Day 146: Skitter Bot

Well, my hubby is a tinkerer.   Last night, we spent the evening breaking apart I can't even begin to tell you how many CD drives to get gears and motors out of them.  It took us almost 3 hours, but we had a blast.  Today, he asked me if he could do craft, and we ended up with Marker Skitter Bots!!!!  Because he was the mastermind behind this, he will be our guest blogger tonight! (first time ever- i feel like i should feel special or something :-p) ***Let me just leave it at this- unless you know how to play with motors, and do basic electrical wiring, please, do not try this at home!*** We are blessed to have a man in the house that loves to do stuff like this.

Today we made drawings with a sharpie skitterbot.  I've seen this idea many places - education/electronics websites, festivals, etc.  First, the preparation: Due to the amount of hot glue and soldering involved, I had to do this part by myself.  I look forward to being able to involve the girls in this more as they get older.  I started with a motor freshly harvested from a defunct CD ROM drive, hot glued a nut to it slightly off center to give it the desired imbalance, and then hot glued the motor to the bottom of a plastic cup.  I hot glued on 3 sharpie markers as legs.  I soldered the leads from the motor to a handy 4xAA battery holder from my parts bin.  I initially tried to make it work with just one wire soldered and using the other wire as a makeshift switch held together with a twist, but it proved unreliable and got in the way, so I soldered them both and taped it up.  We pulled a battery out to stop it when we wanted to.  Most times I've seen this, the battery holder is attached to the cup, and the whole thing is left alone to do its thing.  However, I decided to leave the battery holder as a sort of leash for it so that the girls could drag it around, and to make it a little lighter.

Now, on to the fun part:  We covered the table with kraft paper and put 2 pieces of printer paper on it - one each girl.  I gave control over to Iris first, and showed her how to drag it around gently, and how to give it nudges to make her design.  She seemed to have fun dragging it around, but was a little hesitant to push it directly.  After a few breaks to unwind the wires (slight defect in controlling it with the battery wires - they get tangled up as it spins around), and a lot of drawing, we handed control over to Penny.  She preferred to just hold the battery pack over it and let it go on its own, so her drawing ended up being more dominated by circles as it spun around freely.

It was fun to see how different the two patterns turned out when they were done.

Mom and I got into the action after the girls were done and filled up the Kraft paper with marker.  I tried to make a heart shape, but it didn't turn out very well.  Finally, one of my hasty solder joints succumbed to the twisting and the bot shut down.

Day 119: Coffee Filter Fish part 1

Well, we are revisiting the coffee filters.  I found a ton of crafts I wanted to try with them yesterday, so here we are, making coffee filter fish!

I gave the girls coffee filters and markers and told them to have fun.  The colored quite a bit, lots of scribbles, lots of colored hands :-p  I made spirals and stripes, just to see what happened when I spritzed it with water. .. Water, that is where part 1 of 2 comes in.

It was such a beautiful evening today, that we took the girls to the park to fly their planes, and for Mike to fly his RC plane.  But, that brought us home late, so Mike bathed Coraline while I did craft with Iris and Penny. At the very end, I filled the water bottle up and spritzed mine with water, I failed to account for the fact that my water bottle is an industrial sized thing that sprays about an oz of water per squeeze (ok, maybe i'm exaggerating a bit, but it definitely doesn't "mist" it downpours on things :-p) Well, when it was already 8 p.m. and I doused my filter in water, and the girls both wanted theirs sprayed too, I knew then that I would not be able to put the fish together with them tonight.  It was just going to have to wait, because our coffee filters could have been rung out!

Once bath was over, I finished making one of my fish just to have a pattern for the girls to see tomorrow, so here is what you will see tomorrow, hopefully x 2 or 3 hehe.

Day 92: Whoa, blogger change!

What the heck?  The layout of Blogger changed overnight!!! haha, oh well, same basic set up, just looks really different.

