Hula Hoop Tutorial
No, no. I’m not going to show you how to use a Hula Hoop. That would be incredibly humiliating for me and extremely unpleasant for you. No, no–I’m going to show you how to make your very own Hula Hoop. And not one of those silly things that bend the first time someone blinks at it–but a very sturdy, lasts-nearly-forever one. Beat that.
All you need are three simple things:
Polypipe
Connectors
Duct Tape
I went to Home Depot and asked for 10 feet of Polypipe and the man said, “Sorry ma’am. It only comes in 100 ft. rolls.”
Wow. Luckily, it was only $13.00 for the whole 100 foot roll. That’s enough to make 10 Hula Hoops! What a great activity for a little kids birthday party, huh?
Ask the nice HD man to give you 1 connector for each hoop you want to make. They cost about 65 cents each.
Directions:
Measure out about 10 feet of pipe and cut it. If you have pipe cutters, that works best. I didn’t have any handy so I used a bread knife. Be really careful to cut only the pipe!
Dip one end of the pipe in boiling water to soften it up a bit…
then press the connector in and push it to the middle line.
Now do the same thing with the other side–warm it then push it on to the other side of the connector until you almost can’t see the connector at all anymore.
Now tear strips of duct tape and wind it around your hoop. This will add a bit of extra weight and will make your Hula Hoop dang cute.
Keep winding until you have covered the whole hoop and don’t worry about wrinkles in the tape–you’ll never notice them.
Now I’d love to show you our adorable Hula Hoops in action, but alas, Chompy is only 2 and wasn’t quite sure what we wanted her to do so you’ll have to use your imagination.
But be aware…
they do make nice Fairy Rings for the Wood Sprites.
:} 583
Music Stick Tutorial
We’ve always loved hands-on toys around here. You know, the kind that you have to interact with to get it to work. So, I knew when I saw a picture of this pretty little “music stick” that we’d need to give it a try.
The idea is so simple, a two-year-old can use it. It works like this…
Your child slides the washers up to the top of the threaded metal rod then lets them go.
As the washers spin and twirl down to the bottom, they make a lovely, tinkling sound–almost like a rain stick–only softer. Quite pleasant, really.
Now the really nice part. It went together in less than 5 minutes. No kidding. Seriously, the hardest part for me was walking in to Home Depot and trying to act like I knew what I was doing. I finally just handed the list to one of the workers and they gathered up all the stuff for me. :}
You’ll need:
1/2 by 4-inch threaded eyebolt
Teflon plumber’s tape
1/2 inch all-thread rod, 24 or 36 inches long
1/2 inch coupling nut
1/2 inch locknut
10-15 1/2 inch washers
Directions:
1. Wrap a piece of Teflon tape around the end of the eyebolt and both ends of the rod. This will help it all stay screwed together over time.
2. Take the eyebolt…
and screw it to the coupling nut.
3. Screw the rod to the other end of the coupling nut.
4. Slide the washers onto the rod.
5. Secure the locknut to the bottom–and you’re finished.
Now hang it from a post or tree or–in this case–the top of my canopy bed, and turn the kiddos loose with it.
They’ll be enthralled, captivated, amazed and surprised at just how fun it is to play with.
So will you.
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Turkey Cookies
Note–I am purposely RE-posting today’s blog post. Forgive the previous submission. Moral of the story: Never attempt to write intelligently at 2 am. Sheesh
Don’t you just LOVE my sweet–and I mean SWEET–little Tom Turkey? Don’t you just want to gobble him up? Ha! Gobble. Get it? That’s a good one.
These little guys would make a great neighbor treat or think how great they’d look on the Thanksgiving table.
Turkey Cookies
Ingredients
Fudge Mallows cookies
Iced Oatmeal cookies
Chocolate frosting
Swedish fish, candy corn and anything else you’d like to use.
You likely don’t need tons of instructions now–but just in case…
Cut the marshmallow cookies in half.
Glue it–with chocolate frosting–marshmallow side down, onto the oatmeal cookie.
