Random Crushed Bead Animal Thingies

Don't adjust your monitors (or phones or iPads), peeps. What I'm about to share is probably one of the most random projects we've done to date.

And certainly the most random project I've accidentally purchased, thinking it was one of those create-your-own-bouncy-ball type of kits, ha.

So here it is...

And now I'll tell you how it worked.

First, we had to take these packets of sprinkles-sized color beads, and put them in water until they grew to be pea-sized (which took a few hours, and then we actually left them in ramikins on the counter for two days until we had time to come back to them).

The girls were wildly interested in the beads, and especially interested in squishing them, since they were gel-like in consistency.

So today, when we finally had time to devote to it (thank you, nonstop rain!), we had to fill this cylinder with the beads of our choice (we started with yellow)...

And then crush the beads until they filled this applicator thing with a yellow, gel-like substance...

Then we assembled this animal body with a hole in the top where we inserted the crushed gel via a syringe thingie (this is all wildly technical)...

Here's the syringe applicator thingie filled with crushed purple...

So you basically do this over and over until the clear animal body is filled. And the fun of this is supposedly that you can do any color combination your little heart desires.

Then once the body is filled, you add stickers and body parts (like a weird Mr. Potato Head)...

Until you get these...

I'm not gonna lie, they are such hilariously odd looking animals. Supposedly this kit was a "safari" one, and since there were two, Chica graciously gifted her sister with one :)

I thought they would lose interest in two seconds, but darned if they didn't keep playing with them.

Of course, I had to mandate they were kitchen-only toys, because every now and then, some of the crushed gel stuff sort of oozed out of one of the holes if the girlies pulled out an arm or something (now, there's an odd sentence I never thought I'd type, ha).

Moral of the story: despite a trio of crazy children, pay closer attention to the projects you buy, or you'll end up with these random part-rhino, part-elephant, part-I-don't-know-what thingies hanging around on your counters.

Thank goodness Chica really enjoyed the process (and thank goodness Daddy was home to distract Chicklet from making it rain gel beads all over my kitchen). And it was a great diversion for a rainy day!

Over and out.