A Stash-bustin' Recycled Craft for Bike Month

The bicycle coalition I run recently set-up a booth at our daughter's school for their spring fair. Her school's theme is health, wellness, and environmental studies so we thought it would be appropriate to have something fun and environmentally friendly for the kids to do - that would hold their attention while we talked to them about bicycle safety. 

We had our local bike shop save old inner tubes for us for a few days (didn't take long to have a TON of tubes). We got about 200 bracelets out of about 2 days worth of inner tubes. 

 

We cut them down into roughly 2.5 inch pieces and used a small hole punch to make a hole in each end like so:

Then thread a scrap of fabric through that's roughly 1.5 inches wide and long enough to wrap around your wrist and tie (15-16 inches at least). Like so:

The rubber stretches enough to feed the fabric through pretty easily, though if you do a whole bunch of them, your fingers get really worn out! It was a great way to keep the kids hanging around the booth and get them talking about riding bikes and wearing helmets and whatnot. 

...and now we're totally trend setters ;)

Grrrr Email Troubles

My email server is down today (3/4). FYI
....and still not properly functioning on 3/5. I think.

A mention worth mentioning

If you don't follow the super crafty mayamade, well, you're missing out.

The other day she was looking for ideas about what to do with a bucket full of wooden spoons. So, I shared with her how my grandmother used to let us kids use them to blow bubbles in the tub... while secretly getting us clean, and she shared it with her readers.
If you get really soapy and then rub the end of a wooden spool on your soapy self, you get great bubbles. I loved it, my daughter loves it, and I'm glad I could share so that other kids can love it!

Anyway, go check out her sight... she's gonna be a big time author soon.

If you give a kid a camera...

You will get hundreds of great photos that you will want to look at all the time.

Creativity Overflows

I'm sure that I am not the only parent who struggles with what to do with the abundance of art produced by their fantastically creative child(ren). I'm also probably not the only person out there with an odd corner of their home that poses a decorating conundrum.
After 4 years of living in our house, I finally solved both problems with one project.

Total cost:
About $20

Materials:
A variety of frames from the thrift store: $9
Valspar flat black spray paint: $4
Picture framing hardware, tiny eye screws, wire, and tiny paper clips: $7

How to:
I striped the frames of all the cheesy artwork, glass, and any backings, then wiped them down with a paper towel. I probably should have primed these, but I didn't. I just sprayed them all flat black with a few coats. Once they were dry, I laid them out on the floor to arrange them. (I think I need one or two more, really for the top right.) Once I had them the way I wanted them, I added hangers to the frames. Then, I attached the eye screws to the back of the frames near the top and strung the wire between them. I only did one wire, but the thought has occurred to me that you could add more wires to one of them to create a grid for little teeny bits of art. Anyway, once I got them all assembled, they went on the wall. I let T pick the art she wanted to display and voila - an ever changing display of her favorite art.



This is the "architectural detail" in my living room. I've learned that at one time it was a planter and the now bench part extended all the way to the window. Someone down the line covered the planter to make the bench and cut into it to create a nook - which now makes a lovely corner for our piano.

Fun with PhotoBooth

....Or how we spent a cold morning during Christmas vacation.

More before and after

Spiffy.