On the way home, we hit a local fruit stand since we missed that week's farmer's market. No magic strawberries but the peaches were still great. 

Then of course we had to hit the beach. On the way, we stopped at Chapman's Gem & Mineral Shop to get some sparkly crystals and stuff. Again, I hadn't been there in yeeears. But actually I didn't realize it was so close to our house until recently... for some reason I had it in my head it was farther south. Whatever, anyway we had a fun time there. Ash spent all her allowance cash on neat semi precious stones. 

Then we goofed around at the beach for a while. It was super windy and extra cold this time, but we toughed it out with sweatshirts and had fun. 

Overall it was another successful and awesome Auntie Summer Camp! Hopefully by next year, they will be moving back here. Woop!! And still we can have a camp out at auntie's house, even as a teenager. I hope so. Love that kid!