The City I Most Want to Visit in Each State, Part 2: Colorado to Georgia

This is the second post in a series. I recommend reading the introductory post first. Today I'll be picking the city in Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, and Georgia that I most want to visit, then listing my top 2 attractions in each location. 

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The City I Most Want to Visit in Each State, Part 2: Colorado to Georgia

 

I would love to travel to Colorado Springs, Colorado. Olympic City USA is home to the Olympic and Paralympic Training Center and the Olympic committee headquarters, more than 20 national Olympic governing bodies, dozens of national sports organizations, and my top pick for attractions, the US Olympic and Paralympic Museum. I would also love to take the cog railway to Pikes Peak. 

The city I'd most like to visit in Connecticut is New Haven. I'd start my time at Yale University, specifically at the Peabody Museum. It looks incredible. I would also like to check out Lost in New Haven, which looks really unique and would be a good introduction to the area. 

On my next trip to Delaware, I'd most like to visit Wilmington. The are six units of First State National Historic Park; Wilmington is home to three of them. I'd start my visit at Fort Christina. I'd also plan to visit the small but charming Brandywine Zoo. 

It should be no surprise that the city I most want to visit in Florida is its capital, Tallahassee. We have been to 45 of the 50 state capitals and I'd love to see the rest. My priority would be the Florida Capitol and the Museum of Florida History. 

My top choice for a city to visit in Georgia is beautiful and historic Savannah. I would start by riding a full loop on Old Town Trolley Tours; we've taken Old Town Trolley Tours in multiple cities and always found them to provide an excellent overview to a city. After learning all about the city and seeing its most famous sites from the trolley, I would check out the American Prohibition Museum. 

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Did I miss any must-do attractions in these cities? Let me know in the comments what else I should do when I make it to these cities!

The City I Most Want to Visit in Each State, Part 1: Alabama to California

I've been to all 50 states, but there are still lots of places I want to visit in the US. There are cities I want to revisit because cool new things have opened since I was last there, like Chicago and Washington DC. I want to revisit other cities, including San Antonio and Atlanta, because attractions I wanted to visit were closed on the days we were there, or we simply didn't have enough time to see all of the highlights. But that's not what this blog series is about. Instead, I'll be picking the one city in each state that I most want to visit for the very first time. 

Here are my ground rules: 

• I can only pick cities I have never visited, even if that visit was really short. I'll allow an exception if the only place my feet touched the ground in that city was the airport. 
• I can only select one city per state, without ties.  
• I have to choose my top 2 attractions in that city that led me to select it. I'm not going to be pedantic about whether an attraction is technically in that city. The metro area counts. 

With that established, let's get started!

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The City I Most Want to Visit in Each State: Alabama to California

The city I most want to visit in Alabama is Selma. I really wanted to include it when we visited Alabama in 2022, but I just couldn't make it work. When I do visit, the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute and the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail Interpretive Center are my highest priority to see. 

Of all the places I haven't been in Alaska, I most want to visit Fairbanks. The Golden Heart City is home to the Museum of the North and the Fairbanks Ice Museum. Fairbanks is also a great place to see the Northern Lights. 

I've traveled extensively through Arizona, but there is still plenty of The Grand Canyon State that I haven't seen. Topping my list of cities I'd like to visit is Page. It looks absolutely stunning. My top attractions include a tour of Antelope Canyon and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. 

The city I'd most like to visit in Arkansas is Bentonville. I would start my visit at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Its campus looks absolutely stunning and that's before you even go inside where, presumably, there is a lot of beautiful art. Next, I would visit the Walmart Museum. 

Of the places I haven't been in my home state of California, the city I most want to visit is Palm Springs. Interestingly, Palm Springs wasn't on my radar until recently. I'd thought of it as mostly golf courses and swimming pools until I attended the 2023 Outlook Forum and learned that it is so much more. The two places I most want to visit are Agua Caliente Cultural Museum and Living Desert Zoo and Gardens. 

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What about you? What cities would you most like to visit in each of these states? Let me know in the comments!

22nd Anniversary

Steve and I celebrated our 22nd anniversary in beautiful Sausalito. This is the layout I made. 

22nd Anniversary (affiliate link)

I included pictures from the time in Sausalito, as well as our day of fun in nearby Fairfax and San Rafael. It's a simple page, but there are a lot of memories packed into those six photos. I'm glad to have the layout in the album. 

