Comments (9)

By Mom Unplugged, August 29, 2008 8:42 pm

Unplugged Project Special Edition

Now that my camera cable is back, here is our project for trees. Better late than never I suppose!

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I was fairly uninspired for the Unplugged Project theme of trees. It needed to be simple since we were in Albuquerque for the weekend, away from any supplies beyond crayons and paper. No one had ideas, then I suggested making trees out of our hand outlines. The idea was met with very little enthusiasm, but my oldest daughter and I decided to give it a go.

First we traced our hands:

Then we cut some small branches off some trees that needed a bit of pruning anyhow. We took the leaves off the branches to stick them on our handprints:

What started off as a rather dull project quickly became exciting when one of the leaves I was stripping off a branch suddenly hopped onto the countertop and began walking around!

He was amazingly similar to the leaves I was using and none of us had seen him, even up close, until he jumped off.

We all ooed and aahed and squealed with delight as our surprise visitor crawled on our hands and showed us that he knew how to fly.

After we had all had a very gentle turn with him, we carefully returned him to his tree.

Here is a photo of him in the tree to show you how well camouflaged he was (if you are having a hard time spotting him, look for the brown spot. That is him pooping - much to the delight of the children):

After that bit of unexpected excitement, we finished our projects with new enthusiasm!

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This was an Unplugged Project “special edition.” Be sure to check back on Monday morning to see what everyone comes up with for this week’s theme of insect.

Comments (18)

By Mom Unplugged, August 24, 2008 9:51 pm

My camera cable is back so I can join in again, hooray!!!

When I picked the theme of cylinder for this week’s Unplugged Project, I was thinking of all the toilet paper we usually seem to go through so quickly. Guess what: this week, not one empty roll of toilet paper. How did that happen? And I was counting on it!!

I did finish a roll of wrapping paper though, so we used that for our cylinder. Have you noticed that they don’t make those wrapping paper rolls like they used to? Instead of being like long paper towel rolls, they are now simply curled up, thin cardboard.

Anyhow, we made it work for the Surprise Packages that I had in mind. My 8 year-old daughter’s best friend is moving far away to Washington State next week, so she wanted to make something special to give to her. It turned out that this project was perfect.

For this, you’ll need a cardboard cylinder (toilet or paper towel tubes would work best, but as you can see here, wrapping paper inserts can work too). Also, wrapping paper, or plain paper decorated by your children with markers, stickers, etc. Plus scissors, a hole punch (fancy or plain), and either ribbon or yarn.

Since we used the flimsy wrapping paper cardboard, we had to tape it into a cylinder:

Next, if your cylinder is long (ie. paper towel or wrapping paper length), cut it to the desired length. Be sure to consider that you will be making 1″- 2″ closing flaps at both ends, so please take that into account when calculating your desired length (add about 2″- 4″ to the overall length for the closing flaps).

Wrap the cylinder in wrapping paper (or paper decorated by the kids, or newspaper, magazine pictures, anything!!). Cut four slits on each end, all opposite one another:

You will end up with four tabs on each end, like this:

Punch one hole in each tab (large enough to put the string or ribbon through). I would recommend a normal single hole punch, that way you can make the tabs shorter so they will close better. I couldn’t find mine, so I used a fancy punch which made nice heart shapes, but required a longer tab to work:

Once the holes are punched in each tab, thread the ribbon/yarn through the holes on one side to tie the flaps up. First pass the yarn through two opposite holes from the inside out, like this:

Do the start of a bow to tie up the first two flaps (an extra set of fingers to hold everything down while you tie is recommended!):

Thread the ribbon/yarn through the remaining two opposing holes in a similar fashion. Pull tight, then tie a full bow:

Fill the surprise package with whatever you like. My daughter used leftover candy from a friend’s birthday party (that hadn’t yet made it to the Candy Bank), the punched-out hearts, some “special rocks,” and a note that she wrote:

Actually, one advantage of a fancy hole punch is the punched-out confetti that you can make to put inside your surprise tube. My daughter had fun making lots of hearts from the extra wrapping paper scraps:

Once filled, tie the other end the same way as the first end. And…the final product:

I think that these could be fun to make for any holiday, or birthdays. They are also wonderful everyday storage containers for special treasures.

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What did you create for the Unplugged Project theme of cylinder? I’d love to see, and so would many other people. So if you did a cylinder project this week, please put the link to your project in Mr. Linky below. If you are merely stopping by to check it all out, please do not link, but read about the Unplugged Project here to see if it is something you might want to do.

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The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project is:

Insect

Enjoy!!!

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Comments (17)

By Mom Unplugged, August 17, 2008 8:55 pm

The theme for this week’s Unplugged Project was trees. We really did do the project this week, but I stupidly left my camera’s USB cable in Albuquerque (where we spent the weekend) so I am unable to get the pictures off my camera!

Our project this week was rather ordinary, however we did encounter an exciting surprise, so I really must post pictures. I’ll have to save the project post for another week after I get my cable back. Sorry!

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If you had better luck than me this week and did a tree project that you can post, then please put your link in Mr. Linky below. If you want to find out how to participate, then please read all about it here and consider joining in next week.

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Next week I thought we’d go geometric, so I chose this Unplugged Project theme:

Cylinder

Have fun!

Comments (16)

By Mom Unplugged, August 3, 2008 8:48 pm

Hello all,

I am finally back home, but it has been a rough week of travel, unpacking, laundry and jet lag so we did not get to the Unplugged Project - unless our experience this rough week counts? I had an idea in mind, but I’ll save it for another time.

Anyhow, this week’s theme was, of course, rough. If you did a rough project this week, then please leave your link in Mr. Linky and a comment in case we lose Mr. Linky.

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I should be back on track next week for the theme of:

Hot

This seems fitting for summer, right? Thanks for stopping by, and hopefully joining in!

Comments (13)

By Mom Unplugged, July 28, 2008 6:48 am

Hooray! We managed to participate in the Unplugged Project this week! This week’s theme was flat.

My step-mother wanted us to make some “flat” stepping stones for a muddy patch of her garden here in Upstate New York, so I got brave and bought concrete, something I’ve never worked with before.

Our supplies were the smallest available bag of quick-set concrete (40 lbs - ugh!), a bucket that we wouldn’t reuse, a stick to stir, some old shoe boxes for molds, and an assortment of “treasures” - dollar store shells and buttons, glass stones from a garage sale, and pieces of a cereal bowl that we broke by accident earlier in the week:

I mixed the concrete with water in the bucket. My advice: don’t try to mix too much at once. It is VERY hard to stir. Next time instead of trying to dump from a 40 pound bag, I would scoop some powder into the bucket so as to keep the mixture small and manageable. You can do several small batches like this, mix it more easily and thoroughly, and save your arms!

We poured the concrete into the molds and the kids began decorating:

We let them dry in the garage overnight. Tip: to move the now heavy and floppy shoe boxes without bending them and messing up the wet creation I slid a rimless cookie sheet under each one and transported them to the garage without damage.

24 hours later we were able to remove them from the molds. They came out very easily:

And here they are! Aren’t they lovely? My step-mom is thrilled:

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What did you do this week for flat? If you joined in the Unplugged Project this week, please put your link in Mr. Linky below and leave a comment. I am still on vacation (until Wednesday), so I will try to visit, but can’t guarantee.

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The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project is:

Rough

Hope to see you next week!