DIY: Toddler Crafts Part 5

As we are nearing the end of the month I thought it was time to throw out some new toddler DIY activities!  I hope you enjoy them I have spent a lot of time scouring the Internet for some great new ideas we haven't used before.  Please feel free to submit any of your ideas that you may have for future blogs.

Rainbow Bubble Snake

Housingaforest.com

It's fun, it's easy and it's bubbles, Liam will love it!










Ingredients:
Empty Water Bottle
Duct Tape or Rubber Band
Sock
Dish Soap
Food Coloring

Directions:
Start by cutting the bottom of the water bottle off.  Next slide the sock over the bottom of the bottle. You can  use duct tape or a rubber band to secure the sock. Pour some dish soap into a shallow container with a little bit of water and gently mix.  Dip the sock covered bubble blower into the solution and gently blow.  If you want to add some color you can drop the food coloring onto the sock. 
Please remind your kids to blow air out not suck air in!  If your child sucks in, they will be eating bubbles.  Please be careful when doing this with your kids.  My kids had a blast playing with these bubble snakes.  We did not have any trouble with the kids inhaling, but I have had a few readers mention that their younger kids needed continual reminders.  The fun will quickly end if the bubbles are inhaled!

Liquid Sidewalk Chalk

Domesticcharm.blogspot.com

Sidewalk Chalk is so fun and messy for outside play, this looks like a great one to try.







Ingredients:
1 Cup Water
1 Cup Cornstarch
Muffin Tin
Food Coloring


Directions:
Mix the water and cornstarch and then pour into a muffin tin or small cups.  Add food coloring to make the colors.  Now paint.

 Homemade Lava Lamp

slsmithphotograpy.com

I LOVE lava Lamps, so this is one I definitely want to try











 
Ingredients:
Empty Water Bottle
Food Coloring
Vegetable Oil
Water
Alka Seltzer


Directions:
Fill each bottle about 2/3 with the oil.  Fill the rest of the way with water leaving about an inch of air to the top.  Add 10 drops of food coloring.  Break the Alka Seltzer into 4 pieces.  Drop the pieces in one at a time.  *Wait until the bubbles stop before adding in another piece or it will start to get cloudy.  

Pasta & Beads Bracelets

Kiwicrate.com

Yay, we can finally use our Kool-Aid Dyed Pasta for fun :)










Ingredients:
Pipe Cleaners
Pasta
Pony Beads

Directions:
Start off with a loop fastened at the bottom of the pipe cleaner there is an end to catch the beads as you work.  Bead the pipe cleaners to make their bracelets! This activity also works on fine motor skills too: fitting the beads on the pipe cleaners.  Once you are about 3/4 of the way up the pipe cleaner, take the end of the pipe cleaner through the hole to latch them together and weave the excess pipe cleaner through the last bead.

If you would like to see the past DIY activities that we have completed together, check them out here:

Penguin Activity Game

Kool-Aid Dyed Pasta

Cardboard Owls

Alphabet Train

Make Your Own Rainstorm

Orange Sugar Scrub

Meditation Bottle

DIY: Ombre' Egg Dying

After a failed attempt at shaving cream dyed eggs last Easter, I was very excited about the Ombre' style Egg Dying.  I figured that it looked really awesome and really easy and almost foolproof...  Apparently the "almost" was the key word for me.  As I only own gel food coloring it seems to be the bane of my egg dying existence, and once again was ineffective in this year's egg dying.  The ombre' method theoretically should work but given the directions that I came across it did not work for me.  I suggest using regular food coloring that is not as thick or as vibrant and not wasting a ton of good gel food coloring on this.  

Supplies:
Hard Boiled Eggs
Food Coloring(not gel)
Cups

Instructions:
Place eggs into cups or containers that will allow them to sit upright.  Add enough warm water to cover about a quarter of the egg.  Add enough food coloring for the color to show darkly in the water.  Let sit 10 minutes and then add enough water so that the eggs are now half covered.  Let sit for another 10 minutes and cover up to the 3/4 mark.  Sit for another 10 minutes and cover completely.  After 5 minutes of total immersion you can remove to dry. 
*Keep in mind that 40 additional minutes in warm water may cook the egg yolk a bit more.

Get some cups to put your eggs in and fill them up 1/4 of the way up the egg

Take a minute for an assistant pose :)

Add food coloring carefully to the water so that it is dark enough to show through the water

After 10 minutes add water up to the 1/2 mark on your egg (this did cause my pink egg to fall)

Be excited about the process

After 10 additional minutes add water up to the 3/4 line on the eggs

After 10 minutes cover completely

Remove to dry

Be happy about how pretty your eggs look

You can see some separation lines on a few but the ombre' effect was not there for me, at least they are still pretty

Meditation Jar: Our Attempt

I posted a blog a couple of days ago with a few DIY kid projects that I wanted Liam and I to try.  We decided to try the meditation jar ourselves.  It turned out quite well overall.  Liam had a wonderful time and it was minimal mess.  We had one small mishap when I accidentally hit the table and spilled one of the bottles before the water was in it, but we cleaned it up easily.
We followed the steps but not in the exact order.  The two changes we would make would be that  we should have put the glitter in after the water so that there was no glue globs and that we would not have put as much food coloring in, but with Liam in charge it still turned out great!  The pictures don't show the glitter as well as in person.
I was really excited to try this out as the alternative to timeout to see if it would be effective on Liam or not.  Later in the day we did end up needing to use it, and when it was a time that I would have put Liam into timeout, I had him take one of the bottles and shake it up.  The first time he wanted a different color than the one I handed to him but then he calmed down right away.  However the second time it was amazing, once I could get it into his hand and have him shake it up and tell him to watch the glitter fall to the bottom, almost instantly he was calm and didn't even need to wait for the glitter to finish falling and he could go on with his day!  I truly couldn't believe it.  I know it sounds really hoaxy, but I swear that is exactly how it worked.  No idea if it will continue to work this way or not, but it's nice to at least have another effective step of some way to get Liam in control of his feelings and change the situation without timeout. 

Supplies:
- Plastic Bottle (or you can use the mason jar or baby food jar that was in the original post)
- Glitter Glue
- Food Coloring
- Warm Water

Directions:
Mix about 1 tablespoon of glitter glue with 1 cup of warm water...depending on the size of your bottle. We decided to do more than one so that there would be options.  I noticed that each time it was needed Liam wanted to try a different color.  I also changed to a  plastic bottle from glass so that it was not as easily breakable.  

Here are our step by step photos!  Enjoy and good luck, I would love to see any photos and hear any stories of anyone else who has or does try this out!  Good luck, it worked fabulously for us.

Getting our supplies ready

Adding the Glitter Glue

Adding Food Coloring

Add Warm Water & Shake

If You want to see the original DIY:Activities Blog Click: DIY Kid Activities