Making Cards Using Metallic Watercolors

After using Soho Metallic Watercolors for the first time on my Liberty Bell project, I wanted to play with them a bit more. I tried them on black cardstock and white coldpress watercolor paper, then experimented with coloring over them with alcohol markers and colored pencils. Then I turned my painted doodles into cards. Affiliate links below. 

Metallic Watercolor Cards

Materials: 

• watercolor paper
• cardstock
• Soho metallic watercolors
• sequins
• craft glue
• Posca colored pencils
• black Ohuhu Honolulu marker

Steps:

I started with scraps of watercolor paper and black cardstock. I painted dots onto one of the watercolor papers and flowers onto the other two papers. While I needed two coats to get decent coverage on the watercolor paper, the colors popped on the black with just a single coat of paint. The Sohos definitely perform better on a dark background, whether that's black paper or an underpainting. 

Since I was happy with how the little flowers looked on the black paper, I trimmed that paper down to size for a card, backed it with pink, added a sentiment on a pink strip, then glued sequins to the center of each flower. 

Moving on to the other two. I wondered if the metallics would pop better if I colored the white space around the flowers black, so I used a Honolulu on each. That improved things slightly, but the colors weren't quite as shiny as they were on black paper. I also learned that the metallic paint will show through the ink of the alcohol marker slightly if you try to color over it. Good to know. I backed the dotted painting with yellow dotted paper and added a sentiment. 

I used Posca colored pencils to add flower centers and leaves to the final painting. The creamy pencils worked beautifully on the metallic paint. They also colored over the alcohol marker really well. I backed this card with purple and added a sentiment. 

I had fun experimenting with the metallic watercolors - making these cards was a lot more entertaining than making swatch cards would have been. I love the wide variety of colors. They have an incredible shimmer that doesn't come across in photos. And now that I know, I'll be painting these metallics on dark paper or with a base layer underneath.

Where I've Been: National Historic Sites

After discovering I've been to only 15 of the 64 National Historical Parks, I was curious how many of the National Historic Sites I've visited. As I noted in the previous post, a National Historic Sites (NHS) tends to be smaller than a National Historical Park (NHP). Often, they focus on a single building of importance in US history. 

There are 75 NHS units in the National Park System. As before, I've added a star if I've been there. If I've visited since I started blogging about travel, I've added a link. 

Where I've Been: National Historic Sites

Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site, Pennsylvania

Amache National Historic Site, Colorado

Andersonville National Historic Site, Georgia

Andrew Johnson National Historic Site, Tennessee

Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site, Colorado

Blackwell School National Historic Site, Texas

Boston African American National Historic Site, Massachusetts

Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site, North Carolina

Carter G. Woodson Home National Historic Site, District of Columbia

Charles Pinckney National Historic Site, South Carolina

Christiansted National Historic Site, Virgin Islands

Clara Barton National Historic Site, Maryland

Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site, Pennsylvania

Eisenhower National Historic Site, Pennsylvania

*Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, New York

Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site, California

First Ladies National Historic Site, Ohio

*Ford's Theatre National Historic Site, District of Columbia

Fort Bowie National Historic Site, Arizona

Fort Davis National Historic Site, Texas

Fort Laramie National Historic Site, Wyoming

Fort Larned National Historic Site, Kansas

*Fort Point National Historic Site, California

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, North Carolina

Fort Scott National Historic Site, Kansas

Fort Smith National Historic Site, Arkansas and Oklahoma

Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site, Montana and North Dakota

Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, Washington

Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, District of Columbia

Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Massachusetts

Friendship Hill National Historic Site, Pennsylvania

Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site, Montana

Hampton National Historic Site, Maryland

Harry S Truman National Historic Site, Missouri

Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, Iowa

*Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site, New York

Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, Pennsylvania

Honouliuli National Historic Site, Hawaii

Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, Arizona

James A. Garfield National Historic Site, Ohio

John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site, Massachusetts

*John Muir National Historic Site, California

Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, North Dakota

Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Illinois

*Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site, Arkansas

Longfellow - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, Massachusetts

Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site, Virginia

Manzanar National Historic Site, California

Martin Van Buren National Historic Site, New York

Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site, District of Columbia

Minidoka National Historic Site, Idaho

*Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, South Dakota

New Philadelphia National Historic Site, Illinois

Nicodemus National Historic Site, Kansas

Ninety Six National Historic Site, South Carolina

*Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site, District of Columbia

President William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home National Historic Site, Arkansas

