Thanksgiving turkeys and pilgrims

This time of year is so much fun to find things to make to decorate the tables with. We saved up our fat bottles from lemonade for a second go at turkeys and had enough leftover supplies to make it a total recycle project even the styrofoam balls for heads. 

This week we pulled out a bag of TP tubes and leftover construction paper and linen writing paper to create pilgrims to decorate our Thanksgiving tables, except the kids decided the pilgrims were puppets and added sticks to them from the glue pots. Nothing goes to waste with this group. I precut some of the paper and taught them how to make the circle hat brims for the guys. These are pretty detailed and had great faces on them. Lots of parental help on some of these but that makes it so much more fun. 

Creating projects with beads and altoids tins @WBCL

I have such a stash of beads and people give me more plus I have been known to buy a bag here and there like the beautiful gold ones from Oriental Trading that doing a project with them is always a creative surprise. The kids and adults are told at the beginning that these are what ever has been thrown into the bag left from other projects so who knows what is there. I gave the tins a quick coat of flat paint then put out beads in bowls and plastic lids of Aleene's tacky glue. There was some trading between tables to get a specific bead here and there too. The results are really nice and it is easy for kids of any age to do this with help from an adult--some of whom did their own boxes.

Making sharks & whales @WBCL

Sharks and whales are certainly popular with the younger set! I got a donation of many 100s of small styrofoam cups so they were great to use for making this project. I glued 2 together and cut egg cartons up into strips so they could make fins and tales. the ends are easy to pierce with scissors to insert the tail and make teeth. a bit of gray paint and we were there. We had magazines that my helper Jolanda brought for inspiration too.

Squashed paper flags for Memorial day @WBCL

I keep trying to do something a little different to stretch the kids' (and parents) imaginations and skills while using the wonderful donated materials I continue to receive. For this project we used an A5 envelope and red & blue streamers. First they drew the American flag--yes it has 13 stripes and a square on the LEFT. they tore the streamers into pieces about 1 1/2" long and made piles of paper wads. They then dabbed on glue and squashed the paper wads into place. They were supposed to leave spaces in the blue are to represent stars--that was hard for some of them as they just would rather have had white to squash up. In all though it was a great time doing this one.

Creating pots @WBCL

OK so you get a pot and it has a sticky tag on it--no big deal...you get 20 of them and it is a pain so planning an alternate project turned out better than the original and involved a lot more design work on the part of the participants. I took some fabric from my stash that had small squares of sunflowers, trees, lambs, chickens, cows, beehives, apples, and more and cut them into the squares. We decoupaged them onto the pots with Aleene's glue learning the "glue goes under then over" process. The kids then added buttons and did a bit of finish with outdoor scribble paint. Anyone would love to use these distinctive pots!

Creating critters from paper egg cartons @WBCL

We started off our month of recycled projects with an egg carton project making bunnies and chicks. I did cut and preprint the cartons so the kids could just create instead of dealing with paint at the class. Some of the chicks are in eggs, some of the bunnies have egg carton ears and some don't. Fun to do this one.

Making a Texas Star quilt square @WBCL

Quilting is all but a lost art for kids but a great way to discuss history for Texas's birthday and be creative too. I precut triangles before class and brought extra fabric for filler and examples of Texas Star quilts. This one is kind of a spinning star. I had the kids position the triangles first then glue them to a paper backing. They then selected other fabric in squares or triangles to fill the page. Some did borders too. Fun and easy way to get into this and I got tips from a mom who quilts when I flipped one of my triangles and got all tangled. We will try on sewing a square this summer I think.

Spiders and their webs @ WBCL

Coming right after the spider guy presentation on Saturday, this seemed like a great project todo. I had a large stash of wooden beads that I sprayed black and inserted a small dowel into the hole. I made up two samples of these so that the kids could see how these spiders were assembled. Generally their skills at twisting the chenille stems are hardly equal to the task, but this time almost everybody got their spiders legs on with no difficulty.  we used a touch of glue you add a tiny pom-pom at the  front where the mouth would be. We also added wiggly eyes to finish the spiders. Some of the kids decided that the large body was the spiders head and put the eyes there.   for the spider web we cut sheets of black card stock diagonally then had the kids pencil in the lines of the web.  Many of the kids added bugs for the spider. Some said that they didn't like the spiderweb I did and instead had very curvy lines for their web. Guess the spider gets to go where he wants to go.

Aliens and other critters from bread clips @WBCL

This was another project that I found the inspiration on Pinterest. We have been collecting the bread clips since early summer. Finally we had enough of them to schedule this project. The idea of aliens and monsters fits right in October. I also found some wood pieces that kids used to help create their project. As always wiggle eyes are a real plus in creating a project.

Making piñata for Diez y seis de Septiembre @WBCL

 This project was just a little complicated but everybody was able to complete it with very little difficulty. We began with quart milk cartons and cut the bottoms off. I cut all of the lengths of tissue paper in advance and had the kids cut their own fringes from the long strips. They first had  to glue squarish pieces across the bottom of the carton. We then added layer after layer of fringes until we got up to the top. We opened the top of the carton and punched holes on both sides to insert a cord as a hanger. Most of the kids continued their fringe up to the very top of the cart. We then added a bit of streamers to the bottom and sent them home to fill it with prizes or candies or whatever they wanted. We had a discussion about how to break the piñata to have the items fall out. We also had a discussion about Mexican Independence Day.

Jewelry making from recycled materials @WBCL

I saw the ring making project on Pinterest earlier this year and put the call out to the neighborhood and the parents in this class to save the little ring pulls from cardboard drink and milk boxes. Finally we had enough to do our project. In order to be sure that our sequins and jewels would stick to the plastic I gave each one a quick sanding. We used Alenes tacky glue then added sequins, beads, and big gemstones from a donation. I also had some fun foam bookmarks that I thought would be ideal as bracelets. We were not disappointed. I little Velcro on the ends then the kids covered the entire top with a variety of sequins and beads. Everyone went home wearing their creations. This was a great project as any age of child could do this with a little help from mom or dad.