Do-It-Yourself Monday Guest Post with Erin!

By allthingsnew

I found Erin's website, Making Memories with Your Kids, when I was surfing around the web looking for low entry giveaways for my awesome readers. I remember how much fun Magic 8 balls were when I was a kid, and I was excited to find out that you can make these yourself! So....please join me in welcoming Erin as this week's guest blogger for Do-It-Yourself Monday! I hope you'll enjoy her post and go to her blog, Making Memories with Your Kids, and show her some love! She's got lots of super ideas, so you'll be glad you did!

When Stephanie asked me to do a guest post for her I was THRILLED! The all caps are to stress just how psyched I was. I haven't been a guest blogger before and a lot of this web world is new to me. (I know, have I been raised in a cave or what?!)

So here I am posting about a craft I did with my kids. I do a lot of craft projects with my kids. I'm a full time single Mom (and in my spare time I'm a middle school counselor). My kids are my lighthouse. When I'm lost (ie: completely overwhelmed from work) it's my kids who make me feel whole again. So we bake together and craft and have as much fun as we can.

So here's how to make a great, kid-friendly craft. (It's fun for adults too!)

I remember as a kid I used to love playing with a Magic 8 Ball toy. We would sit around and ask it all sorts of questions and all giggle at the answers. Okay, who am I kidding. I work in a middle school. I still play with the Magic 8 Ball in my office and ask it all sorts of questions "Should I leave work early?", "Should I have a burger for lunch?", "Should I eat this last brownie?" You know, all the important questions in life. So when I saw this idea in Family Fun Magazine I was so excited.

What you will need:
* Small glass jar (I used a baby food jar)
* Styrofoam or wet foam
* Sharpie Marker
* Foam Sheets
* Clay or Play Doh
* Glue gun

It's super easy!

Clean out the small jar and fill it with water.

Cut a small square out of the styrofoam (about 1 inch.) I couldn't find any styrofoam so I bought some wet foam in the gardening dept. It's really easy to cut and works great.

Cute out 6 one inch squares from the foam sheets and write on them. You can write whatever you would like. We chose "yes, no, maybe, ???, for sure and ask later".

Use your glue gun and glue the sides onto your square so it looks like a dice.

Put the square in your jar and put the lid on. Shake it around a little to make sure you have enough water in it and not too much. If you have too much water in it the "dice" won't turn very easily and you will end up getting the same answer over and over.

Once you have decided you have enough water in it, run your glue gun around the top to seal the lid. You don't have to do this but with our baby food jars they kind of leaked. You don't want any water escaping!

Wrap the play doh (or clay) around the jar leaving the bottom of the jar exposed. You can use any kind of clay that hardens. I first bought the kind of clay you bake. That was a major bust. Not the baking part but we couldn't even start to use it. It was too hard to kneed. And the other modeling clay at the store said it "never hardens". That's not a good thing for this project. So we just made our own play doh (see my post here) and used that.

Now decorate the sides however you want.

Let it sit out and dry. This may take 24 hours or longer depending on how thick the clay is.

And you are set. Start asking it questions and see how much fun your kids will have. We ask it about dinner (should we have teriyaki chicken tonight?) or TV (should we watch iCarly right now?) It's a hoot!

Enjoy! And thanks again to Stephanie for honoring me with her request!

Erin (Making Memories with Your Kids)

Category: 1 comments

1 comments:

Eco-Friendly and Frugal said...: That is so neat! I actually work at a summer camp and this is a great arts and crafts idea. I'm going to look into doing this here! Thanks!!!; June 20, 2010 at 6:18 PM