Design Dazzle Summer Camp: Perler Bead Bowls

We're so excited to be back over at Design Dazzle for Summer Camp again this year! This time we're thinking outside the box by creating these brightly colored bowls from perler beads (also called hama beads). They are so simple that even the littlest hands can help make these fun catch-alls (though all kiddos will need a parent's help with the oven!).

These bright and cheery bowls are perfect for storing all of your small trinkets and treasures (my guys like to put Legos and special rocks in theirs), and they make a special gift for friends and grandparents.

All you need is an oven-safe bowl, perler beads, cooking spray and an oven that has been pre-heated to 375 degrees. 

Lightly spray the inside of your bowl with cooking spray, and pour in a handful of perler beads. Gently push the beads around so that there is only a single layer of beads covering the bottom of the bowl. The cooking spray will help the unmelted beads temporarily stick to the walls of the bowl in order to build it up and make it taller. 

Place your bowl on a baking sheet and into your oven. After about 5 minutes you'll see the beads start to stretch out and begin to melt. 

After 15-20 minutes the bowl will be fully melted and can be removed from the oven. Please, be careful because the bowl will remain hot for quite awhile after it's removed from the oven! At this point while the melty beads are still flexible, you can use the back of a spoon to gently push the softened beads around and fill in any large holes or gaps.

Allow to cool for 20-30 minutes before removing the bead bowl from the outer bowl! Give the outside of your bead bowl a light wiping with a soapy sponge to remove any cooking spray residue. 

These fun bowls are textured on the inside and perfectly smooth on the outside. I love the way the top row of beads melt and slide down to create unique teardrop shapes - lovely! Try making them with different colored bead combinations (I think red, white and blue would be fantastic for 4th of July!) and by using a variety of different sized and shaped bowls. There are so many exciting possibilities! 

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Glow in the Dark Mod Podge Art

My five-year-old has been a Mod Podge-aholic ever since he first used opened a bottle of glossy Mod Podge to create his autumn leaf lantern a couple of years ago. One project was all it took to get him hooked, and he now asks if he can use Mod Podge on practically every craft we create. When a huge box of Mod Podge goodies landed on our doorstep a few weeks ago, he was beyond excited, and immediately started naming off all the cool things he was going to make with it.

Here's some of the stuff that was in the box. If you want to see it all, check out the video I made as I was unboxing it! Many of the products shown are part of the brand new Mod Podge line, available at Michaels stores nationwide. Sutton was immediately drawn to the bottle of Mod Podge with a lime green label, taking his time to sound out the bold printed words, "Mod Podge. Wash. Out. For Kids! Oh my gosh, Mom! This one is for kids! Can I use it?" 

Naturally, I said yes, as I do most of the time when my boys are initiating a creative project of their own. I pointed out to him that there was also glittery and glow-in-the-dark Mod Podge in the box (Did you know they made that? See, fun new products!), and it only took a minute to come up with this simple but impressive piece of artwork.

What you'll need:

• Wash Out Mod Podge For Kids (or Glossy Mod Podge if you prefer)
• Glow-in-the-Dark Mod Podge
• Gold Dimensional Magic
• Mod Podge Roller Aplicator (or foam brush)
• Canvas, painted a solid color
• Paper shapes for decoupaging (we used gear shapes)
• Small paint brush

Begin by placing your shapes on the canvas to get an idea of how you want to lay them out. Once you have a layout that you're satisfied with, carefully move the paper shapes aside.

Fill your foam roller bottle with Mod Podge, and give the entire canvas a thin coat. This little applicator is so convenient and easy to use! Just give a light squeeze and then roll on the Mod Podge.

Apply your paper shapes and use a smoothing tool or an old credit-type card to gently press out any air bubbles. Allow to dry and then top the entire canvas with a sealing coat of Mod Podge. Allow to dry completely.

Here's where we take our artwork from ordinary to extraordinary! Use a small paint brush to cover your shapes with Glow-in-the-Dark Mod Podge. Allow to dry between coats. I gave our shapes 4-5 coats to ensure a nice bright glow. You may also choose to give your artwork a final finish coat of Washable or Glossy Mod Podge to seal the entire piece.

Note: you can paint your shapes with the Glow-in-the-Dark Mod Podge before adhering them to your canvas, but I don't recommend it. We tried it both ways, and we got far better results from painting our shapes once they were already Mod Podged to the canvas. When we pre-painted the shapes with the glow medium, they were incredibly resistant to adhering to the canvas which resulted in some light wrinkling of the shapes. It takes a bit more time, but the shapes that were painted with the Glow Mod Podge after they were stuck on the canvas had a better glow and didn't have any wrinkles!

Use the Gold Dimensional Magic to add some sparkle and depth to your piece of artwork. We added some dots and filled in some of the spokes for just a bit of sparkle. The Dimensional Magic goes on cloudy, but will dry crystal clear.

The finished artwork got a seal of approval from the 5-year-old...

...but the real magic happens when you turn off the lights and watch your new artwork come to life with a brilliant green glow! I love that you can still see the pattern and texture of the papers through the Glow-in-the-Dark Mod Podge, but it's practically invisible during daytime! It didn't even change the original color of the papers at all - magic, I tell you!  

We've been having so much fun playing with all of the products in our box, so stay tuned for more fun Mod Podge tutorials from Mom's Crafty Space! For even more project ideas, follow Plaid on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, and check out the blog Mod Podge Rocks! which is packed with more ideas than you can imagine! Happy Podging!

