Earth Day Hairy Caterpillar

Ok, so I know I said #1 loved the last craft, but this one was by far her favorite.  Well, at least it will be her favorite if it ever grows ... but I am getting ahead of myself here.

The craft is to make your own Hairy Caterpillar.  I found it at Family Fun Here.  Love this website by the way - so many very creative ideas to have fun with the kids.  We use this a lot. 

First things first ... gather all your stuff:



And say Hello to Peanut ... Hi Peanut!  This is Peanut's debut on the blog.  You'll be hearing more about her in a few weeks. And just a little forewarning, Peanut eats a lot of things she is not supposed to and then we find those things in the backyard, this is mostly what we'll be talking about.  Makes you want to come visit the blog more often, right?!?

 So you need some sort of soil, you can use any kind, this is just what we had.  You also need some grass seed.  If you lived in the Midwest last summer and refused to spend hundreds of dollars watering your lawn like I did, then you are probably intimately familiar with grass seed, or you should be!  You also need some pony tail holders, the more colorful the better, an old nylon, and a yogurt cup that you cut the bottom out of.

Mix 4 cups of the potting soil with 4 Tablespoons of grass seed.  Stir.

This was a favorite part of this craft. For the kids.  It was a reminder to me, that I should have covered the table with newspaper as that is where most of the potting soil ended up when a fight broke out over who was better at stirring.  Seriously?  Anyhoo ...

I have no pictures of the next part because it required me to use both hands and because of the aforementioned fighting, but here is what you want to do. 

• Put the yogurt cup in the top of the nylon so that it acts like a funnel.
• Scoop about 3/4 of a cup of the potting soil mix and pour into the nylon.
• Scoot the dirt all the way to the end and then secure that section with a ponytail holder.
• Repeat 4 more times.  Then tie a knot in the end and trim any excess nylon.

When you are done, it should look like this:

Now, soak this in water for 10 minutes.  Then place in a plastic bag overnight.  I just used an old Target bag.  The next morning, remove from bag, place on a flat surface, I used an old plate and get ready to make your caterpillar pretty!

After she is beautiful, place her in the sunlight. 

Make sure to water her every other day.

In 4 to 5 days, she should start sprouting hair.  Here is what ours looks like 5 days later:

Awesome right?  The kids love it and #1 is dying to give the caterpillar her first hair cut.

On a side note, is anyone else singing the Chia Pet song in their head right now?  Cha Cha Cha Cha Chia, Cha Cha Cha Cha Chia Pet ....

Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day Craft #2: Toothbrush Bracelets

#1 loves this one!  Make bracelets out of old toothbrushes.  In my case, these were old in that I bought them probably 3 years ago because I got them for $0.25 at the height of my CVS bargain shopping days.  Then, we all switched to electric toothbrushes, so these have been sitting lonely in the cabinet waiting to be used. 

I searched the web looking for something to do with these and found this great craft on Kaboose.  They have a lot of fun stuff for kids, I would highly recommend checking them out.  You can see their original post HERE.

Here is what you need:  An old toothbrush.  Tweezers.  A pan of boiling water.  Tongs.  A coffee mug.

Start by pulling out all the bristles from the toothbrushes.  #1 helped with this, but quickly got frustrated.  It takes about 10 minutes to get them all out.  You are then left with this:

Drop it into the boiling water.

Let boil for 6 minutes.  Remove from water with tongs.

Now Kaboose says to use oven mitts to bend the bracelet into it's shape.  My oven mitts are bulky.  And they have holes, so I figured what was the point?  I just used my hands.  It was not that hot.  (Please note that I have also cut myself with every single sharp object we have in this house, so, maybe you might want to consider using the oven mitts, your call)  So pickup the toothbrush, either with gloves or without if you are throwing caution to the wind, and bend into a circle.

Once you have the shape you want, place it inside a coffee mug to keep it's shape while it cools.

After about 10 minutes, it is cool and ready to be modeled. 

I know all your little girls are going to love these!

One more craft coming at about noon, be sure to check it out!

Hallie