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By Mom Unplugged, December 10, 2008 8:24 pm

I promised an update on these candles (that we made out of old crayon bits) once we had tried burning them, so here it is!

Actually I had promised it the following day, but - oops…didn’t quite get to it until now, nearly two months later. Oh well, never let it be said that I blog more than I live (not at the moment anyway).

As you can see, we had a truly lovely candlelight dinner with our cupcake candles:

I had hoped that the “cupcake” portion might continue to burn after the birthday candle was gone, but it didn’t. I expect that if you mixed some real candle-making wax in here along with a few crayons for color, they might burn longer.

But on the plus side, now we have some wonderful, chunky, cupcake-shaped crayons that the children are enjoying tremendously!

Link to my wax themed Unplugged Project post: Birthday Cupcake Candles.

Comments (14)

By Mom Unplugged, December 7, 2008 8:35 pm

This week’s Unplugged Project theme (fluffy) was not premeditated, it just popped into my head.

I wanted an adventure this week so I thought long and hard all week about what to do. Cotton balls? Ordinary. Dryer lint? Flammable. Pom poms? What does one do with pom poms besides add some googly eyes? Not in the mood.

But then I found this: Pom Pom International!

Amy Lamé has a vision. She is trying to bring people of the world together. But how? With music? No. Art? No. What then? Pom poms!! What could be less politically charged and more fun and appealing to humans everywhere, than the humble pom pom! As Amy puts it:

Dealing with differences is much easier with a stress-busting pompom in your hand.

This is what it is all about:

Pom Pom International travels to areas of conflict around the globe. Together, we create whimsical,
non-political, creative balls of fluffy yarn in a gesture of peace and reconciliation. All pom poms are tagged, tracked and sewn together to make the biggest pom pom in the world.

Why not? I love this idea!! A peace pom pom!

If you can’t make it to a live pom pom making event, then you can create your pom pom at home and send it to Amy. Email her a photo of you and your pom pom and she’ll add it to her online gallery.

I remember my mother teaching me how to make pom poms and I have a distinct fondness for them, so I was quite excited to make pom poms for a higher purpose than merely a place to stick googly eyes.

Pom poms are surprisingly easy and fun to make. All you need is some sturdy cardboard (corrugated is best) and leftover yarn:

Cut two matching circles out of the cardboard. Next cut matching circles out of the middle of the original circles so you have a doughnut shape. (NOTE: Our cardboard was from an extra heavy box so I ended up using a dremel tool to cut these, but you really don’t need cardboard that is quite that tough!):

The width of the “ring” portion of your doughnut (distance between outer edge and start of inner hole) will determine the size of your pom pom (bigger band=bigger pom pom). Also, I would advise making your donuts a bit bigger than we did so that the middle hole can be bigger. A larger hole makes it easier to pass the yarn through.

Place your cardboard rings together like a sandwich.

Choose your yarn and cut a length that is several yards/meters long. Roll it into a small ball so that it can easily pass through the center hole. Pass the loose end of the yarn through the hole and hold on to it with your thumb. Wrap yarn tightly around the doughnut like this (once you start wrapping, you can let go of the loose end):

Keep wrapping all around the circle as many times as necessary to completely cover it. Keep going until you can no longer fit any yarn through the hole … or you run out of patience, whichever comes first! The more yarn you use, the thicker and puffier your pom pom will be.

When you finish your first small ball, you can easily add on more yarn by simply threading the loose end through and holding it with your thumb, just as you did before. You can change colors this way too, as I did with my blue and purple pom pom.

When you are through wrapping, cut the strands all the way around the edge of the doughnut with the scissor tips between the two cardboard pieces.

Now wrap a long strand of yarn around the pom pom, between the two sandwiched sections and tie tightly:

And finally, the really exciting part: gently pull apart the two cardboard rings to reveal your completed pom pom. Trim and fluff as necessary, and there you have it! A nice, fluffy, pom pom for peace!

In order to have your pom pom be a part of the giant peace pom pom simply print out a tag for each pom pom from the Pom Pom International website, take a photo of you and your creation for the website’s gallery (send it via email), then ship your tagged pom poms to Pom Pom International in London, England! Full instructions, tag and addresses are here.