 Disclaimer: I wrote this post as part of a paid campaign with Plaid Crafts and Blueprint Social; however, all opinions expressed are my own.

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Melted Bead Sun Catcher Tutorial

I remember running across the idea for melted bead suncatchers on Craftster a very long time ago and thinking that it would be a fun project to do with my boys when they were a little older. I had forgotten all about it until recently when I saw several pins on Pinterest that refreshed my memory. The boys and I couldn't wait to try it!

Several people on Pinterest commented that this will also work with pony beads or any cheap plastic beads, but we used these octagonal faceted beads since that's what we had on hand.

Fill the bottom of a baking dish, muffin tin, decorative pan, etc with a single layer of beads and place into a pre-heated 375 degree oven. Note: there will likely be fumes released as the plastic melts, so please take the necessary precautions such as turning on a vent fan and opening up your windows before beginning the melting process.

Keep the beads in the oven for 15-25 minutes until they are entirely melted and the surface is smooth. Remove from oven and place in a well ventilated area to cool. As the beads cool they will shrink just a tiny bit so that they easily pop out of the molds.

Drill a hole to hang them or just place them in a sunny window sill to admire their gorgeous colors. I love how the melting beads formed such cool geometric shapes in the suncatchers! 

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LeapFrog: Disney-Pixar's Brave for Tag & Explorer

Thank you to LeapFrog for sponsoring this review. For more information about LeapFrog, please visit their website. #CleverBrave #spon

With two emerging readers (ages 5&6) in our household, books are one of our most favorite sources of entertainment these days. While a good classic book is always nice, an interactive book with buttons you can push and games you can play is even nicer (especially if you're a gadget loving little boy!)!

(Make that a gadget loving little ninja!) ;)

 The new Disney Pixar Brave Tag Book for the Tag Reading System is different from the Early Reader Tag books that we have previously owned. Brave is classified as a Read-on-Your-Own book, meaning that it contains advanced vocabulary and more complex story lines. The higher reading level made the book feel more like "storytime" instead of "learn-to-read time," which was a nice change of pace from what we've been working on lately. Sawyer really liked that the book told the entire Brave story instead of just a few scenes.

He liked listening to each page being read aloud to him (just touch the book icon on the page) and then going back and following along word-by-word with the Tag Reader. Several of the pages also contain games and other interactive options that include observation, reading comprehension and vocabulary skills builders.

  

There are also several educational games in the back of the book that my boys thought were a lot of fun. They especially liked this archery word-building game.

LeapFrog was incredibly generous and also sent us the Disney-Pixar Brave Explorer cartridge game for us to test out. We popped it into the LeapPad, and Sutton had no trouble figuring out how to work it right away (as soon as he snatched it out of my hands and ran off with it!). I have to tell you, for as much as the boys had loved the Brave Tag book for the entire morning, they pretty much forgot all about it once I showed them the LeapPad Explorer game in the afternoon! It is SO much fun!

They both loved Merida's archery game, where a quick physics lesson in force and gravity show you just how you'll need to shoot your arrows to hit the targets. Sutton also really liked the nature games where he got to learn the scientific names of plants and animals as well as their parts.

The boys didn't mind at all that the game is based around a female character. "Merida is really good at archery, Mom!" Sawyer exclaimed after playing his first few levels. I was impressed at how quickly he picked it up and at how the games seemed intuitive and natural to him since he is less tech-savvy (and usually less interested in any sort of gaming) than his brother. 

In fact, he liked it so much that he spent the next couple of hours begging me to "pretty, pretty please?" let him keep playing it! How could I say no to that sweet goofy face?

This post is sponsored by LeapFrog. I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

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Camp Mom: Vinegar Science, Day 2

This one really needs no explanation, right?

I had also planned on having the boys blow up balloons with the resulting vinegar & baking soda gas (CO2), but these kiddos wiped out almost an entire gallon of vinegar this week with their experiments! I guess that's what I get for not being able to say no when they begged for "just one more time!"

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Camp Mom: Oil & Water Science for Kids

In keeping with our Science Experiment theme of the week, today we explored the concept of density with a classic oil-and-water experiment. 

What you need:

• Bottles or jars with tight fitting lids
• Water
• Food coloring
• Oil
• Candy Coloring (optional, for coloring oil)
• Super glue or hot glue gun for sealing lids (optional, but recommended)  

Start by pouring a small amount of oil into your bottles and adding the candy coloring to tint the oil if desired. Note that the candy coloring will make the oil appear more opaque.  

The boys took a moment to put their hypotheses in their journals. All this week they've been telling me, "Hey, Mom! I have a hypothesis...wanna hear it?" about everything - it's so funny! 

Sutton's mind must have still been on the vinegar & baking soda experiments, because his hypothesis was that "it will not blow up" when we mix oil and water.

Sawyer asked why the oil needed its own special kind of [oil-based] food coloring, so I showed him what happens when you put water-based food coloring into a small amount of oil. At that point you could see his mind racing ahead, and he couldn't wait to see if the colored water would do the same thing.

Mix up some colored water and pour it slowly into your bottle. 

(It helps to put a paper towel underneath your bottle if you let the kiddos handle the pouring!)

Watch in amazement as the oil floats to the top of the colored water! The most basic scientific explanation is that oil and water are made up of different kinds of particles; therefore, the water is heavier than the oil. The result is that the oil floats to the top and the water will sink to the bottom.  

Have fun shaking up your jars and watching the layers separate over and over again! 

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