Kiss me! I'm not Irish. But you would never guess that judging by how excited I get by all things green and rainbow-y, right? I just can't stop with the shamrocks and leprechauns this year. I've seriously got our whole St. Patrick's Day planned from top to bottom--food, activities, music. I'm a little holiday obsessed...just wait til Christmas!
After speed mopping the kitchen floor with a real mop for the first time in a month (after that long, the Swiffer is just wiping the dirt off the tile and into the grout), folding laundry, cleaning up endless toy messes, doing the dishes and making breakfast and lunch, I decided we needed a stress and, more importantly, mess-free activity. What better way to enjoy the sunshine from indoors where it's warm than to make a pretty suncatcher?
Since Dave let me quit my job at daycare to stay home with our girl, I've felt like it's my duty to do everything on the cheap. I don't buy anything unless it's on sale or we have a coupon, and there is only one exception to that rule: Dollar Tree. I hadn't been in that store for years until I became a Pinterest addict and found all the great crafts that blogger geniuses had invented using only items from that store and a lot of imagination. So now when I go in there, I grab things that we can use in different ways for art and sensory time like pompoms, paper plates, doilies, and every single thing we used in this project! You read that correctly. The total cost of this beaut is $4 and it was worth at least double in fun value. :)
All you need is:
Rainbow colored tissue paper
Clear contact paper
Foam shamrocks (spontaneous addition, not in picture)
Clear packing tape
Scissors
All I did to get started was cut a piece of contact paper to fit the window and stuck it to the window with the packing tape. Make sure your sticky side is facing out, not stuck to the window.
Next, I cut the tissue paper into squares. I just cut a strip about an inch and a half wide off the whole package of paper--you can see what I mean in the supplies picture. I didn't even use that whole chunk of paper. SuperBaby has a very short attention span and I didn't think we would need a ton of squares.
Time for Kinley to do her part: sticking!
She loved this even more than I thought she would. She got a thrill out of not only being allowed to stand on a chair (I stood behind her, of course,) but also being able to bang on the glass without getting hollered at. If I would've given her a handful of Garlic and Sea Salt Wavy Lays and a Sharpie, too, she would've been living a dream, I think.
I was trying to think of something that would put a little more Paddy in our project, and I remembered the shamrocks we used in our Shamrock Soup the other day. Kinley was thrilled to see those things again, and after tasting them, happily slammed those on the contact paper covered window, as well.
She stood up on that chair sticking the tissue paper on and peeling it back off, and repeating that process over and over for a good 45 minutes...wayyyy longer than I thought.
Here's her finished product:
I think when St. Patrick's Day (more like month around our house) is finally over, I'm gonna stick a piece of construction paper on top of her suncatcher so I can put it in her portfolio. Yes, she has a legit portfolio, thanks to my incredible Aunt Lis! At the rate we are going, she's going to need two or three of them by next year. :)
More Irish crafts coming tomorrow...same green time, same green channel.
Side note--we were listening to iTunes Radio again today, and I noticed that they added a new festive station called ShamROCK Radio. I clicked on it, of course. Irish Rock has got to be some of the best pounding-tissue-paper-on-windows music I've ever heard, however, after giving the lyrics a closer listen, you probably don't want to play this one with kids around who may repeat anything they hear. Yikes. It was definitely authentic pub music...gave me the urge to order a pint and punch somebody or break a chair. Maybe that kind of thing would get your family's creative juices flowing, but here at the House of Huff, we are gonna stick to the St. Paddy's Day Party station. :)
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