We had such a wonderful day today, I REALLY needed the fun that we had too.  For the last week, my life (and Mike's) has revolved around Coraline.  Making sure that she has meds on time, making sure her fingers are out of her mouth, making sure that she is taking enough fluids, getting enough food, etc etc etc.  Today, Mike's mom called and asked if we wanted to go to Lodi Outlets for lunch and shopping.  Part of me, was hesitant, but the "I need to do something fun" won out.  I loaded the kids up in the car and went down.  I have to say i am SO happy that I did!  Coraline was fine, she even napped while we were on the train.  But, spending the entire day out of the house really ate into craft time.  And, that left me coming home at 5:15, looking through my craft drawers for something to make.
The second drawer I opened i found these little stick things that Mike bought me for Christmas.  Even he told me at the time that he had no idea what we would do with them, but that he thought they were cute.  I figured with some markers, some foam stickers, and a few pom-poms and they could be a really fun craft for the girls.  Very personalized, and individual for them.  Something to really let their imaginations and creativity run free.
We used a TON of glue, but here is what we ended up with!  I think it was a great craft for the girls, it kept their interest and they enjoyed it.

Day 91: Coffee Filter Drawings

So, this craft was supposed to be a Coffee Filter Flower project.  Basically, take a coffee filter, color it with a marker, cut out a flower shape and spritz it with water so all the colors blend nicely.  But as they say, "The Best Laid Plans" We did color coffee filters.  But Iris was sooo meticulous with her drawings that I felt bad cutting it.  So, we just colored them, and then spritzed them with water to let them blend and bleed a little.  Here are some of the drawings we did:

Day 23- Party hats

Today, I stayed off of Pinterest, so I didn't get sidetracked, and I finally got to make party crowns.  I went between making them out of foam, out of construction paper, etc, and finally decided on a brown paper bag- not like I don't have 4 million of them!  So, I opened one up, cut 2 crowns out of it and let the girls go with markers.
What really surprised me today was that Penny was the most into the craft. She really enjoyed working on her hat. There were no fits, no screaming, no yelling, she just sat down and colored.  It could be because I actually FORCED her to nap today because she was SO exhausted.  She woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and by 1:10 she was STILL on the wrong side of the bed, so I put her down for a nap, she slept for 2.5 hours, woke up and was the happiest kid ever.  And since craft time was right after her nap, i think she came down in a good mood and well rested, and it made a world of difference.
Iris was very set on coloring the ENTIRE thing in, so she ended up getting bored not too far into it, but she had worked on it for close to 45 minutes when she told me she was done.  So, all in all, a successful craft day!  Sunday should be fun, we are definitely in the birthday spirit here!

 

Day 7- Creating Memories

I was talking to my sister-in-law last night about this crafting goal for the year.  I was telling her things that I have done, our failure, and my favorite so far.  She happened to mention that one of her more favorite things to do with some of her younger clients is a memory box to put photos in.  Well, that got me thinking, it would be nice for the girls to have something to keep some of their smaller projects in, as well as pictures of the numerous crafts we are going to do this year.  So, ANOTHER trip to JoAnns (which, I needed some stuff to finish these owl invites) and I had everything we would need, plus some.

The fun thing about this project was that it was truly a free for all.  No paint, but everything else was a free for all, stamps, stamp pads, markers, crayons, colored pencils, marbles, peel n stick foam, sequin, beads, nylon cording, wooden stars, pom-poms, you name it, i let them have it!  And Penny LOVED it!  She had so much fun.  I gave her a glue stick and let her go.  One of the only crafts so far that has involved no fits!  She was free to do her own thing, and she loved it.  Iris enjoyed it too, her tendency for lines was blatantly obvious.  She was more willing to ask for help gluing things on, but she was very particular about how she wanted things done.  She wanted specific colors on specific things in specific places.  The kid knows what she likes!

On a side note, I realized today, I am happier than I have been in quite awhile.  I feel inspired and motivated.  I haven't felt like this in a long time.  I walk into some place like JoAnn's, or Pat Catan's, or Michael's, and I want to try new things.  Yes, my life has begun to revolve around crafting.  I am constantly thinking about, planning, scheming about new craft projects.  Pinterest has become my new best friend.  My hands have all but fallen off from punching holes, cutting paper, gluing ridiculously small pieces, pushing brads, etc, but I am happy!  I am loving the amount of quality time I am spending with my kids.  I love how inspired and excited they are EVERY morning.  They talk about their craft project at breakfast every morning.  They talk about it until we make it, and as soon as we do, they can't wait to show Mike.  And once he sees it, talk turns to the next craft.  It has brought us all together as a family, and I love it... though this blog is KILLING my bedtime!  I just hope that maybe, at some point this year, I inspire someone to sit down with their kids/grandkids and make something.