Tomorrow after school we will be off to the post office to send our peace pom poms to England. The children are very excited!

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LINKS:

Amy’s explanation and diagram of making a pom pom - very helpful!

Pom Pom International

Pompoms Can Save the Planet - May 6, 2008, The Scotsman Newspaper

By the way, Amy also gratefully accepts donations of any leftover or recycled yarn balls and bits. Send all “orphaned or previously loved yarn” here:

NEW Pom Pom International HQ
106 Lower Marsh
London SE1 7AB
ENGLAND

It will be used for the free pom pom making events.

If you are feeling really enthusiastic, she also seeks Pom Pom International Ambassadors. Can you volunteer to organize a pom pom making booth at a crafts or art fair? How about a club event? The more pom poms, the better.

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Did you do a fluffy Unplugged Project this week? If so, then please post a link to your project post (not just your blog) in Mr. Linky below. If you didn’t participate but would like to learn more, then please do not link, but read about it here.

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The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project will be:

Curly

Have fun!

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Comments (17)

By Mom Unplugged, November 24, 2008 8:36 am

We did a fun thankful project last Thanksgiving for our Unplugged Project, but I felt we needed to find something different for this year’s thankful theme.

For a while now I have also been collecting wine corks to use for a craft. I thought about this all week, and a miraculous inspiration came to me (for which I am thankful). Thankful Necklaces!

Here’s what you’ll need: wine corks, scissors, newspapers and magazines, white glue and/or Modge Podge, plus a necklace cord (yarn, string, ribbon, chain or leather perhaps?). You’ll also need to make a hole all the way through the corks, we used a drill.

First drill a hole all the way through the corks. The hole should be near the top of the cork:

Next comes the fun part. Sit down with old newspapers and magazines and cut out words and small images that represent what you are thankful for. Make sure they are small, because they’ll need to fit on the cork.

Once you have all your cutouts, use a small paint brush to paint white glue onto the back of each word or picture and stick it on the cork. Keep in mind that there is not much room on a cork so you should start with the larger items and fit the smaller ones on top if necessary.

Don’t worry about covering the hole. My daughter left hers uncovered but I covered mine and later poked a skewer through to open it. If you do cover the holes though, be careful not to put anything too important over the top or it will be messed up when you open the hole later. (You could probably also drill the hole at the end after the decoupage is done and dry).

When you are done with the gluing and are satisfied with the result, cover the entire cork with watered down white glue or Modge Podge using your paintbrush. It will take a few coats to become nice and shiny and hard.

Once the cork bead is completely dry, open the hole with a skewer if you covered it up with decoupage.

String the necklace cord through the bead and voila! You have a thankful necklace!

This would be pretty and unusual combined with other beads. Or how about some funky earrings?

You don’t have to stick with thankful as a theme either. You could try colors, patterns, animals, anything!

I think I’ll make more of these. They were so fun and the creative possibilities seem truly limitless. Plus, I really like how they turned out!

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Did you do the thankful Unplugged Project with us this week? If so, then please link to your project post (not just your blog) in Mr. Linky below. If not, but you think this sounds fun, then read more about how to join in the weekly Unplugged Projects here. We’d love to have you!

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Next week’s Unplugged Project theme will be:

Weather

Have fun!

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Comments (10)

By Mom Unplugged, November 2, 2008 10:02 pm

The theme for this week’s Unplugged Project was flag. I had a few ideas of my own, but left this one totally up to the kids.

They chose to make their own personal flags.

My 8 year-old daughter made a flag that represented herself (and hung it on her bedroom door). Each item and color represented something, just like in a real flag. My favorite were the glasses (yellow - middle of right hand side) which apparently is the symbol for herself. She has had glasses since age 1 so I guess they are very much a part of who she is:

My 6 year-old son drew a picture of a country that he invented, and made a flag to go with it. The country is called “Cat World.” Considering the name, I’m not sure why there are no cats on the flag or the picture!:

They drew and used construction paper to create their flags. You could get fancier and cut pictures out of magazines, or do “mixed media” flags if you want.

We kept it simple this week though, and spent the rest of our afternoon flying a kite in the fall wind and playing Triominos.

