Unplug Your Kids

Sorry this didn’t get up last night, but when I went to post it, my site was down! The support people told me that there was a “migration” taking place on my server. “Oh, of course!” I said with knowledgeable techie certainty, but I was really thinking: “Isn’t that what geese do?”

I decided that whatever it was, it sounded important enough to take a Long Time, so I went to bed. I’m happy to report that the geese did not fly away with my site, as it is back this morning. So finally, here’s my post:

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This week’s theme, chosen by my oldest daughter, was ribbon. It seems that she had bookmarks in mind when she chose that theme. In between running around outside in the glorious weather, and despite my lack of preparation, we somehow managed to make two kinds of ribbon bookmarks for this week’s Unplugged Project.

As usual, I had not prepared for this project and at the last minute we scoured the house for odd bits of ribbon or anything that we might be able to use. Here’s what we found:

My daughter wanted to decorate a bookmark-length ribbon with glitter glue, buttons, and flat beads. First she cut a length of wide ribbon, and then she added some glitter glue, and positioned some beads and buttons that I glued on with the glue gun. Here is her finished book mark:

For my book mark, I decided to do a bit more experimenting with weaving with pipecleaners. I attached four pipecleaners at the top like this:

Then I tied two different colored ribbons at the top too. I then weaved the ribbons between the pipecleaners, twisting the two ribbons together as I went along:

When I had about 2 inches of pipecleaner unwoven at the end, I stopped and knotted the ribbons around the pipecleaners. I then threaded beads on the ends of each pipecleaner, and a few on the ribbon ends. TIP: To thread beads onto fat ribbons, wrap the end in scotch tape (so it is kind of like the end of a shoelace) thread the beads, then cut off the tape:

I also added a few beads to the hanging ends of the ribbon at the top of the bookmark, just to dress it up a bit. Here is my final product:

I was rather pleased with the result of this. It would be fun to experiment with different colors and widths of ribbon instead of just using what one has on hand.

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Did you join us this week? If so, then link to your ribbon project post in Mr. Linky and please leave a comment.

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The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project :

Metal

I look forward to seeing your wonderful ideas! Hopefully the geese will leave my server alone from now on, and my post should be up Sunday night as usual. Enjoy your week!

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This past month I have probably spent close to 60 hours sorting through other people’s castoffs while my 2 year-old rolled around in the dirt.

Every year my children’s small but worthy, financially challenged Montessori School holds a giant yard sale, and every year I volunteer to help sort. I never work the sale because, although I find the sorting process rather fascinating in an odd way, I simply can’t deal with the actual feeding-frenzy atmosphere and depressing desperate bargaining of the sale itself.

The sorting experience is really quite enlightening however. I can share a few tidbits here.

What I have learned from five years of sorting through other people’s junk:

1) People all have different tastes:

This year I had the pleasure of discovering the number one most revolting looking and smelling giant “hand-dipped” candles I have ever encountered in my life (picture “chocolate - cinnamon - banana - lavender - cat pee” fragrance in candles looking as if they had been lovingly hand-dipped in vomit). Resisting both my gag reflex and my urge to toss these misplaced treasures into the trash, I optimistically priced them at 10 cents for the pair (other candles of that size, more acceptable to my taste, went for $1.00 each). Guess what? A lady stopped by and excitedly purchased them WHILE WE WERE STILL SETTING UP!!!

2) Sorting other people’s castoffs day in and day out makes one a little weird:

Another item that sold during set-up was our mascot: The lime green teddy bear in sunglasses and fancy flowered hat who, when you squeezed her paw, sang the Beatles song: When I’m Sixty-Four. Unlike those candles, I was a bit sorry to see her go. After hearing so many repetitions of When I’m Sixty-Four, I was beginning to think I NEEDED that bear. Perhaps it is a good thing that she was sold to someone else.

3) If you give desperate Christmas gifts to someone unlikely to appreciate those gifts, they WILL end up, unopened, in a sale like ours:

Some examples of obviously desperate Christmas gifts that the poor recipients were eager to dispose of: a John Wayne coffee mug new-in-box (NIB as they say on Ebay), several ornate photo frames with syrupy, sentimental sayings (also NIB), an electric quesadilla-maker (isn’t that what frying pans are for?), dubious-smelling candles (nothing like the 10 cent candles though!), and an actual nose hair trimmer (I don’t think I have ever seen one of those before), among others.

PS. Check out the Christmas Unplugged posts for more information on how to avoid that “have to give something” feeling.

4) Check the titles of the books you turn in (unless you plan on dropping off the box anonymously after hours):

If you have a whole box full of self-help books along the lines of How to Live With a Cross-Dressing Husband, or How I Overcame My Gambling Addiction, whether they are your books or your long lost cousin Debbie’s, then you might want to consider dropping them off after-hours. Although my friend and I who were sorting the sale were nice enough not to take notes on who made the revealing self-help book donations, others might not be so kind!

A fascinating fact: people’s books reveal a lot about themselves. Amateur psychoanalysis is a fun way to pass the time while sorting and pricing stuff.

5) Americans have A LOT OF CLOTHES.

Gold lamé jacket in East Podunk Arizona anyone?? Didn’t sell.

6) Simple donation etiquette:

Please don’t just tip the toy bin into a garbage bag and hand it over. Usually there is a considerable amount of useless junk and trash in there that needs to be thrown away. It is WONDERFUL when people bag up small pieces of toys and tie or tape the bag on to the main toy. Ziplock bags are perfect of course, or you can recycle grocery store produce bags. They are transparent, fairly large, and free. Please wash clothes before donating. If puzzles and games are missing pieces, or you only have one sock in a pair…please don’t donate. Make the sock into a puppet instead, or toss or reuse the remaining game/puzzle pieces somehow. (Unplugged Project anyone?)

7) (Warning: cliché ahead!) “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”

Very true. A lot of people found treasures at our sale last weekend (”chocolate/cat pee candles” for example) and we made $5,000 for our school!!

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I believe that everyone should spend 60 hours in 3 weeks sorting other people’s junk. I felt like an earthworm. Not only was I helping recycle all that we humans consume, but I had a lot of time to think about how much “stuff” we have in our part of the world, and how disposable it all seems.

This year, the amount of clothing we acquired is what struck me the most. I have many thoughts on clothing (enough for at least one thorough, or several “chapter” posts). Beware: I might inflict those on you soon.

Photo thanks to Wikimedia Commons.

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In all the business of life, I have not yet gotten around to sharing the TV-Turnoff Week story of Mom of 2, a reader who participated in the TV-Turnoff Week Blog Challenge by email. Here is her wrap up (which she sent promptly on April 28th, sorry I am so late!):

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“We did really well through the week (though things kind of collapsed on Sunday), and it was surprisingly easy! My 4 year old got really excited by the idea that, as I told him, “lots of people are not watching TV this week.” and didn’t ask a single time to watch TV!

I put up a NO TV sign on the TV cabinet to remind us not to watch, which he loved because it started with N, just like his name. The only protest was a short tantrum one morning by my 2 year old when his brother started talking about the No TV sign and he perked up at the mention of TV and was mad that I wouldn’t turn it on.

Saturday morning the kids wanted to play a computer game, but when I said that part of the no TV week was also no computer, they moved on to other things. They spent the afternoon and evening at a birthday party, where I suspect at least one video was watched, though they only talked about the bounce house and all the presents the birthday boy received. That night, I came in from dinner with a friend to find my husband watching TV and pointed out it was still no TV week. He argued that it only applied to Monday - Friday.

Sunday morning I slept in and got up to find the kids parked in front of the TV. Hey, what happened to no TV week? I asked. It’s the weekend, it’s over my 4 year old said. Hmmm….where had I heard that before?

So after a week without TV, we’ve decided that we’ll keep it off in the mornings before daycare. It just makes it easier to get out of the house. We’ll also experiment with turning it off earlier in the evenings, as having more attention from mom & dad leading up to bedtime did seem to help the kids settle down to sleep more quickly.

I also realized what a constant presence it’s become on the weekends. I’ll have to plan more activities so we don’t turn it on just because there isn’t anything else planned.

Mom of 2″

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Mom of 2’s experience is quite similar to many of the other final posts that I read. I will definitely put up a summary post of my impressions of the participants’ experiences soon.

Thank you again to Mom of 2 for deciding to join us via email!

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The theme for the Unplugged Project this week was newspaper. I confess that I was being sneaky when I chose this theme. I had planned on doing this project last week for green (green=eco=recycle=newspaper beads - get it?) but we lacked time, so I made sure to pick a theme this week that would still fit my plan. That is an advantage I have in being theme-picker!

We adapted a project that I saw in the wonderful book: Recycled Crafts Box by Laura C. Martin. The project is Paper Bead Bangles (p. 25) and she suggests using gift wrap or glossy magazines. I thought the beads might look interesting made with newspaper instead, so we tried it.

What we needed: newspaper, drinking straws, Elmer’s-type glue, small paintbrush, string or yarn, ruler, scissors, and pencil. Here are our supplies:

The first step was to choose our newspaper pages. My two oldest children chose the colorful comic pages. I thought the financial section or classifieds might make interesting beads due to the small typeface.

Next we drew a rectangle over the area we wanted to use. The rectangle was 1.5″(about 4cm) tall and exactly the same length as the straw. Here are our rectangles:

We poured some glue into a bowl and used the brushes to paint it on the back of the newspaper rectangles. Make sure your children flip their rectangle over before applying glue, otherwise the wrong side of the paper will be showing. Be sure to glue thoroughly all over the rectangle, paying special attention to the edges. The seam should be really well glued for this to work well.

The final step is to glue the paper to the straw. Put the straw in the center of the rectangle. Wrap one side over the straw as tightly as you can. Then roll the straw up in the rest of the paper, again, as tightly as possible. We then brushed glue on the outside of the wrapped straw, especially along the seam.

Here are some of our wrapped straws:

Let the straws dry and then cut them up evenly into “beads.” String the beads on the yarn or string (or wire?).

One point to consider: the straw openings are really too big for a knot. Of course you can string the beads without a knot at the end if you are making a loop for a necklace or bracelet for example. But if you just want a single strand for a tassel or something similar, then you can tie the first bead on to the end of the string by looping the yarn through and then knotting it. That will make a large enough blockage to prevent the other beads from falling off. That’s what we did for our tassel. You could also string a large ordinary bead on first to prevent the paper beads from falling off. That might be pretty too.

You can make bracelets, necklaces, bookmarks, or even tassels to hang on backpacks or dresser knobs. If you and your kids really like this project and have lots of time and straws, you could even make a 1960’s-style long beaded curtain to hang across a doorway. That would be really funky and unusual, especially for a teen!

Another idea: My daughter said she thought it would be fun to cut rectangles out of plain paper, decorate them with markers, and then turn the “homemade” paper into beads. Or how about turning old children’s artwork into beads?

Here are our finished projects -

A bracelet:

A necklace:

And our favorite - a tassel for my oldest daughter’s school binder (that they use instead of backpacks):

My littlest (age 2) desperately wanted to join in and was fixated on the paintbrushes and glue so I gave her some newspaper, a cup of water, and a paint brush and she was pretty happy despite a crabby day. She even proudly showed us what she “made” (soggy newspaper):

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What did you make for newspaper?

If you made something newspaper-related with us this week, then please put a link to your project in Mr. Linky. If not, then please visit the participants to see what creative projects they came up with…and join in next week!

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My oldest daughter picked next week’s theme:

Ribbon

Good luck and have fun!

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I don’t usually get too excited about giveaways, but dkMommy Spot is hosting one that I would actually really enjoy winning! So would most of you I think, especially if you like hanging around my Unplugged Toystores page while dreaming of a little online shopping.

If you stop by her site you can comment for a chance at winning a $35 gift certificate from Wild Dill, a wonderful store featuring organic, fair-trade and natural children’s clothing, toys, bedding, and various other accessories. I liked the look of Wild Dill so much that I felt moved to add it to both my Unplugged Toystores page and my Unplugged Eco Shopping page.

You can also subscribe to the dkMommyspot blog and/or write your own post about the giveaway for additional chances to win.

I probably won’t win since I rarely win anything, but hopefully one of you will. Good luck and I hope you enjoy checking out Wild Dill!

Oh…and the giveaway ends on Tuesday, May 13th so hurry up and enter right now if you are interested.

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Decisions, decisions, decisions. Do we want undies or diapers? If diapers - then “big girl” (pull-ups) or baby diapers? Pants or dress? Which socks? Shall we dress ourself or have “Mamadoit?”

Getting dressed is not easy when you are two. It is not easy for the two year-old, and not easy for her mama.

Today was a good day for undies, we both agreed on that. Saturday, no errands, home all day. However, apparently the undies I had chosen were not satisfactory: “Nnnnno!” So I pulled out a second pair of absolutely identical undies and held them both out. “Would you like these undies or these undies?” I ask as patiently as I can manage.

My daughter M regards the proffered panties and examines each pair with great concentration, apparently not realizing that they are exactly the same. After much deliberation, she chooses one: “Dis one!” she says. As I begin to put the rejected undies back in the drawer she yells: “No, no, no! Dat one! Dat one!”

Now that The Great Panty Debate is behind us, we turn to the issue of clothing. My two year-old tiny tyrant marches off into the depths of the closet and emerges with a size four t-shirt that I was saving at the back of a shelf until she grew into it. I uselessly try to explain that the shirt is too big, but my littlest one is too busy trying to jam it over her head to listen or care. She finally flings the shirt down and it lands in a cold puddle of water on the bathroom floor. Now it can’t be worn.

After much screeching and posturing from us both, we eventually come to a truce. The wet shirt goes, but M shall choose the replacement outfit. She once again disappears into the dark reaches of the closet and reappears with a rather masculine striped t-shirt previously belonging to her brother (at least it was the correct size) and a gauzy pink dance skirt.

“Mines! Mines! Mines!” she yells as she struggles to squeeze her head through the sleeve of the t-shirt. I know better than to interfere, and sit back to watch the show. The flailing and grunting and crying escalate until she flings the offending shirt at me while barking out the order: “Mamadoit!”

“What do you say?” I ask calmly. “Pleeeeez” she responds, and she finally deigns to accept my assistance with the dressing procedure.

Total time? 24 minutes. I feel I need a nap or a glass of wine, or perhaps both…and I have only been up for about an hour.

~~~+++Happy Mothers’ Day weekend! +++~~~

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I promised prizes to two random participants who completed the 2nd Annual TV Turn-Off Week Blog Challenge. The prizes are the following:

• A $10 Amazon Gift Certificate
• A complete CD set of the Adventures of Billy Brown children’s audio plays (thanks very much to Jens Hewerer of Giddio.com for offering this one!)

I threw the names of all the participants (who completed the challenge by writing and linking to their final post) into a bowl. My two oldest children each drew a name. The results?

Congratulations to:

Learning Umbrella who wins the Amazon Gift Certificate (please send me the email you would like to use to receive the certificate);

and to…

MatschMomma who wins the Billy Brown Audio Play Collection (please send me your name and address)!

Thank you all for joining in. I wish I had a prize for everyone!

Hopefully you are not completely sick of this by now, because I am planning one last post summarizing what I learned from your experiences.

Enjoy your evening!

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Green was the theme for this week’s Unplugged Project. When I thought of green, I was planning on being clever and doing a “green” (ie. recycled) project, instead of one involving the color green. I had a plan…but I won’t divulge it, we’ll just do it another week.

The weather was so lovely today that the children wanted to take a “kids’ walk” (a short walk that I let them do by themselves down our quiet road and back home on the golf course cart path - total time en route: about 5 minutes). Rather than keep them inside for a project on a day like today, instead I suggested they bring along the camera and take pictures of everything they saw on their walk that was green.

Kids love cameras and digital cameras are perfect for kids. Children armed with cameras take lots of pictures and most don’t come out too well, but there are often a few great ones in amongst the blur. Even if you buy an inexpensive disposable camera, why pay for processing a bunch of fuzzy photos? Especially when very simple digital cameras are so inexpensive nowadays.

If you do buy your children a camera, I have one word of advice (learned from experience): buy one with a rechargeable battery. They will take LOTS of pictures, forget to turn it off, etc. Most cheap kids’ cameras have regular old batteries that will last about half an hour under such conditions. This could either turn into a very expensive proposition, or you’ll never want to let your kids use their camera because of the cost of batteries! So - spend a tiny bit more for the camera and get one with a long-lasting, rechargeable battery they can actually use.

End of digression.

Here are the best results of their green scavenger hunt (7 out of 25 photos a success - see what I mean about the value of a digital camera for kids?). Because I realize that my kids’ photos of pine needles may not be quite as fascinating to the general public as my children might like to believe, these 7 pictures are in slide show format that you can choose to view or not. The point is, that a Photo Scavenger Hunt of any kind, can be great fun for children, especially outside on a lovely day!

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If you took part in this week’s Unplugged Project then please put your link in Mr. Linky (plus comment in case we lose Mr. Linky for some reason) .

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Next week’s Unplugged Project theme will be:

Newspaper

I hope to see you all next Monday! What can you do with the theme Newspaper?

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