Craptastic Yarn Bowl

Craptastic Bowl

You will need:

• Newspaper
• Yarn
• 2 small bowls
• Glue, glue and more glue
• Inflated balloon

How to:

1. Lay newspaper over work surface. This will get messy! Place balloon in small bowl to keep it from moving.
2. Cut strips of yarn and soak in other small bowl filled with glue.
3. Remove one piece of yarn at a time, squeezing excess back into bowl. Drape yarn over top of balloon. Continue draping yarn over balloon, layering pieces over each other. Leave the top of the balloon clear. (The section that is sitting in the bowl.)
4. Let dry. (Overnight) Once dry, pop the balloon and remove from bowl.

Thoughts:
Oh. My. Goodness. Hands down~Craptastic Craft of the Year! Can I just say that this is the second time I've tried this, both with horrible results? Every time I see this craft in a book or magazine I want to do it sooooo bad because it looks soooo cool. So not. The first time E and I did this (was for me, I'll admit it) he was just too young. So we tried again a year or so later. This time, still not a hit, still bad results. Elliott couldn't figure out the whole squeezing the glue out thing so I took over that, thinking he would at least like draping it over the balloon. Yeah, not so much. He was way more interested in playing with his Artoo-Potatoo Potato Head while he watched me. (With warnings not to get the glue too close to R2!) So I took over the whole project. Yay, me! OK, fun to do, but the results...not so fun.


Way more interested in that Potato Head


Elliott was most interested in popping the balloon. Our bowl was floppy and weak. The yarn just didn't get stiff enough. Was stingy me doing a little too much squeezing off the excess glue? The finished, um, bowl was a disappointment and was promptly thrown away.

Elliott's Evaluation:
Note from Mom: I would like to preface Elliott's thoughts by stating Elliott did not like doing this craft at all. However, his words:
I liked making it. Do we still have it? We should make it again. I liked taking that balloon out.

Monster Face



A Monster Face Marble Game



You will need:

• Cereal Box
• Paint
• Yarn
• Scraps of paper (for nose, freckles, etc.)
• Glue
• Large Googly eyes
• Marbles or small balls
• White paper

How to:

1. Cut the top out of a cereal box. (Save to later make ears.)
2. Cut three inch slits in the box and fold up (or cut out) every other flap. These will be the slots for your marbles.
3. Paint entire box.
4. Paint.
5. Paint.
6. Paint.
7. Paint some more.




Painting the first of six layers!


8. Once dry, add eyes, ears, hair, etc.
9. Cut strips of white paper to cover flaps to make teeth.
10. Write different point values for each flap and take turns flicking marbles at face to try to get them in holes. Person with the most points gets, well, nothing.

For hair and eyebrows:

For hair: Cut pieces of yarn in various lengths. Tie a small piece of yarn in center to hold.

For eyebrows: Wrap yarn around a small piece of cardboard about 1 inch thick. Slip off cardboard, tie in the middle with a small piece of yarn, and cut ends.





 Thoughts:

Who knew exactly how many layers of paint it would take to cover our cereal box? (I think six, before the name of the cereal was no longer visible.) Our monster started out blue, but once we ran out of blue we had to start adding any other color we had. He ended up a really cool, scary shade of dark green.

Elliott's Evaluation:

I looooved painting my monster face. I like to roll marbles at it. But, you don't get any points if it doesn't go in a hole.