It is almost here. Christmas is just a few days away. It has been a fun holiday season with our daughter. We have enjoyed singing carols together & snuggling up and watching Elf & the Grinch. Our daughter has also discovered just how much she loves candy canes. We have been to many Christmas parties this season & have met with Santa 4 times and each time she has accumulated a few candy canes. Candy canes are a great treats & they also make lovely and festive crafts.
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pipe cleaner
Daddy Long Legs Spider Craft
I know that I have told you all before, but my daughter has a love for the creepy crawlies. She likes snakes & all sorts of insects. She especially loves spiders. I am not sure what the fascination is. Perhaps it is because her favorite book is Miss Spider’s Tea Party. We read it every night. Our house is filled with drawings of spiders. The spider on the left is Miss Spider.
Yesterday while doing yard work, I saw a daddy-long-legs climbing up the side of our house.
When I told my daughter, she came running. “Look at that big daddy spider. Where is the mama?” She studied that spider. “Pick me up. I want to get closer.”
When we went back into the house, we made a quick craft in honor of our new little friend. We still have a bin full of plastic Easter eggs, so we used them for the spider’s body. We used pipe cleaners for the legs. We used 4 for each spider.
Use a hot glue gun to glue the legs to the bottom of the egg. (Adults should operate the glue gun.) Add googly eyes & draw in a smile with a Sharpie.
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Pasta & Pipe Cleaner Crafts
The other day my daughter was digging through a chest of drawers and came across a bamboo necklace that I bought when we were in the Bahamas. The necklace was just a simple beaded necklace on craft wire. My daughter was having a great time sliding the bamboo beads back & forth. She wanted to break it open and play with the beads, but I did not want to ruin my necklace. Instead we had another idea.
The beads on the necklace reminded me of Ditalini pasta. We had a couple of boxes of it to spare, so we decided to make bracelets with our Ditalini.
First we dyed our pasta by tossing it a cup at a time into a plastic baggie with food coloring. Spread out the pasta on a paper towel & let it dry.
(For a more rustic look, toss all your beads together while wet & try baking your beads for 30 minutes at 275-300 degrees. It will change the color & shape of the bead for a rougher look.)
Mai saw all the pasta laid out to dry and got excited. “Mama, we do project.” We do love our projects. Once the food coloring dried, my daughter was ready to dive in. We poured all the pasta beads into a shoe box & mixed them up. Mai had a little difficulty using string to make our bracelets, so we pipe cleaners instead. This worked much better. She was able to string them up with ease. This is a great activity for hand-eye coordination & Mai really enjoyed this.
Measure the pipe cleaner around the wrist to find the desired size for you bracelet. Snip the pipe cleaner about an inch longer than you need it.
Twist the two ends together tightly & slide the bead around the newly joined section.
We made one more bead craft before our night was done. The colored pasta is not just for crafting, it also great for sensory boxes, color sorting and counting games.