Happy Birthday Canada

It's July 1st and the day that Canada celebrates its birthday. This year, 2011, Canada is 144 years old. Celebrations are held across the country, some grandiose and some small.

One particular memory that stands out in my mind is from 2008 when we were taking the Via train across Canada to visit family in British Columbia.  We just happened to be on the train for Canada Day.  Celebrations on the train included a huge cake decorated like a flag of course.   We were travelling through northern Ontario and passed some small communities that backed onto the train tracks. One house was all decked out in red and white and the whole family was standing in their back yard waving the Canadian flag as the train went by. What a lovely thing for them to do.

Two years ago I created a Canada flag from some flat stones I found in the garden. This rock flag has been outside those 2 years and the paint was faded away.

The center rock had lost just about all of the white paint and red maple leaf.  I scratched off the remaining paint, got out the paints and re-did it. I traced the maple leaf from a paper flag and then transferred it to the rock.

Here it is drying on a much larger rock.  If you've got kids and/or grandkids at your celebrations this is a fun craft to do, from hunting down the rocks, to painting and then displaying  the flag.  Your flag size is only limited by the size of the stones you use.  How about using three patio stones? or a lot of little stones. I use the image of the first rock flag I created on the side of my blog to let other Canadian bloggers know about the list of Canadian blogs I maintain. This list originally started out as just garden blogs, but as I amalgamated my Crafty Side blog into this one I added my list of  crafty blogs too.   Now I've also added photography, nature and just every day life blogs.  As long as it is a family friendly blog I will add it.  Check it out and you too can tour Canada from coast to coast to coast via a list of proud Canadian bloggers.

This year the holiday actually falls on a Friday so it will be a long weekend for many, many Canadians. Stay safe, arrive alive.Happy Canada Day!  PS - It's wonderful to have many new Canadian bloggers stop by for a visit today.  My Canada blog hop is growing, and growing.