This is a busy week – the Dallas CASA Parade of Playhouses starts it’s official run this coming Friday, August 5th, so all the playhouses have to be completed and delivered to NorthPark Mall this week. To make that schedule, I spent this weekend getting some of the final pieces in place. I relied on the advice and guidance from renown cultural prodigy, also known as my daughter Kate, for this last step.

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Our goal today was to create the “specimen” jars to populate the interior of the ‘bug house‘. You all know what I’m talking about – the tinted “fluid” that is in the jars that contain post mortem specimens. Yummmmmm – tasty.

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Kate and I decided to figure what color the liquid should be and I decided we should make some bugs. This is just food coloring – we mixed some colors together, put a drop on the page and blew on the drops until we had our bugs (the purple one is my favorite – it looks like some deep water cock-a-roach).

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To crank up the nerd factor, we decided to make a run test on how much food coloring to add to the jars. It may not seem like much fun but we had a blast mixing colors – a drop of red, 2 of blue, etc.. Red + Blue = Purple … that’s right, we got aallllllll educational up in the hizzouse

(waving arms side to side)  Hhheeeeyyy!  Hhhoooooo! Drip Drop Hoorrayyyyyy

  (if you got that last joke, a deposit in your name will be made in Bob’s Bank of Awesomeness)

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Meanwhile, Barry Buford (from Buford Builders) is putting the final touches on the playhouse. I don’t want to give it all up just yet but here is a in progress sneak peek at the bug house so far:

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I am just including some shots that show you where all the specimen jars will go once things get moved into place. Since some playhouses load some imagination-sparking goodies into the interior, I wanted to make sure I had some this year. This playhouse might be my favorite so far of the ones I have designed. I still have my rule that whatever I design has to last be a thing of enduring aesthetic beauty. While that might be a slight stretch on something like a playhouse, this is not a temporary or disposable building for me.

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The 2011 ORIX Parade of Playhouses, benefitting Dallas CASA and hosted by NorthPark Center, provides an opportunity to help abused and neglected children realize their dreams of finding safe, permanent homes. In its 14th year, the event raises public awareness about child abuse, the plight of children in foster care in Dallas County and ways to help.

During the two-week Parade of Playhouses, visitors to NorthPark purchase raffle tickets for chances to win one of many extraordinary, custom-built playhouses. The playhouse drawing is held during the event’s closing ceremony.

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