Sunday, December 16, 2012

Christmas is For the Birds

...and the chipmunks, and the raccoons, and probably a skunk or two. Possibly, the neighbor's dog.

A few weeks ago, S. and I made one pitiful chain of cereal and tree-shaped pasta on fishing wire for a Christmas tree near our driveway. S. had a really hard time getting things strung on the fishing wire, and it changed quickly to her counting out ten pieces of cereal for each tree, while I did the stringing. Not surprising that she lost interest. That string disappeared overnight (as in, the entire string), so now I have guilt issues imagining some animal tangled up in fishing line.

While setting up a similar craft for story time at work (to go along with Jan Brett's books), I hit on pipe cleaners instead. Sucess! Very manageable for little fingers, and you can twist them into loops, heart shapes, stars, etc. S. quickly became a cereal-stringing-machine!

Disregard evidence of hot cocoa and gingerbread house icing in facial area.
C. opted not to participate, but L. was a big 'help' disposing of defective cereal pieces.
 
 
He even helped clean up the mess when it was all over!

 
C. did join us in putting the finished products on the little tree.
 
 
Pretty!
 
 
The round things are rice cakes coated with shortening and bird seed. One of the story time mommies who is smarter than I am (secret: they are all smarter than I am) got the idea to poke a pipe cleaner through to hang them. I was having a heck of a time trying to make a hole without breaking them!
 
With the pipe cleaners, even if somebody runs off with the entire thing, I'm not worried about them getting tangled. If they simply nibble the cereal off, like they are SUPPOSED to, the pipe cleaners will be easy to see and remove.
 
Bon appetit and Merry Christmas, critters!

 

 

 

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