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Did you do a flag project this week? If so, then please link to your project (specific project post please, rather than blog in general) in Mr. Linky below. If not, then read more about the Unplugged Project and consider joining in next week!

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Next week’s Unplugged Project theme will be:

Kitchen

Have fun!

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Comments (20)

By Mom Unplugged, October 19, 2008 9:04 pm

Mmmmm… cupcakes. Looks good, doesn’t it? This photo is quite deceptive. We have not been baking. Don’t try eating this yummy birthday cupcake because it is made out of old crayons!

This week’s Unplugged Project theme was wax. When I picked the theme I thought we might do something to recycle our crayons, but I didn’t know what. However this morning as I was lying in bed, I dreamed up these Birthday Cupcake Candles. The kids were enthusiastic, so I decided to risk complete disaster and give it a go.

I am almost too embarrassed to post this one, because it is a little over the top! But we certainly had a blast making these, and the suspense as to whether they would be a success or a giant flop, simply added to the fun.

They were a resounding success and really not hard to make at all, so here goes a tutorial:

You’ll need broken crayons, a muffin tin, muffin papers (foil ones are best), and birthday candles. If you have glitter and/or sprinkles, little candies, etc. that will add to the fun and enhance the realism. I think those little silver balls would have looked fantastic, but unfortunately we didn’t have any.

The first task was sorting the crayons. We dumped them all out and began looking for broken ones. My two year-old enjoyed this tremendously and she was the official color sorter.

Getting the papers off some of them was a difficult task. Why is it that kids can peel off crayon papers all over the house, but when you want the papers off, they stick! We discovered that soaking the stubborn ones in a bowl of water helped, as did peeling them with a knife (my job).

We finally had all our bits unwrapped and sorted into separate colors. Pretty aren’t they!

My daughter put the liners in the muffin tins:

Then we filled the cups with the crayons, one color per cup, taking care to not overfill.

My daughter eagerly loaded them into a 350 degree oven (actually we started at 200, but that was slow so I upped it to 350 and that seemed perfect):

Then came the nervous waiting:

When they seemed about halfway done (15 minutes or so?), we could see where the level of the melted wax was going to be:

We took them out and added a few more crayons to each so as to hopefully bring the wax up to near the top of the cups.

Finally, after about 10 more minutes, they were done. Great excitement ensued!

We had to be patient and let them cool for about 10 or 15 minutes before decorating.

First my daughter found some glitter and decided to put that on:

Then we discovered that if we put a toothpick in one color and swirled it around in another color, we could make pretty patterns:

Finally, after they had cooled a bit more (still squishy but solidifying), my daughter pushed a birthday candle into each one. If you wait until they are cool enough, the candle will stand straight. If they are still too hot, the candle will tip over. If this happens, take it out and wait until they are cooler.

They were also cool enough to decorate with real baking decorations! Totally fun!

After an hour or so, they were completely cool and we could remove them from the pan without squishing the bottoms.

And voilà! We were all so impressed. My 2 year-old wanted to eat one and we had to explain that she would have to eat a pumpkin muffin instead. She was pretty insistent, and even wanted one after dinner. Oh dear!

I’ll post a follow-up tomorrow as to how they held up as candles. Even if they don’t burn for very long, at least they can always be used as…well…crayons.

(By the way: The liners (even the paper ones) kept the wax contained so there was no mess in the muffin tin afterwards. In fact I was able to use it for pumpkin muffins when we were through.)

EDITED TO ADD: In response to questions/concerns about smell, these really didn’t smell bad at all while melting. I did notice a difference in consistency between cheap crayons and the Crayolas as we were peeling them, so my guess is that they are made differently, or of different ingredients. Most of ours were Crayolas. Perhaps the cheap ones are the stinky ones? By the way, the crayon wax did not burn well as a candle, so no danger of odors there!

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Did you do a wax Unplugged Project this week? If so, then please put a link to your wax post in Mr. Linky. If not, then please don’t link, but browse the great posts that are linked below. Also, read more about the Unplugged Project and how to join in here. Perhaps we’ll see you next week?

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Next week’s Unplugged Project theme will be:

Thin

I have no clue what we will do for it, but the word just popped into my head.

Enjoy!

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