Pu'ukoholā Heiau National Historic Site, Hawaii

Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, New York

Saint Paul's Church National Historic Site, New York

*San Juan National Historic Site, Puerto Rico

Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, Colorado

Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site, Massachusetts

Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Massachusetts

Steamtown National Historic Site, Pennsylvania

Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site, New York

*Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site, New York

Thomas Stone National Historic Site, Maryland

*Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, Alabama

Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site, Alabama

Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, Missouri

Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, New York

Washita Battlefield National Historic Site, Oklahoma

Whitman Mission National Historic Site, Washington

William Howard Taft National Historic Site, Ohio

I've been to 11 out of 75 National Historic Sites. Again, that's lower than I'd expected. But that just means I have a lot of destinations to look forward to visiting in the future!

Liberty Bell Watercolor Painting

In case you missed it, the US Mint is producing the first non-round coin since 1915, when the $50 octagonal Panama-Pacific coin was introduced. This new coin is shaped like the Liberty Bell. The price? $19,600. It contains one ounce of gold, the current value of which is $4,053. They're only producing 2026 of them, so apparently the scarcity makes up for the extra $15,500? Hard pass, obviously. 

Instead of buying a chunk of gold shaped like the Liberty Bell, I recommend keeping $19,550 in the bank and putting the rest toward some fun art supplies. Then use them to make a painting of the Liberty Bell. Affiliate links below. 

Liberty Bell Watercolor Painting

Materials: 

• watercolor paper
• watercolors
• metallic watercolors
• colored pencils

Steps: 

Find a reference image of the Liberty Bell. I used the picture on the Wikipedia page. Sketch the basic shape of the Liberty Bell onto your watercolor paper. Only include the basic shapes; ignore all details. Fill in the basic shapes with a combination of brown and black. 

When the first layer is dry, add the next layer. I put streaks of browns and black onto the yoke, then painted the bell with blue, grey, and brown. I added some of the details, like the metal bars connecting the bell to the yoke, and the supports at the base of the bell. 

When that layer was dry, I added metallics to the bell. This was my first time using the Soho metallics - they're awesome! I added streaks and patches of gold and bronze to the top, bottom, and right side of the bell, then added silver and white to make the reflection. Then I painted the background light blue. 

Then I added the famous crack. 

For the final step, I used brown and black colored pencils to add in the last details. I chose not to write the text on the bell, but I did add the lines. I was worried that the colored pencils might not work well on top of the metallics, but it wasn't an issue. 

This was a fun project to do. I really enjoyed experimenting with the metallics and am excited to use them again. Next time, I want to try more of the colors. 

Fourth of July

We celebrated the Fourth of July with Suzzi, Larry, Dawn, and all of our kids... none of whom are kids anymore! We had a delicious meal with festive drinks that were tasty if hard to drink and hung out by the pool. We saw a beautiful sunset and many (illegal) fireworks. We had a wonderful time. 

Fourth of July 2026 (affiliate link)

The pictures I took around the table inspired this page. Because there was so much empty space above and below the smiling faces, I cropped all that off before printing my photos. The six photos you see were printed as two 4x6" photos, which I then cut into thirds and separated with a journaling block.  

Posca Colored Pencils and the National Parks Postcard Coloring Book

Many of you probably know Posca for their amazing paint markers, but did you know that they now make colored pencils as well? When the folks from Posca reached out to me to try their 12-pack of colored pencils, I happily accepted. Posca Colored Pencils have a creamy wax-hybrid formulation intended to produce bright and consistent color, with the ability to blend and layer smoothly. I was eager to see how these pencils would perform. This post contains affiliate links. 

I decided to use the Posca pencils to color an image from the new-to-me National Parks Postcard Coloring Book. This A6-size book contains images from 20 units of the National Park System on thick cardstock appropriate for mailing. 

I selected the image of a bald eagle at Olympic National Park and started coloring. I loved how vibrant the color was and how easy it was to get good coverage. The pencils felt good in my hand. The colors blended well, although with only 12 colors it was infinitely more difficult to get subtle blends than if I'd had a larger set. The thick paper of the postcard took color beautifully and worked very well with the pencils. 

