This morning MM and I had grand plans to begin our St Patrick’s Day celebration by make rainbow drawings together. I figured I’d cheat and find a free printable online so he wouldn’t have to witness mommy’s terrible drawing skills. But sometimes the Internet just doesn’t yield the results you are hoping for and I found myself unimpressed with what was out there. So I opened up Gimp and decided to just make my own. I needed lots of geeky help from Engineer Daddy, but was quickly able to make a pretty perfect rainbow printable. Because I’m awesome, I’m sharing it with you!

Just click on the image and it will bring you to the full-sized version to print, cut in half and color – see, I’m so awesome, I’m giving you two rainbows for the price of one!

I love Gimp, but if it weren’t for my husband, I’m afraid I’d probably be too dumb to use it properly. So my Saint Patrick’s Day gift to you is the finished product of my husband’s intelligence and several minutes of me problem shooting. No fuss, no muss, for you my dear readers!

Oh and just to let you know how not very bright I am and how Super Geeky Extreme my husband is, here’s a quick snippet of the beginning of our Make Your Own Rainbow conversation.

Me: How many colors are in a rainbow?

Dan: Well, technically it’s an infinite number of colors because [wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah – that’s Peanuts Teacher speak for those of you who don’t speak Wah Wah]

Me: Blank stare.

Dan: Seven. Remember ROYGBIV? You can skip the Indigo if you want though.

That’s a lot of wah wah’s considering the word “seven” was all I was looking for. The ROYGBIV was helpful, too, though. I’d have remembered that eventually though, right? Do I lose more intelligence points if I admit that I googled pictures of rainbows to see if red was at the top of the rainbow or bottom? Jury seems to be out on that one, but the majority was leaning towards the top so that’s what I went with. MM, ever the Individual, decided to start at the bottom. BB The Rebel ignored all the rules completely.

Mommy colors so much faster than her children, that she colored daddy’s too.

One thing I’ve really tried to stress to MM in our coloring adventures is the concept of many shades of colors and individuality – how it’s beautiful that there are several shades of green and that he should feel free to use any shade he likes – or purple if he’d rather. For the purpose of the rainbow, I did teach him the order, but I wanted him to feel free to use any shade he liked and to go ahead and go in the reverse order that I was doing. No harm, no foul, right?

Happy St Patricks Day, bloggy friends! If you use my rainbow printable I’d love to hear if it prints okay for you and maybe see the finished results of your artsy ways. Next up on our Green Celebration is making sugar cookies with green frosting after lunch. How are you celebrating St. Patrick’s Day?