Sand Castle Summer Project -- Pool to Sand Palace

OK, my family knows,  I get pretty driven when I'm on one of my creative projects -- remember last year's neon colored dining room chairs???  This years also involved spray paint --hmm--- Well, Terry is tolerant of my endeavors when I'm on an artsy mission and always celebrates the outcome with me.

Let's go back to first of June -- 

 Target Goal:  Empty the Pool --so we could  lower the Mosquito population in our corner of South Tulsa -- I'm sure we were breeding 80% of 'em despite the fact that we used those expensive mosquito pellets and lots of chemicals.

We hadn't used our pool in the past two summers -- too much to keep up 

 

I advertised on Facebook and got a few interested gals from my school

HOWEVER,  the take down and relocating plus updating a 19 yr. old pool weren't worth the $$$ and nobody wanted the chore.


Nevermind that we'd enjoyed awesome times in our pool -- SEVERAL years ago ---

It was just more $  and hassle than we wanted---


Bids on taking it down weren't in our budget yet --

The liner was cracked -- so we emptied it -- disposed of the vinyl -- removed the leaves which had lined the bottom. 

AND discovered the deep layer of sand underneath -- knowing how much preschoolers love sand --we "googled" ways to sanitize the sand -- 

THEN we were given a kids' Little Tykes jungle gym from Campbell's little friends Roman, Paislee and Tysen -- that made the project start to really take shape.

Campbell was thrilled with the results and kept saying, "You did this for ME?"  and spent lots of her Camp Nana Papa mornings in "The Pit"-- We called it her Sand Castle.  The walls were starting to oxidize and rust after almost 20 years and seemed rather plain -- so I began to visualize a kids' castle motif.  Besides that -- this was totally enclosed -- no nasty critters could invade this sandbox!

I reminded Terry of the play house and a fort he'd made for our kids years ago.

This is my favorite -- a girly girl one

I created large areas for children to paint -- Kids' Canvasses for outdoor art.

Banners with their initials & towns named after them -- "Campbelltown" and "  Sydneyvillel" 

Each grandchild will have their own castle space --

I know, I know -- it's time for me to get back to work -- to a REAL job -- if I have time to paint walls of abandoned above-ground pools -- I prefer to think of it as painting murals on kids' play space


 Our newest updates to our Sand Castle:

A tower and a play house

With strands of mini lights -- it's become a great night playground!