Making a bouncy ball

Sometimes when Chuck naps (and the dishes are washed, and dinner is cooking on the stove), I get the urge to make stuff.  Yesterday I pulled out a whole bunch of strange ingredients and made this blue bouncy ball.

In case you didn't know, Chuck has now moved on from bubbles. Bubbles are  out.  Bouncy balls are in.  It's so cute, he sometimes even requests to sleep with a ball (or two) at night.  Hrmm.. I wonder what he dreams about.

To make this homemade bouncy ball, I simply combined glue, food coloring, Borax, corn starch, and warm water according to these directions.  Then, voila, a bouncy ball emerged within minutes.  (With my unkempt hair and nails, I felt very much like a mad-scientist while stirring the ingredients together... muah ha ha ha)

It wasn't quite as bouncy as the store bought ones and tended to lose its shape over time.  (But no problem, we just remolded it back into a sphere.)  Here's a video proving that it did indeed bounce:


P6125854.AVI from Pink Stripey Socks on Vimeo.


Chuck bounced it around for a couple minutes, until... uh-oh, he went all Hulk on it and tore the poor thing it two.


P6125863 from Pink Stripey Socks on Vimeo.

RIP bouncy ball.  (Have you tried making your own bouncy ball?  It seems like a fun activity for older kids to do.)

Make Sidewalk paint out of cornstarch and food coloring

Looking back through the archives, I noticed that Chuck and I have quite a history making homemade paint.  

• It all started back in January when we made our own cornstarch toddler paint.  
• Then, we tried our hand at marbling paper with shaving cream and paint.
• And most recently we made our very own homemade water color paints (and then actually used them to decorate a wedding card!)

Well, now I've got another homemade paint experience to add to the archives.  Yesterday we played in the park with several friends, so I brought some homemade sidewalk paint for the kids to try:

Want the exact recipe I used?  Errmm... let's just say that I took a pretty intuitive approach.  (There are lots of lovely tutorials out there sharing exact measurements and ingredients, so you can just google those.)   

I took the lazy way out and simply mixed cornstarch and water together until I had a whitish liquid that had "paint-like consistency." Then I added about 10 drops of food coloring to make each of my three colors.

The payoff for my relatively little amount of work was pretty awesome.  The kids had a blast painting the pavement.  (In all honsty, I was pretty surprised that the activity went as well as it did.)  The colors were quite bright when they first touched the pavement, but they became a pale pastel when the paint dried

Wet paint shown on left

.    

Pastel paint when dried

The little guys sat still for at least 5-10 minutes  and painted away. (Whoa!  That's like years in toddler time) There was some serious street artwork going on there. 

Oh yeah- if you try this activity out with your kids, try to keep their hands out of the paint.  It stains.  Somebody's hand got into the blue paint.... and well... let's just say that even after several washings, it's still slightly blue.  Eeek!  Smurf baby.

With all the lovely warm weather rolling in, I'm looking for some fun and cheap activities that are easy for toddlers to do. Got any ideas?  I'd love to hear them.

Colonial Williamsburg Part 2

Here are the last of our Colonial Williamsburg photos:

Poor Chuck went to prison

"But I'm innocent!"

What gorgeous dresses!

Can you believe that their shoemakers actually made these shoes?

Silversmith's tools

Female blacksmith (yay, girl power!) explaining how they make nails

Chuck wearing daddy's hat

Fife and drum parade

P6015552 from Pink Stripey Socks on Vimeo.

Make a sailboat out of a shampoo bottle

((Thank you to everyone for entering my Kiwi Crate Giveaway.  Before I talk about today's crapt, let me just announce that the winner of the giveaway is Mel!  Congratulations!  Please email me your mailing address so I can send you a Kiwi Crate straight away.))

Hi everyone!  Today I'm going to share how I made this shampoo bottle sailboat after being inspired by this DIY boat kit found here:

Materials:
- empty shampoo bottle <-- crap!
- 2 rubber bands
- wine cork <-- crap!
- drill
- stirrer <-- crap!
- straw <-- crap!
- pair of scissors
- triangle from a potato chip bag <-- crap!
- tape (packing tape is best, but I only had clear plastic tape)

Here are the boat's main components:

Directions:
1.  Cut your cork in half lengthwise.  Then, drill a hole through the middle.  The hole should be big enough to hold your stirrer (aka the mast) up.

2.  Your straw is going to be the horizontal bar holding up your sail (aka, the boom).  Cut your straw to the desired length.  Then, make two triangle cutouts on each side of the straw, so that your stirrer (aka the mast) can slide into the straw.  Both your stirrer and straw will support your plastic bag sail.  

3.  Cut your plastic chip bag into a triangle sail shape.  Tape the plastic bag onto your stirrer and straw to create a sail.



4.  Use two rubber bands to attach your cork to your shampoo bottle.  Then, stick your stirrer into the cork's hole and voila, instant sail boat.

The boat sails nicely in your bathtub, but Chuck and I took it one step further and sailed the high seas (eh hem... a nearby lake.)  We just tied a ribbon to it so that it wouldn't float away.

Hope you and your little one enjoy this crapt!

Colonial Williamsburg Part 1

Hooray!  It's finally Friday.  How was your week? 

Ours wasn't too bad, but today it's raining so Chuck and I are going to be stuck at home all afternoon.  Boo.

Last weekend the three of us visited Colonial Williamsburg for a mini-vacation. Despite the 7 hour car ride and super hot weather (ack 90s!), we had a really lovely time.  It was the perfect mixture of relaxation and fun.  Plus, we got to learn a bit of our nation's history and see people in costumes.  Ahh, it was so nice to escape from modernity, if only for a little bit.  

Hope you have a great weekend!  

(Quick reminder- you still have till midnight tonight to enter my Kiwi Crate giveaway!)

Playing hide and seek with daddy

 

Can you believe they dyed these fabrics there?  Such lovely colors.