Gumdrops. On a Stick!

There's always room for another building toy, especially if that toy is sharp and/or full of high fructose corn syrup.

So you take some gumdrops, and you take some bamboo skewers, and you stick the bamboo skewers in the gumdrops--

--and you make stuff!

The gumdrops are sticky on the inside, so they hold the skewers really well, but they're also gummy, so they're very forgiving if you want to change the angle of a certain skewer or fit it somewhere just a little different from where you'd originally intended.

We all had a lot of fun with this, and several massive creations resulted:

Another interesting point is that these structures sort of tell you how to build them as you go. For instance, Will made a vertical triangle, then stuck a skewer straight across from the top of the triangle, but it wouldn't stay. So she tried sticking a skewer straight down from the end of that triangle, but it was too long. So she build another vertical triangle to hold that opposite end of the skewer, which held it up, but the whole structure kept tilting, so she connected the two vertical triangles with skewers at both ends of their bases--

...and so on and so on, the engineering skills building apace.

As for Syd's obsession, have any of you ever read the Tripod trilogy of young adult novels?

Shudder.

Tough Choices

Would you rather paint?

Or snuggle the foster kittens?

You're free to do both, of course:

In other news, we're having an excellent weekend.

Prima Ballerina

Someone likes her brand-new ballet class uniform:

We had to purchase the uniform (and holy cow, that stuff is expensive!), but the "sparkly big pink tutu" that Sydney has requested? I can make that baby myself.

And maybe a matching one for me?

Pumpkin+Bear Paper+Dolls

Fortunately today was bright and sunny and happy and pleasant, so after a looong morning running errands--Learning Treasures for blank slides, slide covers, elastic cording, and the tiny plastic animals that the girls generally spend their allowance on; Hobby Lobby for adhesive cardstock and science magnets; Kroger for a passel of groceries, including nutritional yeast, soy creamer, and celery with the leaves on (another experiment in the making); and Costume Delights for one x-small youth ballet outfit--Willow found herself crashed out on the couch, reading a Black Stallion book and listening to the Oklahoma! soundrack, and Sydney and I found ourselves out in the front yard, conducting a photo shoot for the felt paper doll set in my pumpkinbear etsy shop:

I'm not in love with the white felt background, but...eh. You do your best and you call it good.

I've got some pretty cool vintage wallpaper buntings to also list this weekend, and possibly more cut-out pinbacks, but I've also got tomatoes to buy and then can, and pesto and cookies to make, and a celery experiment to conduct, and some jingle bells to string on elastic cording, and some more antibiotics to beg out of the Humane Society for the foster kittens, so we'll see what I get done.

Whatever it is, though, I'll call it good.

Paper Dolls, Only They're not Made of Paper

It seems as if the girls have been everywhere this week, and I along with them--microscope, books, beads, playground, library, playdates, Nancy Drew, Magic Tree House, hearts, glue, macaroni, butterflies,  Schoolhouse Rocks, markers, workbooks, rubber bands, guitar...get the idea?

I've dreamed about these felt playsets for a long while, but it seemed as if I put them together in fifteen-minute increments for almost as long as that. A few minutes of cutting, interspersed with helping a daughter over a sticky moment in a computer game, interspersed with a few minutes of cutting, then taking a break to bake yet another batch of vegan sugar cookies, and eventually--

--the paper doll felt playset gets created, piece by tiny piece.

My goal is to take many better shots of this playset tomorrow, to share here and on etsy and for craft fair signage, but since I also need to buy elastic cord so to make jingle bell anklets with the girls and a ballet outfit for Sydney to wear to class next week, and make the long-promised oatmeal cookies and the recently-desired mini-pretzel cookies, and read The Black Stallion and another Nancy Drew and however many other chapter books Willow has managed to devour recently, well...

We'll see.

Have You Climbed a Tree Lately?

She has!

Tutorial: Beaded Ribbon Necklace for She of Little Patience

Beading a necklace is actually a bit of a commitment.

I have beads and the kiddos have beads (actually, some of their beads are better than my beads, but who compares Christmas presents?), and they often like to do stuff with their beads. Who wouldn't? They're colorful!

Gluing beads all over something is cool, but beading an entire necklace, especially a necklace long enough that they can slip over their heads in order to dress themselves independently, is along the lines of "death do you part" for the under-7 set.

But you know what they say--tantrums are the mother of invention. That's how I invented this project that will turn any amount whatsoever of beaded strand into a beautiful, wearable necklace.

You will need:

• beading cord. We use plain old fishing line.
• beads and baubles--anything with a hole in the middle
• ribbon
• super glue--we use E6000

1. Give each kid enough fishing line in case she strings enough beads for an entire necklace. Tie a bead firmly to one end of the length of line.

2. Let the kids string beads to their hearts' content. I give each of my girlies one of their compartmentalized plates to work on--it gives them a couple of compartments to sort beads, and the largest compartment generally catches the odd dropped bead, IF they work over it (big if, I know).

3. Once the kid gets bored, have her give you back the line with whatever amount of beads that she's strung. Measure out the length of line that she has unbeaded, minus two inches, and match that, plus two inches, with ribbon. You're adding four total inches to the necklace's measurement, do you get it?

4. Use that extra inch of line and extra inch of ribbon on each side of the lengths to tie the two together. Try to make your knot on each side snug against the beaded line--if you make it perfect, the necklace will actually look like the beads have been strung on the ribbon itself. Kinda cool-ish.

5. Trim the extra ribbon and line sticking out from each knot so that it looks neat and tidy.

6. For extra insurance, coat both knots with super glue, then let dry for a day.

Because she just wasn't enough of a fairy princess already?