Pipe Cleaner and Pony Bead People
March 17, 2009 by Stephanie
I’ve had both kids home with me in the afternoons for about a week due to parent-teacher conferences.
So we made Pony Bead People. And a rainbow and some cats.
It was a much more pleasant way to spend the afternoon than watching the kids play the “I’m-getting-awfully-close,-but-I’m-not- actually-touching-you” game.
These are super easy to assemble, and what’s nice about beading with pipe cleaners is that 
there is a built-in needle that stays stiff, and is easy for chubby little fingers to maneuver.
I used a plain wooden craft bead for the head, and the kids drew faces on with Sharpie pens.
We were going to limit our creations to leprechauns, but got inspired to make other stuff.
Have a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day!
And? If that naughty little leprechaun made a mess last night and overturned the couch cushions, now is the perfect opportunity to vaccuum up the crumbs. ;
-)
The bead people are a great idea! we have parent teacher conferences this week too & unless it stops raining, my 4 & 5 year old girls stop “playing nice” far too early! This will be a great craft AND as a bonus I already have the stuff in my craft cabinet.
Thanks for the idea! (all of your ideas really, i’ve come over from your crock-pot blog)
Those are cute! What a nifty idea
To wake my kids up this St. Patrick’s day morning, I found a green, non-toxic felt-tip marker, and even before they were awake, I sat next to each and started drawing 4-leaf clovers on their arms…. they had some green to wear AND woke up giggling!
Those are SO CUTE! I stocked up on art supplies last summer since we were trying to save money by not sending the kids to camps (um – big mistake – but I digress). Even though I saved money, I guess I overbought – still have lots of craft supplies. These look like a great rainy-day activity. Thanks!
What a terrific project! Makes me wish I had little ones to do it with.
Shirley
What fun! I will share this with my daughter because she works with children in an after school program and is always looking for Arts and Crafts ideas!
Great idea! My teen daughter teaches a class at church and this will be a great addition to her crafting. Thanks so much!!
Am I allowed to share a random craft related idea?
My son and I made play dough today. (No, not in the crock pot!) I’ve always had issues with the cooked play dough, because I make a horrible mess and my son can’t help as much as he’d like. But the uncooked stuff doesn’t have the right texture. A bit of experimenting and voila! Beautiful texture and colour, and my 7 year old did everything that didn’t involve pouring the kettle by himself!
Play Dough
Ingredients
4 cups all purpose flour
8 tablespoons cream of tartar
4 tablespoons cooking oil (I used canola…it was what was in the kitchen)
2 cups table salt
4 cups boiling water
food colouring
Method
I made 4 different colours of play dough. Set out 4 bowls. Put 1/4 of each ingredient except for food colouring and water into each bowl. Obviously you can adjust this and make a half batch of one colour, or 8 different coloured batches (I expect if you did that, it would end up making about the same amount of each colour that comes in a commercial Play Doh container). Put a lot of food colouring into a measuring cup (I used about 20 drops of each and got beautiful colours. For yellow, I used one additional drop of red with the yellow to make it more vibrant). Add boiling water to bring to one cup.
Add boiling water with colouring to your first bowl. Stir with a spoon until it comes together and thickens. Turn out onto very lightly floured surface and knead until it’s smooth and play-dough textured. Repeat with remaining colours.
Store in air tight containers or ziplock bags. I expect it will keep for quite some time.
we do mommy camp in the summer, too!
xoxo steph
Sharon, this is great! I’m so glad that it worked well for you, and I love it that your 7 yr old was able to do it alone.
awesome. xoxo steph