Beady's

With school back in full swing, our chances to do craft projects and things are quite limited. Yet, Tater frequently looks at me and says "I want to do a craft."

Sometimes he does this at 8AM and I hand him the remote and tell him to go watch some Spongebob. Crafts in the early morning are not my thing.

But when it is a reasonable time, and the homework is done, and we have a few minutes to kill, it is nice to have some small projects on hand. This is why I scout the $1 bins at AC Moore and Michael's and stock up on little paint sets and foam stickers and these little "Beady's" projects.

I see them all the time at the stores, and yet strangely can't seem to find them on-line. The world is making no sense. Anyway, I guess you have to haul yourselves to the actual physical store (gasp) if you want to do these.

Basically, these are bead-stringing. But there are two strings and you cross them back and forth to make the rows. The diagrams that come with the kits are pretty easy to follow and the kids are now able to pretty much do them themselves.

We made some a couple of years ago and with guidance, they kids were able to stack the beads onto the one string and then I would do the crossing over parts and make sure everything was nice and tight. They still need a little help with the trickier parts (legs, ears).

Most recently, each child made a lizard, a mouse, and Sprout did a cat while Tater did a snake. I was remiss in my photo-taking responsibilities and only got a picture of the final product of the snake. Bad Mommy.

Tater has a couple of these hanging on his backpack. Sprout might have one, too. We also use them as keychains for our spare keys. It is unlikely that someone is going to lose a key with a beaded lizard on it. Like a bathroom pass in elementary school, but beadier.

They burned through my entire stash of these - a marathon beadfest. So I guess it is time to go revisit the $1 bins.

Maybe next time I will save one for myself - they are fun and it is hard for me to stand around and watch. My inner control freak wants to get in there and interfere. She misses little kids who need help and she can get a little grabby, so it's best to give her her own project.

Plus, you can never have too many keychain animals. Right?