Here is my finished postcard. 

This is what the back looks like. I added a tiny bit of color, but didn't want to cover the writing area. I'll probably end up decorating it after I address it and add my message. 

I really enjoyed this project. The Posca colored pencils are a delight to use, though having only 12 colors is very limiting. The postcards feature beautiful images printed on paper that it ideal for coloring. The small size allowed me to finish the project in a much shorter amount of time than a standard coloring page. I'm eager to use both the pencils and the coloring book again!

Luxembourg

I have a bad habit of putting off scrapping our travels because it is so hard for me to go through hundreds of photos and select just a few for a layout. I currently have 19 travel pages and and 8 non-travel pages on my to-be-scrapped list. Of the last 15 pages I've completed, only 4 were about travel. For as much as we travel, I'd like to keep those numbers a bit more balanced. All this to say, I'm finally starting to scrap photos from our 2024 trip to Europe. 

I started with Luxembourg, even though it wasn't chronologically first. I missed the country entirely, but I still want to document it in the album for the rest of the family. Since I wasn't there and obviously have no memory of the visit, I leaned heavily on the blog post that Steve helped me write just after the trip.  

Luxembourg (affiliate link)

Looking at these photos makes me sad that I missed seeing such a beautiful country, but I am so grateful that's all I missed. There was a very real possibility that I could have missed visiting the other nine countries we saw on that trip.

Coloring Donald and Daisy Duck with a Neon Effect

After coloring Dumbo with a glow effect, I was excited to color Donald and Daisy with a neon effect. What a fun technique! And so much easier than I expected. Affiliate links below. 

 

Like Dumbo, Donald and Daisy came from the Disneyland Parks Colouring Book. I cut down the image to a 7" square. I got out my black Ohuhu Honolulu...

... and colored the background black, making sure i could still easily see the lines of the coloring page. 

Then I traced the lines of the characters using Ohuhu Nahukus. 

The next step was adding a really thin line of white over the center of each of the colored areas. It didn't end up perfect, but no matter. When that was dry, I used my Ohuhu Halawas  to add a soft glow around the edges of each line, then colored right up to that glow with black. I worked on one section at a time. 

In retrospect, I wish I'd used the black Honolulu or a black Kaala to color the background. It would have been easier and faster than the colored pencil. Not to mention, my black Halawa is now half the size of the rest of the set. 

I love how this turned out! And like I said, it was a lot of fun. I will definitely be doing this again. 

Where I've Been: National Historical Parks

When most people think of the National Park System, they think of places like Yosemite, Yellowstone, or the Grand Canyon. Our 63 National Parks are incredible; I've visited 19 National Parks and am eager to experience more of them. While well-deserving of their fame, these parks represent only about 1/7 of all of our National Park units. The National Park System includes 433 locations, including National Battlefields, National Monuments, National Preserves, and units in 16 other categories, covering over 85 million acres. Today I want to focus on National Historical Parks. 

There are 64 National Historical Parks (NHP) in the National Park System. These units "preserve places and commemorate persons, events, and activities important in the nation's history." Units designated as NHP tend to be physically larger and more complex than the units designated as a National Historic Site (NHS). While an NHS usually has a single historical feature (such as a historic house), an NHP often extends beyond a single building and includes later structures and/or significant natural features. Below is a list of all 64 National Historical Parks, along with their locations. I've starred the ones I've visited, and added links for any I've been to since I started blogging about travel. 

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Where I've Been: National Historical Parks

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park, Kentucky

Adams National Historical Park, Massachusetts

Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, Virginia

Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park, Rhode Island

*Boston National Historical Park, Massachusetts

*Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park, Kansas

Cane River Creole National Historical Park, Louisiana

Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park, Virginia

Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, District of Columbia, Maryland, and West Virginia

*Colonial National Historical Park, Virginia

Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia

Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, Ohio

*First State National Historical Park, Delaware

Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park, South Carolina

George Rogers Clark National Historical Park, Indiana

Golden Spike National Historical Park, Utah

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia

Harriet Tubman National Historical Park, New York

Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park, Maryland

*Homestead National Historical Park, Nebraska

Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, Ohio

*Independence National Historical Park, Pennsylvania

*Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, Louisiana

Jimmy Carter National Historical Park, Georgia

Kalaupapa National Historical Park, Hawaii

Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park, Hawaii

*Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, Alaska and Washington

Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, Oregon and Washington

Lowell National Historical Park, Massachusetts

*Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, Texas

Keweenaw National Historical Park, Michigan

Manhattan Project National Historical Park, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Washington

Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, Vermont

*Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park, Georgia

*Minute Man National Historical Park, Massachusetts

Morristown National Historical Park, New Jersey

Natchez National Historical Park, Mississippi

New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, Massachusetts

New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, Louisiana

Nez Perce National Historical Park, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington

Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park, Georgia

Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park, Texas

Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park, New Jersey

Pecos National Historical Park, New Mexico

Pullman National Historical Park, Illinois

Pu'uhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park, Hawaii

Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, South Carolina

*Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park, California

Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve, Virgin Islands

San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, Texas

*San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, California

San Juan Island National Historical Park, Washington

Saratoga National Historical Park, New York

Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park, New Hampshire

Salem Maritime National Historical Park, Massachusetts

Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park, Missouri

Sitka National Historical Park, Alaska

Thomas Edison National Historical Park, New Jersey

Tumacacori National Historical Park, Arizona

*Valley Forge National Historical Park, Pennsylvania

War in the Pacific National Historical Park, Guam

Weir Farm National Historical Park, Connecticut

*Women's Rights National Historical Park, New York

I've been to 15 of the 64 National Historical Parks. That's fewer than I expected - a lot fewer. There are some where I'm not sure if I've been there, like Sitka NHP. I've been to the Alaska Raptor Center that is 0.3 mile away multiple times, so there's a decent chance that I visited the NHP. Another example: I thought I'd been to Salem Maritime NHP, but we drove by it on a guided tour and heard all about without actually getting out and seeing it ourselves. Regardless, there are a lot of great places on the list that I hope to visit someday.

Coloring Dumbo with a Glow Effect

There are a lot of really cool coloring trends lately. In her latest video, Sarah Renae Clark covers thirty (30!!) of the most trendy coloring techniques. Some of them look like so much fun! I've especially been wanting to try the neon effect, so I got out my Disneyland Parks Colouring Book (affiliate link here and below) and picked a Dumbo image.  However, as I almost always do when crafting, I ended up going rogue. Instead of following the easy steps for a neon effect that Sarah outlines in her video, I complicated things with a bunch of experimentation. I'm calling this a glow effect, because it definitely isn't the neon effect and it reminds me of the lighted inflatables at the zoo during the winter.    

I cut my coloring page down to a 7" square, then got out my black Ohuhu Honolulu. 

I colored the background, making sure i could still easily see the lines of the coloring page. I decided that I would just be coloring Dumbo, not the nephew riding him or anything in the background. I traced all the lines I'd be keeping in white using an Ohuhu Nahuku. In retrospect, I should have jumped in with color, not white. But we learn through experimentation. 

I started out trying to do a gradient kind of thing with the three blues in my set, but ended up coloring over most of that. I love how the Nahukus can just layer and layer and layer. As you can see, I decided to add some of the greenery back into the image. I (mostly) followed the lines on the right-hand side but made up my own design on the left. 

Oops. I gave Dumbo three front feet. Did you notice? It's a good thing the Nahukus layer so well. Third foot gone!

After I finished coloring, I used Ohuhu Halawas to add a soft glow around the outside edges. Finally, I added more black to the background. I kept the coloring page on the cardboard you see protecting my table, which is what gave the background that interesting mottled look. It helps disguise the original lines of the coloring page. 

I learned a lot while coloring Dumbo and had a lot of fun. I'm eager to try this glow effect again, but before that, I'm going to try actually doing the neon effect properly. Stay tuned!

Celebrating Dad

One year ago today was the memorial service for my dad. It was a celebration of his life, a time to focus on happy memories. We had a really nice service at my parents' church, followed by reception with a popcorn machine (one of Dad's favorite foods) and a cake inspired by his years coordinating the summertime hot dog lunch giveaway at Hope Lutheran. Family and friends traveled to Idaho from California and Washington, along with the many local friends who attended. Dad would have loved it. 

Celebrating Dad (affiliate link)

Instead of a guest book, I put Dad's photo on cardstock and asked guests to sign that. These two pages are now together in the album.   

