What can I say??
In the land of projects, there are winners, and there are…the things we created on Tuesday (*insert laughing/crying emoji).
I mean, you win some, you lose some, amiright?
Still. I give you: the best Spring String Eggs we could manage!
Not too terribly shabby…until you consider how many failed attempts we accumulated—plus the fact that they were supposed to look like this:
Meh.
Coulda been better; definitely coulda been worse!
So…the idea began a couple weeks ago when I realized we were woefully deficient on accomplishing any springtime crafts.
Blame it on school and life and homework and schedules and extra-curriculars, but, the net/net is that we just don’t have as much time during the school year for crafts as I would like.
However.
I scanned the calendar and realized my kiddos had one of those super-annoying early release school days this week, so I set that as our day to make this project happen!
Nothing like needing to fill a few extra hours during a wonky-scheduled day to give us the motivation to dig into the craft closet. :) It’s my way to turn that frown (of an inefficiently-scheduled day) upside down!
In theory, this was a pretty simple supply list: balloons (for the egg shape), string, and glue. Done. All things we had on hand, so also: free! Woohoo!
I took some time to pre-cut the string for the kiddos, and to put the glue in a shallow bowl.
Now.
A couple problems right off the bat:
I should have used disposable bowls for the glue. Boooo. And, I probably should have separated the stands of string a bit better, as sticky hands started to cause the string to clump together and…yeah.
Despite the joy of playing in glue, this was, well…not a winner of a project.
Chica was diligent and determined; dunking her string and then using her fingers to remove the excess glue before wrapping each piece of string carefully around the balloon…
But Chicklet and Little Man were pretty much all aboard the Hot Mess Express train, and I kinda can’t blame them.
They lasted about ten minutes with hardly any usable results, and I basically just gave in and told them they could wash their hands and stop trying—around the time Little Man just decided to dunk his entire balloon in the glue bowl (which, too be fair, is a tactic I eventually tried and it wasn’t the worst, but he was only doing it for messy funsies, which…yeah. Didn’t work.)
It was just too messy and too hard.
Alas…Chica and I kept working, and eventually I had one completed “egg” to hang to dry, utilizing the whole one-string-in-glue-then-remove-excess method:
And, eventually, Chica had a completed egg, as well.
Then I decided to get a little crazy, dip my whole balloon in glue, and then take one long, uncut, giant spool of yarn and wrap and wrap and wrap it around the balloon. And then do it again with another color or two. And that method was certainly less messy and frustrating, but…still not the best.
Despite the joy of playing in glue, this was, well…not a winner of a project.
Chica was diligent and determined; dunking her string and then using her fingers to remove the excess glue before wrapping each piece of string carefully around the balloon…
But Chicklet and Little Man were pretty much all aboard the Hot Mess Express train, and I kinda can’t blame them.
They lasted about ten minutes with hardly any usable results, and I basically just gave in and told them they could wash their hands and stop trying—around the time Little Man just decided to dunk his entire balloon in the glue bowl (which, too be fair, is a tactic I eventually tried and it wasn’t the worst, but he was only doing it for messy funsies, which…yeah. Didn’t work.)
It was just too messy and too hard.
Alas…Chica and I kept working, and eventually I had one completed “egg” to hang to dry, utilizing the whole one-string-in-glue-then-remove-excess method:
And, eventually, Chica had a completed egg, as well.
Then I decided to get a little crazy, dip my whole balloon in glue, and then take one long, uncut, giant spool of yarn and wrap and wrap and wrap it around the balloon. And then do it again with another color or two. And that method was certainly less messy and frustrating, but…still not the best.
Eventually, a couple hours (and I giant mess to clean up later; the least of which was cleaning my bowls!), we attempted to pop the balloons to remove them and see if our eggs held their shape at all.
And…we had one winner! (Of the dip entire balloon in glue and wrap variety). But, as you can see, it contained a lotta glue that was a bit unsightly, so…yeah. A slight win?
At least compared to the three or four other balloons we popped…to end up with these sad deflated messes…
Wah-waaaaah.
But we got a big kick out of the disaster…
I mean, honestly, it was just a major surprise any time we managed to get an egg that kinda sorta looked like an egg.
And by the time all was said and done, we had three precious ones and one kind of wonky but workable one.
So, naturally, we staged the most adorable photos we could manage, to make this project feel like a success, ha.
So…yeah. Not a project I would attempt again, as I just don’t see how we could make drastic improvements.
But we still at least tried to get our craft on, and that’s always a win (well, mostly always).
HAPPH WEEKEND, peeps!
Over and out.
No comments:
Post a Comment