Pipe a frosting “turkey body” straight up onto the marshmallow cookie.
Cut the Swedish fish up for feet, wings, beaks, eyes or whatever strikes you.
Give your little “Turkey-Lurkey” a face, beak, feet and a waddle from the decorettes and cut up Swedish Fish.
“Glue” tail feathers onto the back of the same cookies.
The little papooses will love this part…
and be quite proud of…
their little gobblers…
in the end. And rightly so.
Gallery of Turkey Creations
Sweet little turkeys nearly too cute to gobble.
I said, nearly.
| Turkey Cookies |
Ingredients
- Fudge Mallows cookies
- Iced Oatmeal cookies
- Chocolate frosting
- Swedish fish, candy corn and anything else you’d like to use.
Instructions
- Cut the marshmallow cookies in half.Glue it–with chocolate frosting–marshmallow side down, onto the oatmeal cookie.
- Pipe a frosting “turkey body” straight up onto the marshmallow cookie.
- Cut the Swedish fish up for feet, wings, beaks, eyes or whatever strikes you.
- Give your little “Turkey-Lurkey” a face, beak, feet and a waddle from the decorettes and cut up Swedish Fish.
- “Glue” tail feathers onto the back of the same cookies.
Google Recipe View Microformatting by Easy Recipe
T-Shirt “Yarn” Tutorial
I know what you’re thinking–you’re thinking, “t-shirt what?” You heard me. I said, T-shirt yarn. Get a load of this…
Oh, yeah…it’s cotton “yarn” made from a spiral cut T-shirt. I first saw this done over at Polka Dot Pineapple and was intrigued because, well…
does everyone on earth have a huge pile of orphan T-shirts that nobody wears, but they can’t seem to part with…
or is it just me?
So let’s get real green and do something useful with some of them…shall we?
Start with a regular t-shirt that has lived a good life…no guilt now. It’s going on to a better place…really.
Cut off the bottom hem.
Now cut the top off just under the sleeves…
so you have a tube of fabric.
Fold it nearly in half, leaving the under side sticking out about an inch.
Now cut from right to left all the way up to and just past the top fabric, but leave the one inch margin of the lower fabric uncut. Repeat about 1 inch apart. Now unfold the fabric…
it should look like this.
The easiest way for you to hold the fabric and cut it into one continuous strip is to slide your arm through the two layers of fabric 1 inch uncut margin running along the top of your arm. I drew dotted lines showing where you’ll cut your fabric–but you don’t need to draw the lines. You’ll be amazed at how fast you can figure this out and it’s really fun too, and for some reason deeply satisfying.
If you need more instructions click HERE for a sweet little diagram and bag pattern.
When you’re finished cutting, you’ll have one long, long, strip of fabric. Are you ready to make it more “yarn” like? Here goes!
Going down the entire length of your fabric, take a hold of it by one end and gently stretch it. It will magically curl up and behave it’s self just like it should. Very obedient stuff, I tell you.
Next, roll it into a ball and think of the stuff you can knit or crochet or weave with it. I’ve seen trivets, handbags and rugs…
but that color is too…too…orange not to be used properly.
Fear not. I’ll show you as soon as it’s finished. In the meantime–
go dig out the old shirts. The stack’s about to shrink.
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Oh, do come enter our EASY “Melissa & Doug Summer Toys” $75 giveaway! We need 200 entries by June 3rd 2011. Please, please–spread the word!
Soma Cube Solution
As promised–here is just one of the solutions to yesterday’s Soma Puzzle. Don’t you just love things that are good for your brain? Of course you do…
Remember there are 7 different sets of blocks that go together to make a square cube.
Begin with this one.
Second move.
Third.
Forth.
Fifth.
Sixth.
Seventh and final.
I flipped it upside down so that you could see the bottom side. If you get terribly stumped just click here you’ll find all the solutions you need to feel like a smarty pants…
or a cheater. ha.
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Oh, and I’m guest posting on Farm Bell Recipes today…check it out!
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