Boys Night Over

Last weekend, two of my grandsons spent the night. They are 7 and almost 4 years old. We had a great time. We made a picture frames with foam cutouts - I'll post the photos here as soon as they're downloaded. Then we watched "The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns" with Randy Quaid and Colm Meaney - and a great, quirky performance by Roger Daltrey as a fairy! They loved it. Of course, they've both seen it before and would probably watch it again tomorrow.

Next Friday, I'm doing it all over again with one of my granddaughters. Plans are to teach her how to play Parcheesi (one of my favorite games), to learn to use the sewing machine (I think we're going to make a tote or a purse), to make shrinky dink buttons (http://thehistorykeeper.blogspot.com/2009/03/first-try.html), and another really cool craft from shrink plastic that I saw on Instructables (http://www.instructables.com/id/Disc_Bead_Bracelet_Cheap_Easy_and_recycled_shr/). The bracelets are beautiful and so easy! Who knows if we'll get it all done, but we'll have a barrel of fun!

Here are the frames the boys made:

Jason's frame...

and Ethan's frame.

First Try

I recently found a tutorial at CraftStylish on Shrink Plastic Buttons, written by Susan Beal (http://www.craftstylish.com/item/42355/how-to-make-your-own-shrink-art-buttons). It seemed so simple, I was intrigued. I used frosted clear shrink plastic sheets, a 1-1/2" round punch, a variety of colored Sharpie markers, and a regular hole punch. Here's how it looked after I colored the rough side of the plastic with the markers.


Then I used the 1-1/2" paper punch to cut out the shapes.


I cut the "thread" holes with a regular hole punch (1/4"). When I punched them out, they all looked lop-sided and uneven, but it didn't seem to matter when the buttons were finished.

I put them in a 325-degree oven and watched them for a couple of minutes (the whole process took about 3 minutes). The instructions that came with my plastic instructed me to place the plastic on a piece of a brown paper grocery bag instead of aluminum foil as in Susan Beal's article, so that's what I did. They curled up a little while in the oven, and although I followed my instructions by pressing on them with a pad of paper for about 15 seconds while they cooled to flatten them, I don't think I really needed to do that. They seemed to flatten well on their own. Here's what they looked like when I first took them from the oven.

And here are a few of my finished buttons (each about 1/2" in diameter). alongside a couple of the unfinished ones. They sure do shrink! I just love my first results. I think this is going to have to be a craft that's a keeper!