Why the Whale?

I've been asked why I'm making a 28" long whale. My mother's church holds a Ladies' Tea each year, and my mother always does the little girls' table. I help out each year, and in recent years, my sister in law Liza has helped out, too, which is good since our one table expanded to 2 tables last year. This year's theme is "transportation." I didn't like the theme--planes, trains, busses just don't sound like little girl fun. So, Doug said, "Why don't you do Jonah and the whale?" since God provided the whale as Jonah's transportation to Nineveh. I thought that was kind of neat, but we needed a big centerpiece, and no matter what Doug thinks, I don't know of any party store selling a huge whale that is not some cheaply made but way overpriced, ugly blow-up thing. And therein lies the impetus to build my own whale. On Saturday, I spraypainted it black & added one of those sparkly blue fountain centerpieces from the party store to mimic the water spray from the whale's blowhole, and it looks awesome. When I added the fountain, Wyatt said, "Ohhhh." At least my 2 year old approves. I don't have the final picture, but I'm posting the "in process" pictures from waterbottle stage to covered-in-paper-machee page. I'll post the other picture whenever I get the whale back from my mother's house. My costs so far? 50 cents for 2 bottles of glue, $2 for a couple bottles of black spray paint, $2.50 for the blue fountain centerpiece, free old water bottle, old newspapers & diaper box for cardboard, some duct tape I already owned, and about 12 paper plates--not bad, huh, that is, if you need a whale. :-)