Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Craft time

It's been craft time at our house for the last few days. Usually I have the motivation to do, on average, one craft a week with my boys. Creative activities take time to organize, make a lot of mess and generally cause a lot of chaos in the creation process. Many days I'm not up to it. 

A new Web site I found, www.simplemessyfun.com, has ramped up my motivation to one project a day for the last four days. The site takes the hassle out of organizing craft time for me. It is written by Amy Friedel, another stay-at-home mom who has children of similar ages to my own. She has an early education degree, several years of teaching under her belt and an extensive knowledge of other online sites and blogs that adds to her inspiration. She has a keen eye for a good deal - anything that needs to be bought is usually inexpensive and easy to find in stores, and a lot of her ideas just require items that can be found around the house. All-in-all, a winning combination for me.


This week, we turned old crayons into new, studied the alphabet and used our new crayons with alphabet coloring pages, and practiced some motor skills making fluffy little bunnies. The kids have been having a great time.

Crayons:
 
First we had to peel the crayons.


Then we broke them in bits, separated the colors and put them in metal cans. We melted them in the oven at 250 F for 15-20 minutes.

 
We poured one color at a time into the molds. We let each layer set up a bit before adding the next. I only pulled one can out of the oven at a time, so every color stayed fluid until ready to use.
 

After letting them cool and harden at room temperature, this was the result. 

Little Bunny Foo Foo:
I printed the bunny pattern I got off the link from www.simplemessyfun.com.

  
The boys practiced their motor skills by trying to cut out the bunny. I had to help a little to make sure all bunny appendages stayed in tact!


They colored the bunnies using their new crayons, then used glue to affix the cotton balls.

 
End result: Little Bunny Foo Foo (upside-down)!


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