Roses Are Red, Carnations are....

For this week's craft we changed some plain, white carnations into all the colors of the rainbow. It was so easy.

First we put in the food coloring, drop by drop.

Then we put the flowers in their vases.

And then we waited...do you think if we are quiet enough we can hear the flowers drinking?

The next morning our flowers looked like this:

Now all we have to do is give them away!

A Craft Fraught with Peril

This was a dangerous, exciting, super-fun craft with a tragic ending.

My goal: to make some cute garden stepping stones using shards of colorful broken plates and cement.

First I gathered the plates, soon to be hammered to smitherines:

The smitherines:Because we were working with hazardous materials I called Meredith, babysitter extraordinaire, to help. (Notice the "mer" in her name? She fits so naturally into our mer-family.)

Mixing concrete with your babysitter. How fun is that?("REALLY fun," says the blue mermaid who is looking over my shoulder as I type this.)You might say that children and broken glass and hammers and concrete are not a good mix....however, they went very well togeher. It was my concrete/water mix that was doomed.

I thought I would use some left over cement in the garage that the Mer-man used for the treehouse.

But it was old and hard to break up. Then I think we didn't add enough water, and, as the guy at Home Depot told me later, I should have tapped the sides of the trays with a hammer to settle the mixture, and then laid some chicken wire in the bottom to hold it together. I know a lot about cement now.

Here is our garden stepping stone. Bare feet beware!

This is what our beautiful garden steps looked like the next day. Crumbly, loose and fragmented. The orange mermaid's face says it all.

But lest I get hung up on the outcome of my craft, let us all remember the reason why we do crafts. Is it so we can have some fancy junk around to decorate our homes? I hope not. Watch this video and you'll see why this craft was worth it.

Metta's Magnets

My friend Metta taught me how to make these pretty magnets. You take a clear marble that is flat on one side and find pictures and patterns from magazines that you like.

Then, using modge podge you glue the paper to the magnet, sealing the edges, and then glue a magnet on the back.

We found some of our best pictures from the Friend magazine.

I actually needed to make these magnets for a Relief Society activity, and the girls came to my rescue.

The girls loved this craft and came up with some pretty creative ideas.

I Lava Science

Everything you need to make a volcano: Vinegar, dish soap, a small container, baking soda, food coloring and three girls.
Making the climb to the volcano mount (the sandbox).
Forming the cone.
The volcano is finished. Now for the ingredients.

Baking soda.

The dish soap is added. (The king and queen look on, unaware of their impending doom.)

The final ingredent, vinegar, was added after this to begin the reaction. (After doing this twice, it was decided that it is best to add the food coloring to the vinegar before pouring it into the volcano.)

Slowly the volcano lava--a bit bubbly and pink-- starts to flow. This was our first try--the lava was a little sluggish, but it was still exciting.
Our second try was much more exciting and bloody, as you can see.

The girls played in the carnage for a while after this, and then took the toys inside, washed them, and put them in the hospital.