passing the creative torch

Ever the project gal, I can't imagine what my kids remember about the kind of mom I was back in the Waimanalo days! I remember wanting new floors and not having money. That gold and mustard sculptured hi-lo carpet was ever on my last nerve! One day my girlfriend told me about making lollipops. Now, how lollipops relate to carpets will be expanded on.....

So I went to Kane'ohe to meet with someone selling lollipop supplies. For like $20 I got started. The kit included these metal clips in different shapes. The lollipops would be a half an inch thick. There were different flavors. Besides this, all you needed was PAM, sugar, water and a cookie sheet. Eventually I went to a headstone place and got a marble slab to help cool the lollipops. I made and sold lollipops by the hundreds. It was the beginning of a rage that lasted quite long. When more people got involved and lollipops were everywhere, I got out and found something else to make money in. If I could have made thousands, I would have, but it was humanly impossible. I hired my kids, neighborhood kids, and sent the lollipops to sporting events in team colors, to Honolulu Boy Choir by the hundreds. Our house always had that sugary smell and you could taste sugar when you breathed! I had to make sure the last flavor of the day was something I liked because that would linger in the air until the following day. In the end, I yanked out all of the carpet, purchased some peel and stick tiles from Sears (on sale, of course) and had a work party of neighborhood kids armed with dinner knives. They helped me take up all of the old tile flooring under the gold carpets and we got new floors!

I know I did craft shows and made miniature 'uli'uli from kamani nuts I picked at Kailua Park. There was always something going on to have "side money". When we moved here I found I liked to paint. I have been painting some sort of something since 1988. Yesterday Kanoe dropped by looking for watercolor paint in tubes. I happen to be getting rid of my bottle paints (hundreds of them) to go to a few tubes and mixing my own colors, to cut down on all this storage junk. She is taking watercolor classes from a gal friend of mine who became a friend when we both went to paint class together in 1988!

Konohiki approached me on Sunday. He pulled me aside to look at a poster in the foyer at church. The poster has been printed. The artwork is by his own hand. Well, talent abounds! I know it when I see purple paint stains under my worktable. These are from budding artist Lehua at age 3. She found the paint and a canvas and handpainted (with her hands) a purple butterfly--on the plastic wrapper of the canvas! Then, of course, she had to clean her hands, so she rubbed them on the carpet! I never was upset about the acryllic purple, I didn't want carpet in the workroom anyway. One day, I will pull the carpet and paint the OSB underlay into something. It can't be peonies because there is 'ilima and mailelauli'ili'i on the walls!! I have mentioned this to Wes, but he is not amused.