I miss you, Dad. Thanks for a lifetime of memories. 

Root Beer Float Craft

I can only remember a single time in my life when I wasn't happy to see a root beer float. Every other time, I've been excited to receive this creamy and delicious treat. The root beer float dates back many years, although exactly how many is unknown. We do know that the ice cream soda was invented in Pennsylvania in 1874 by Robert Green. But did he specifically make a root beer float? Legend has it that Frank Wisner of Colorado made the first root beer float in 1893. Whether you're in Pennsylvania, Colorado, or anywhere else, this is a great time to make a root beer float craft and follow it up with the real thing. Affiliate links below. 

Root Beer Float Craft

Materials: 

• watercolor paper
• scissors
• white colored pencil
• scoring board (or ruler)
• watercolors
• cardstock or construction paper
• craft glue
• cotton balls
• root beer barrels to enjoy while you're crafting

Steps: 

Cut out the pieces you will need from watercolor paper: a rectangle with rounded corners at the bottom for the mug, a C-shape for the handle, a cloud shape for the ice cream, and a bent (or straight) piece for the straw. 

I should have arranged these the better way for this photo. See above.

Put the mug piece onto the scoring board. With the white pencil, score the center line. Then score more lines an equal distance apart. You can do this step with a ruler, but the scoring board is easier and more fun. 

Color the very bottom of the mug shape with the white pencil. Paint over the mug shape with brown watercolors. The white pencil will resist the paint. 

I chose to add a really pale wash of brown to the handle so that it didn't look so stark white when the rest of the mug had a brown tint. Paint the straw the color of your choice. I experimented with painting the ice cream a slightly yellow, but it looked weird (to me) against the pure white cotton balls. So I left the ice cream white. 

When all the pieces are dry, choose cardstock for the background. Add a contrasting strip along the bottom for the table the where the mug is sitting. Glue the pieces in place. Tear the cotton ball into a dozen or so pieces. Add glue along the bottom of the ice cream and the top of the mug, then place the cotton ball pieces into the glue. 

Invertebrate Crafts for Kids

Did you know that there are around 1.3 million different species of invertebrates?! This includes approximately: 

• 1 million species of insects 
• 100,000 species of arachnids (spiders, scorpions, ticks, etc)
• 85,000 species of slugs and snails
• 47,000 species of crustaceans
• 20,000 species of bivalves 
• 72,000 other species (everything from sand dollars to jellyfish to octopuses)

Those are staggering numbers! And when you consider how many individuals of each species there are, it is simply mind-blowing. Invertebrates are absolutely fascinating. Pair a study of invertebrates with a series of kid-friendly crafts. Below are nine of my favorites. 

Invertebrate Crafts for Kids

1. Cardboard Tube Honey Bee - Where would we be without bees? Craft a model of this vital pollinator using a cardboard tube.

2. Pretzel Monarch Butterflies - Make a gorgeous edible treat, inspired by the monarch butterfly. This craft is best for teens and tweens.

3. Ladybug Under a Magnifying Glass - What better way to study a tiny animal but under a magnifying glass?! This craft lets kids focus on all the details of a ladybug. 

4. Peanut Picnic Ants - Ants are absolutely amazing. Sure, they can be annoying, but when you learn more about their strength and teamwork, you can't help but be impressed!

5. Glue Resist Spiderweb - Create a beautiful spiderweb with two kid-friendly items you likely already have at home. It's a lot of fun to make. 

6. Lobster Drawing - Learn how to draw an American lobster, step by step. Then add watercolors to give it mottled coloration.

7. Crayon Resist Swallowtail - Use a fun crayon-resist technique to color accurate pictures of your favorite butterflies. This is an Eastern tiger swallowtail. 

8. Cardboard Tube Firefly - Fireflies are such interesting insects! Make your own firefly using a cardboard tube. Lights are optional, but totally cool. 

9. Painted Dragonflies - Create a beautiful painting featuring lots of colorful dragonflies. This mixed media project is really fun to do. 

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Be sure to check out the rest of the invertebrate craft tutorials! If you're looking for ideas for other animal crafts for kids, I have those too. Click on the links to find bird crafts, mammal crafts, fish crafts, reptile and amphibian crafts, and even crafts featuring mythical creatures!