On building a mushroom....in pictures

I mentioned the other day that we were going to attempt to build a gymnastics mushroom this weekend.   

Mike's a bit of a hard worker, and managed to go get all of the supplies for that project AND mow the lawn while the boys and I were at day 2 of our yard sale. 

Walking into the house and seeing the supplies....knowing what they were for.....left us with three VERY EXCITED LITTLE RASCALS.

Who jumped right into the project.

Which means we now have a completed mushroom in our upstairs loft.   Who wants to take bets on how soon it gets fought over and how soon we'll be making a second on?  ;-) 

So, I present to you:  

How to Build a Mushroom, in pictures

Step 1:  hunt for a very big plastic bucket.  Only find purple ones.  Spray paint it black so the boys don't complain about a "girly" mushroom

Step 2:  Cut a bunch of concentric circles out of carpet padding

Step 3:  Watch your stack of circles grow....

Step 4:  Glue (we used both glue all and gorilla glue) the circles on a 23-inch wooden table top, bought at a home improvement store

Step 5:  make sure everything is secure

Step 6:  Admire your work and creativity

Step 7:  Admire it a little bit longer (preferably while drinking coffee)

Step 8:  Place table top, bottom-up, on a yard of store-bought vinyl.  

Step 9:  Start stapling the vinyl into the board, and stop to instruct the rascals to move further away from the staple gun

Step 10:  Once the rascals are safely out of the way...continue your upholstery job

Step 11:  Place bucket on top of the upside-down mushroom cap

Step 12:  Screw the bucket into the table top

Step 13:   Admire your handiwork

Step 14:  Finally let the rascals get close to it and enjoy their squeals of joy

Step 15:  Take a picture, after having the rascals back away from it again

Step 16 - A:  Let the fun begin!!

Step 16 - B

Step 16 - C

And now...the moment you've all been waiting for.......the mushroom in action: