I LOVE long weekends!

I am pleasantly surprised at how quickly everything was asked for after my last post.  I'm headed to the post office Wednesday morning to mail off all of the goodies and will be glad to see them headed to their new homes.  Now I'm off to make new scraps and find new ways to use what I have. 

  So this is what I've been up to during the long weekend.  Monday was cold, rainy, and an inside-kind-of-day, so we had plenty of time to craft and play.  I saw the idea for little love pots on Heather's blog and knew I HAD to make them.  They're simple, easy to craft, and a cute mantel addition for a Valentine's Day display.  I, of course, used the supplies I had on hand, switching out the spray paint for craft paint and the stickers for letters I cut on the silhouette and ran through the xyron machine.  I also used red tulle for the red pots and the leg of a pair of pink pantyhose (leftover from a project like 3 years ago...I told you I was a packrat) for the pink pots.  I've had a bunch of my cobalt and milk glass along the mantel, but I am making the switch to Valentine's Day this week. 

These are sitting on my TV for now until I decide on the mantel decorations...

   On Monday, we got out Emma's science kit that she got for Christmas (her goal is to be either a rock star or a scientist when she grows up...) and played with color.  It's really too basic for her, talking about combining primary colors to make secondary colors, but because it involved dying wather and using it in "test tubes" she was totally into it.  We then added these little "polymer something-or-others" to the colors we made and they are slowly growing into crystals.  They looked like jello forming yesterday and now we are anxiously waiting for the water to fully evaporate to let them harden up.  My hope is that they'll be strong enough that we can string them for a bracelet when they're done, but that remains to be seen.  Emma and Oren are mesmerized by it all one way or the other.


Even I enjoyed checking on the crystals to watch their growth.  This was about 3 hours after we dropped the polymer thingies in.  They look about the same this morning, but with less water.  I told Em it was another experiment to see how long it took to dry out.  She said she just wanted them hardened now!

  But seeing that cup of red water on the counter made me impulsively decide to get out the gajillion coffee filters we have (neither of us drink coffee, but we keep them for company) and let the kids use the red water and pipettes to dye a bunch of the filters.  Then we'll mix them in with white ones to make a coffee filter wreath (if you haven't seen these, look here, here or here for a start...)  They thought it was brilliant and I thought it a great way to continue the science experiment into a crafty project.  Apparantly, Emma sees the world for a science experiment and I see it for one big crafty adventure.  We are so alike in some ways, and so different in others...

This morning we're off of school for a teacher workday (don't miss that part of teaching), so we're going to run some errands and then finish up our wreath before we get the rest of the Valentine's decor out.  Oren couldn't care less, but Emma LOVES Valentine's Day and everything that goes along with it. 

Hope everyone is staying warm and dry.  It's so foggy outside right now that the kids thought it was pouring rain outside.  Shopping should be fun this morning.  Especially since the mall is a 45 minute drive from here.  Oh well, it'll make coming home seem that much better when we're done!