Holleygarden, that is exactly what I was thinking about seeing them when they aren't blooming. Especially for new gardens, not established. I frequent the Antique forum (thanks to Ashdown, I was bit! :-)). I must have missed Juliets tale. My Dad is very sweet, so sweet I have given him a bunch of rose plants! Kinda like when I was doing Persian cat rescue, my parents ended up with a few. :-) He's glad I am into roses now... Trish, you better get a production line going! lol Are you up to 400 roses now? Whew! How awesome is it that your roses are a chick magnet! My boy is the same age (I believe) I am going to have to subliminally program him..... I am so happy for you! Right now my son is looking at my canes and leaves and finding leaves that don't look "well" and pointing them out like I am doing something wrong!! Niiice. As an aside, "Old Gray Cemetery Noisette" and La Marne(poly tea), both from Ashdown, have a couple blooms. The blooms and fragrance are AWESOME!!! The blooms on both last forever, on plant. I have NEVER smelled roses like this, just heaven. (I don't have the different rose smells down what so ever so I can't tell you what they are like, darn it.) Allison

Canvas paper comes in two forms: paper that contains real fabric and paper that is merely embossed with a cloth pattern. The latter is much less expensive, but is "fake" canvas, although I would buy some more if I could find it. Some brands of inkjet canvas tend to jam in my older Epson printer. I went shopping for inkjet canvas in our local Staples a few days ago and was disappointed not to find any. I expected at least two different kinds. Epson used to have their own brand of inkjet canvas, but in a recent online search I failed to find any of the Epson canvas. Epson may have discontinued it. I will check our local Michaels store and, failing there, I will resort to an online search. As Red_Confetti mentioned, inkjet canvas is not cheap. MM

What age and how many kids are you working with? I think that makes a big difference. We did some benches with each student painting an unglazed ceramic tile (thumbprint animals on pastel backgrounds for the kindergarten). We outlined and glazed them, then the art teacher helped us fire them in the kiln. I saw another project that was great and could be done on benches -- each child drew their own version of something. I remember one was apples. Each apple was stylized, patchwork or had doodles and details. Some were short and fat, others were tall and narrow. I think one of the others was hearts and each heart was shaped and decorated the way the student wanted. The were very colorful and remind me somewhat of the animal bench above. They work best with smaller classes. We were doing entire grade levels and had to get more kids on one bench. The smaller classes had some fillers -- shapes we made from clay, cut out painted and glazed (suns, moons and rockets on the space bench, umbrellas on the beach bench, etc.). Others had mosaic pieces -- snakes and bugs on the garden bench and such.

I did a bit more research and found basically 3 choices for exterior paint: 1. Acrylic 2. Latex 3. Oil Enamel From my reading, it seems that Oil Enamel may not be as durable on surfaces that expand and contract and takes longer to dry. That leads me towards using Acrylic or Latex which apparently can be thinned with water or Floetrol. Does anyone have recommendations which would be better (Acrylic or Latex) and what would be better to thin with to make a stain (water or Floetrol)? I want to make sure I get this last step correct after all the time invested in prep work. Lastly, what ratio of paint to thinner would be good to start with to make a stain for an exterior oak door? I would like to use a dark (black) stain with wood grain showing through. Thank you.