This weeks unplugged theme is plastic. I had a great, I mean insanely great project to share but I couldn’t get the supplies together in a timely manner. I had grocery shopping (3 different stores!) while the girls visited with MiMi (my Mom) and a library program also today. But trust me it was great! So instead I stole the idea to make shrinky dinks right off the Unplug Your Kids site!

I cut some #6 plastic (salad bar containers, lids to aluminum cake tins…) up into different size pieces. They shrink by about 40%.

The kids colored on the plastic pieces with Sharpies-permanent markers.

We placed them on a foil sheet and put them straight on the bottom rack of a 350 degree oven.

I grouped like size pieces together for each batch. The first ones to go into the oven were large pieces and they didn’t come out so good-they curled up and melted. All with in a few minutes-so watch carefully!

The next batch curled up and then flattened back out and worked great! This is what is supposed to happen so don’t freak out while watching the metamorphosis. We punched holes in them before we baked them and some of the holes closed up so be sure to make them large.

I don’t know what the packed “shrinky dinks” are made off but let me warn you-you may want to do this activity outside with a toaster oven because the fumes can’t be good for you! When I taught pre-school, 137 years ago, We used to use Styrofoam trays and a toaster oven outside for that same reason. I don’t know why I thought plastic would be any different. But these are way cool and easy. The girls wanted to do more but I radiated, I mean microwaved their leftovers and threw them out in the fresh air to eat dinner while the house aired out.

Then we rode our bikes to get ice cream. I had a tasty pink grapefruit sorbet with chocolate sprinkles-delicious!! It tasted just like OceanSpray Ruby Red! This shop has some crazy flavors! Fish and chips? Guinness? I tasted the pear Riesling sorbet but went with the pink grapefruit.

Tomorrow we are off to pick strawberries with Dawn, who I am so thankful to for making my blog look so great! I owe her 1 zillion dollars for all her hard work! But I don’t have any money so I will continue to publicly thank her and buy her dinner soon! Thanks Dawn web designer extraordinaire!!!!!

And I promise to share my most insanely excellent project soon!

Related posts

• That’s Simple (7)
• Snow for Breakfast and Flubber for Lunch (4)
• Probably Marc’s (4)
• Oral B; We have a Problem (4)
• Mexican Metal Tooling (21)

This weeks special guests to the market…. Cheese making demo!!  There was a great article in Mother Earth News all about making cheese and lactose free  dairy products  you can make at home.  I am really excited to try making some cheese with raw milk and goats milk.  The cheese makers had several samples to choose from.  Molly and Ginger picked lemon zest cheese to bring home.

Free 1/2 gallons of milk out of the back of a truck!   Snowville  is a local creamery  trying to get the local big name grocery down the street to carry their milk products.   My lucky day!

We again brought home asparagus and green beans.  But no need to purchase any greens as my garden has gone wild!!

When we got home Ginger found a slug and went searching for one of our bug habitats.  Next thing I know she was screaming, “There’s a butterfly in the box!”

And sure enough there was a swallowtail flapping around in the box.  We had forgotten about the chrysalis that wintered over in the box.  We opened the box and it flew out only to return to my head!

And then to Ginger….

And then to Molly…

Related posts

• Raa Raa (2)
• Oral B; We have a Problem (4)
• We Are Busy, Busy Bees (5)
• Two For Tuesday (10)
• Tired and titleless (5)

Here in Columbus we often skip Spring. It seems to go from cold to hot almost overnight. But not this year. We have had chilly nights and 60 degree days and lots of sun and a good bit of rain. But not today. Today was another beautifully breezy day. Only warmer. Which is fine by me. I am a girl of summer!

We filled the baby pool with water and added blue food coloring, shiny star marbles, jewels and a fishing pole and fish.

And after lunch we tried to make bracelets out of old tooth brushes. It didn’t work, at all! I hate when there are directions for a project and it fails.

First we tried to pull out the bristles with tweezers. Ha-If you didn’t have carpel tunnel before you started this project You certainly will when your finished .

Ginger enjoyed trying to do this, but Molly turned to scissors!

So that was the first hint that this project was going to be tough.

Next we boiled a pot of water, added the tooth brushes.

We carefully removed one and with a towel wrapped around the HOT tooth brush, we tried to bend it around the bottom of a glass.

It barely bent, we re-boiled several times. Dancing on chairs and stools seemed to help the time pass.

tried different brands of tooth brushes…. Failure #1

Failure #2, after boiling and bending several times:

Then we Threw in the towel. Actually I threw the now germ free tooth brushes into the stack of cake pans still on the counter from the metal tooling project and headed out to drop the kids at my Mom’s for some cable TV while I grocery shopped.

So my advice is Don’t Try This At Home!!!

But I like the photos from this-they are so unexpected.

Related posts

• Spring Lovin’ (6)
• Selling, Donating, Swapping and Shopping (a sad but true statement about my life!) (4)
• Rock On (2)
• Nothin’ (0)
• If it’s FREE it’s gotta’ be good! Right? (5)