CULTURE: Remnants of Boise exhibition

In April I was asked to help coordinate part of an exhibition of architectural artifacts for Preservation Idaho in conjunction with the City of Boise Department of Arts & History. This year, 2013, marks Boise's 150th birthday, or our sesquicentennial. In honor of that, the City has rented this really cool historic storefront on Main Street and named is the 'Sesqui-Shop.' For the entire year, new exhibits, lectures and events will grace the space each month.

For Remnants of Boise, the City put together a huge number of historic photos of neighborhoods throughout time. On behalf of Preservation Idaho, Dan Everhart and myself put out a call to the public for parts of major buildings which had been lost over time. As a result, I drove around town picking up some major sandstone elements and other quirky artifacts.

Here you can see some metal roof shingles from the old Territorial Capital, a door from a historic home, and an arched window from the old Veterans Home, along with photos of the building and what is in the location now. Most of the time, sadly, it's a parking lot. Oh, urban renewal (sigh).

You can purchase an exhibition catalog of sorts, with many of the stellar historic photos of Boise from BOISE 150 here and/or check out the cool virtual 360 tour that was part of the exhibition here.

KIDDOS: Ceramica birthday

As always, I make Lucy and Alice have a joint birthday party, since they turn a year older just two weeks apart. So far, at ages five and nine, they still love this idea. I'm going to milk that until I no longer can.

This year I took the easy way out of birthday party planning and splurged on a 'destination party' for the first time ever. In the past, as you've seen here on the blog, I always do it up fun and big in our backyard or at a park. For several reasons, I just didn't have the energy this year, and decided to take ten girls to Ceramica, just down the street in the Vista Village shopping complex.

Ceramica is a paint-your-own ceramics studio, a place the girls adore but I rarely take them. We've made some really cute platters with handprints for grandparents 'gifts, but in the past they've been a bit too young for art making like this.

I made my favorite easy cupcakes, these vanilla ones from Fannie Farmer's Baking Book, and handmade goody bags with a pencil, tiny notebook, and colorful bracelets from our gift stash at home. We reserved the private studio room for free, where they let us set up the treats and gave us our very own artist helper. Turns out, the party cost about the same as I would've spent at a home party, much to my surprise. It's only $5 a kiddo for the studio fee at Ceramica, and I pre-picked out 5" blank tiles for each of the girls to paint ($4 each). Plus, both Lucy and Alice got a large birthday themed plate, complete with all their friends' signatures and thumbprints as keepsakes, all for $96! It was so worth it. The girls thought it was the most fun birthday ever.