Rss

Pipecleaners…a crafters best friend

Posted by :bcjen On : October 17, 2011
0

Category: Uncategorized

Tags:

We went on a “field trip” today to the Sea Life Aquarium at Arizona Mills Mall.  I had low expectations for an aquarium in a mall, so color me surprised when it turned out to be rather nice.  First, the staff were super friendly and helpful.  Plus the price of $6.00 per person (it’s a special for Home School Week, normally like $18.00 per person) made the deal even better.

After going through the exhibits and playing on the various slides, etc at the end of the walk through, I broke down and let Mr. PuppyDog “PleaseMayIGetAToy” get a wind up clown fish that you wind up, put in water and watch it swim.  Than can’t just have a fish in water.  He needs to create an entire “scene”.  Wonder where he gets that from?  So when we got home, finished lunch and he prepared to create his seascape  in the kitchen sink, I pondered how to make the anemone for his clown fish.  Because I knew it was only a matter of time before he would ask for one.

I thought, “hmmmm…tin foil? No because that would be a pain in the but and he’d complain that it was too shiny.”  Paper? um, no idiot Jen, paper and water makes for mush.  I walked over to the craft pile by my dining room table and looked down hoping for inspiration.  Propped up on top was my bag of pipe cleaners! YAY!  That would so totally work AND you could hook it to the plug in the drain.

Voila!  One brightly colored sea anemone.  Hhe wanted more “arms” but I said, “Do you even KNOW how much these stinking pipe cleaners cost?”  So he had a little Economics lesson while waiting for me to finish making the anemone with fewer arms.

I love pipe cleaners.  One of the reasons I hit up Goodwill all the time is in hopes of scoring a bag of those bad boys like I did the puff balls.

Project: Kid Craft – Make a Rainbow

Posted by :bcjen On : October 4, 2011
0

Category: Uncategorized

Tags:,

We managed to get school completed today (remember, I homeschool Than) and then we had a little extra energy so I said, “Let’s do a craft!” and Than said, “Let’s read up on extinct Australian megafauna!”  I’m not kidding, folks.  That’s what he said.  He’s 8.  My friend Wendi’s daughter once asked me, “Does Than always sound like he’s giving a college lecture?”  My reply, “Yes.”  Most people who know Than on a casual basis wouldn’t see that in him.  But the more you spend time with him, the more you’d see that he is a total science geek.  Especially where animals are concerned.  He could tell you the genus and sub species of dinosaurs at age 4.  I kid you not.

So  I made him a deal.  He completes a craft with me and I’ll read him information from Wikipedia and even click on links going to other pages.

I think I got the raw end of that deal.  It took less time to do this craft than to go thru the Wiki pages and read EVERYTHING.  Oy.

(Right now he’s pacing around the living room discussing the Phascolarctos stirtoni     with me.  It’s a giant Koala.  I’m just nodding and smiling.  I don’t get the excitement, but I’m glad he’s excited.)

We were studying Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood today and I decided we’d make a rainbow.  Then I thought, “How in the world are we going to make a rainbow?”  I stared stupidly into the craft section of my living room.  Then I grabbed paper, markers, scissors, glue sticks and 1 manila folder.

And here we go….

  Fold the folder in half and cut out that way to make it nice and even.

Using the colors of the rainbow, color big scribbles all over an 8.5×11 piece of paper (or tear up bits of colored construction paper).

  We used scissors to cut up our little uneven squares, but tearing would have been cool, too.

Glue around in the order of the rainbow colors.  Starting from the bottom:  purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red.

and VOILA!

  A rainbow!!

Easy, cheap and gives your child a sense of accomplishment because it doesn’t take that long to complete and looks fun (all the colors).

 

Project: T-A-C (Test A Craft) Pipe Cleaner Dinosaur

Posted by :bcjen On : July 27, 2011
0

Category: Uncategorized

Tags:, , ,

Ok so my lovely assistant, THAN (glares across room at Than who is completely oblivious to the fact that I am glaring at him), decided that he did NOT want to do any crafts today.  So the part of “Test A Craft” where Than’s involvement is required will be conspicuously absent from our testing criteria.

Did that make sense?

Ok, in layman’s terms:  The little goober didn’t want to play with Mommy as his toys are much more fun today. (grumble)

I’ll remember this day, oh yes little Than, I’ll remember….(rubs hands maniacally)…  Ya know this would go so much better if he was reading my mind or reading this page and seeing all of my twisted crazy words.  What he actually sees is me smiling at him and saying, “It’s ok sweetheart, you don’t have to craft if you don’t feel like it.  Have fun with your toys.”

(sigh)  Being a good mommy is hard some days… ;)

Um, where was I?

Oh, so the craft that I had intended to do ended up on the “I don’t feel like doing it” pile.  Along with 134293 other options.  So while trying to entice Than to join me in crafting I found two things he liked:  pipecleaner crafts and dinosaurs.  It still didn’t work.  He did, however, beam at me with that cute little face and gave me some encouraging words, “You can do it, Mommy!  That’s right up your alley!”  Where does he get these words from?  (whistles innocently)

So I went to a Disney site for crafts and found this:

http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/pipe-cleaner-crafts-dynamic-dinosaurs-666409/

and since I didn’t have enough of the same color pipe cleaners, I ended up with this:

It was super easy, took but minutes and Than is enjoying playing with it.  Knowing his abilities I’d say that the bundling part of the pipecleaner wrapping would work for as would the coiling.  He could do this craft.  I would just have to put the pieces together for him as he would smoosh the body as he put one piece into the other.  But it is definitely something you can do with your kids.

They also have other pipecleaner animal projects like the duck and the penguin.  Both are cute and look easy.  I’m sure I’ll be making those later today.  If I do, I’ll come back and post pictures.