Hatching Spider's Nest

Eeks! Spiders!





You will need:

• Glue, glue and more glue (We used 2 bottles!)
• 2 bowls
• Balloon
• Cheesecloth or gauze, cut into 12 (or so) 3x18 inch strips
• Fishing line
• Plastic spiders (I used a bag of spider rings from the Dollar Store and snipped the ring portion off most of the spiders with scissors.)
• Sewing needle

How to:

1. Empty glue bottle into a small bowl and dilute with water. Stir well. (I suggest emptying about a quarter of the bottle at a time.)
2. Inflate balloon and set inside other bowl to give you a stable working space.
3. Dip the strips of cloth into glue mixture and gently squeeze out excess. Spread strips flat over the surface of the balloon, leaving a few small gaps and an opening near the top of the balloon.




From the look E's face you would think this wasn't fun!



4. Let glue dry (overnight), occasionally rotating the balloon to speed of the drying process.
5. Pop the balloon and remove.

6. Use sewing needle to thread a piece of fishing line at top of nest to make a hanging hook. (Knotting one end of the line should anchor it to the inside of the nest. I used gauze and found I needed two knots to hold the line in place.)
7. Thread more line through nest and tie several spiders on to pieces. Have some spiders poke out of gaps in cloth. If using spider rings, keep some intact. I snipped a small slit in some spots on the nest and tucked the ring portion through the cloth to hold the spider in place.

Stock up on glue.

Thoughts:

This is a really neat Halloween decoration! But holy cow, does it ever use a lot of glue! We went through one full bottle and two half bottles. The cloth just soaks the glue right up. The coolest part of this craft? The awesome sound the deflating balloon made as it was pulling away from the gauze. It sounded like fireworks!

Attaching the spiders to the line was not a kid friendly activity, but I had Elliott sort the spiders for me (by color and by those who had the ring portion cut off) and it kept him involved. This was a fun one and the final result is really cute.

Elliott's Evaluation:
I like all the spiders hanging from the strings. I liked putting the cloth on the balloon. We have our nest in the kitchen so we can see it.

Easter Egg Nest

An egg-cellent Springtime craft

You will need:

• Colored tissue paper
• White paper
• Balloon
• Newspaper (to protect your work area-this is a messy one!)
• String
• Jar lid
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup water
• Ribbon (15-20 inches)
• Glue

Items for interior of egg:

• Birds (see Easter Chicks posting on this blog)
• Paper grass
• Plastic egg

How to:
1.   Cut the tissue paper and white paper into 1 & 1/2 to 2 inch squares.
2.   Inflate balloon to desired size. Knot it. I tied a string to the balloon and hung it from our light fixture, so that it was suspended right in front of us. You could also try to set the balloon in a small bowl to keep it still.

3.   In a bowl, stir the flour and water together to make a paste. Working with one piece at a time, dip tissue paper squares into paste and smooth it onto the balloon. Cover the entire balloon, making sure the squares overlap slightly. This will be the inner layer of your egg.

My poor friend Kim came to town for a last minute visit and got roped into helping out.

4.   Using the same method, add two layers of the white paper on top of the tissue paper layer.

5.   Add one final layer of tissue paper.

6.   When the egg is completely dry, (We let ours dry overnight.) use a pencil to draw a window opening on one side of the egg, then cut it out with scissors. Pop and discard balloon.

7.   Ball up individual tissue squares, dip into glue and place around the edge of the opening.

8.   Tie ribbon into a bow and tuck knot into hole left by balloon knot.

9.   Decorate interior of egg with grass, birds and plastic egg.

10. Display egg by placing on an upside-down jar lid.  

Thoughts:

Nothing craptastic about this craft; the final result is so adorable. My husband thinks I should make more and sell them for 15 bucks a pop at a craft show. The tissue paper layering is a messy and tedious process.

Elliott thought his messy hands were a riot!

Elliott lost interest after a while, and I was stuck doing most of it on my own. I actually found it to be very relaxing. El particularly enjoyed assembling the nest.

Our nest is still sitting on Elliott's bookshelf and he takes it down to play with it quite often. He loves to hear stories about the Mommy and Daddy bird preparing their nest for the arrival of their baby bird, who hatches at the end of the story. Elliott has recently been asking if he could do this craft again, next time making a hot-air balloon, so keep an eye out for that in the future.

Bird's Nest

It's a bird's MESS!

You will need:
There is no set list of materials you'll need for this project. Part of the fun is talking about birds and what things they might use to make a nest and to go on a hunt to find them in your yard. (or on a walk through your neighborhood) The items we used:

• Twigs
• Hay
• Grass
• Feathers
• Moss

Our collection of materials found in the yard.

And where we cheated (not that it helped us at all):

• Yarn
• Clay magic modeling clay

How to:

The challenge was to create our own bird's nest from materials we found in the yard. We did cheat a bit (well, a lot) by starting off with a bit of clay that we molded into the shape of a bowl. Then we just started randomly sticking the other materials into the bowl to make a nest.

Thoughts:

All hail the bird! Trying to make a bird's nest proved a huge challenge and gave me a whole new respect for a creature without opposable thumbs who can build a perfect little bowl of sticks....

An actual bird's nest. Amazing! I have a whole new respect for creatures who can build this with their beaks!

Our nest was an absolute disaster and Elliott had to cup his hands around it just to get it to stay together long enough for a decent picture. My vision of buying little fake birds to place inside our nest and displaying it proudly somewhere in the house was quickly crushed.

HOWEVER, (I put it in all caps, just to keep your attention, lest you were planning on not trying this project.) this craft was a big success as far as a fun time goes. I took the opportunity to check out a few bird books at the library beforehand and we spent days talking about birds and ways they could build nests. (Plus it helped that some Robins were building one in the front yard.) Elliott had so much fun collecting items for the nest. Even our neighbors got into the act and found some pieces he might be able to use. He had me in stitches (What exactly does that mean?) when he started to talk to a bird and I heard him asking, "What do you use in your nest?  How do you get it to stay together? Talk to me!" 

Needless to say the bird did not respond. If he had we might have had better luck.