Rainbow birthday - the craft: rainbow garland from upcycled cardboard tubes

Is it the crafter in me, the artistic birthday girl, or the 12 children in the house on a winter day that called for a rainbow party craft?
I love that little E was soo proud of our enviro-friendly craft - the first thing she announced to everyone as they sat down at the table was, "It's made out of toilet paper tubes!"  Not paper towel tubes or wrapping paper tubes (which are both true!).  She's a crafter and an enviromentalist!

Here's what we did:

Materials: washable paint, glue, 8 rings (cut from upcycled cardboard tubes from you-know-where), paintbrush, hole puncher, yarn needle and yarn, cotton balls, large beads

1. Punch two holes on either side of each ring.

2. Paint seven rings (eight if you want to do a white coat under the cotton ball). With the lighter colors, you may want to do more than one coat.

3. Pull apart the cotton balls for a cloudy effect.  Glue them on the remaining ring.

4. Thread your needle.  If you double up the yarn and push the loop through the eye of the needle, you'll end up with a loop to hang the project when you are done.  Handy, eh?

5. Alternate bead and tube (oops - no cotton on that one - I glued it afterwards - with the kids, we skipped the white paint and glued the cotton before stringing everything so the glue could dry a bit).

6. Have fun and be creative with your color choices.

All strung...

...and ready to hang.

Perfect for a rainy day, or any day you need a little extra color!

At-home facial a.k.a. recycled crayons

Back in Februrary, I found this great post from The Long Thread about making recycled crayons for Valentine's gifts.  BabyE and I jumped on the band wagon and made a whole bunch - for playgroup friends and all the students in my mom's first grade class.  (I was maxed out on peeling crayons for a looong time after that!)

So, flash forward to earlier this month when Chez Beeper Bebe posted about recycled crayons.  I knew it was time to pull down the giant basket of lonely bits (donated by my mom's aforementioned class) and turn them into something fabulous.

First, it took one full night to find, peel and sort crayons.  I was really excited about the mix of different shades and hues of each color - kind of a crafty mystery - what color will the final crayons be???

I was so eager to start this project, I (foolishly) started the next day during nap/quiet time.  I didn't realize how long it would take the crayons to melt down (and what a complete and utter mess it makes - thank goodness I don't love my kitchen floor anyway - it is now stained a bit red from spillage).

I had to stop, elbow-deep in the crayon melting due to the end of nap/quiet time.  Everything was out when my husband came home and commented, "It looks like a meth lab!"  God bless the husband of a crafter - he helped me figure out how to contain the melted crayon in the molds ("just mush some Play-Doh in it").  The man is a genius!

That night, I fired it all up again.  Not only is this project satisfying (those lonely old bits are magically transformed - don't they just look happier?) but it proved to be a cheap, at-home facial as well - can you see all that steam coming out of the pan?

Late that night, all the crayons were melted, molded and cool.  (Notice the very standard crayon colors?  Despite mysterious mixes of different crayons, they all melted down to create your basic roy g. biv palette.  Go figure!)  Then they were packaged into bags and labeled - ready for next weekend's crafty open house. 

I hope they find a good home!