[alternate title: How NOT to do a Thanksgiving craft.]
At our house, Thanksgiving is a REAL meal. We dress up, we use china, cloth napkins and all sit around a decorated table. This year I wanted to make something with Lydia that we could use on the table. Place cards or napkin rings or even a centerpiece. I just didn’t want it to be…well, you know…ugly. So, I was overjoyed when I saw this cute napkin ring craft over at Family Fun!
You use buttons lined up on popsicle sticks to make some “Indian corn”. I love it! Buttons are a weakness of mine and I knew Lydia would enjoy gluing them.
The original instructions suggested using 12 popsicle sticks on top of a 4×5.5 piece of felt. I decided to use fun foam instead.
I let Lydia glue on the 12 popsicle sticks. (I happened to have white ones left over from her Snowflake Party.)
Then we started gluing on the buttons. It is important to glue them straight down the popsicle sticks. This gives you the little rows of corn. So, we glued them as straight as we could. Then I realized the buttons were too big for the popsicle sticks. Even though we were gluing them straight, they were still overlapping onto other sticks.
Well, we kept going anyway and then let it dry. Then I tried to roll it up and admire our Indian corn. Only it wouldn’t roll. It looks more like…I don’t know, a trapezoid of buttons. But certainly not anything remotely related to the corn family. Not to mention half the buttons popped off.
In Conclusion:
1. Make sure your buttons are smaller than your popsicle sticks.
2. Make sure your buttons are all the same size.
3. Buy 3billion buttons.
4. Block off at least 2 hours. Unless you’re just eating Thanksgiving dinner with a family of 2. Because this takes a long time.
5. Actually follow the directions. Maybe using the fun foam made it worse? (Note to self: buy felt)
I guess we’ll have to stick with my mom’s napkin rings this year. But the worst part? I wasted all those buttons…
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A+ for effort, guys! That looks like fun!
We are the queens of substitution with crafts here – I can’t count how many have failed miserably. Like the peanut butter balls that turned into peanut butter crunch. But the fun is in the making…
A+ for effort, guys! That looks like fun!
We are the queens of substitution with crafts here – I can’t count how many have failed miserably. Like the peanut butter balls that turned into peanut butter crunch. But the fun is in the making…
Pop the buttons off and soak them in water. The glue will wash right off!
Mr. Linky stood me up….. figures! 🙂
Here ya go!
http://totallybananas.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/impress-my-kid/
Oh, Amanda – I love the idea! Do soak the buttons – you’ll definitely want those again.
PS – Mr. Linky worked for me!
whoops – no it didn’t! http://mynewthing.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/wip-wednesday/
Hmmm… I don’t know if Mr. Linky worked for me or not, but I linked this comment directly to my post if that helps at all.
Also, I totally missed that it was supposed to be a “reason for the season” or Bible-themed craft. Oops! Maybe we’ll try for one more along those lines next week.
Yeah, no joy with Mr. Linky. Here’s my link: http://theyoungpages.com/jodis_blog/?p=578
I hadn’t seen this craft before. We were actually going to glue buttons on to paper today to make Indian corn, but once I saw your post, we switched it to tp holders instead so they can be used as napkin rings. I’ll link to you when I post. Thanks!
Fun! I’m sure yours will look better than mine! 🙂