crafts with kids

so, i've decided to embrace my role as a stay-at-home-mom a little more and include my kids in more of my activities. so today i decided to do some paper mache. amazingly, it was isabelle, who just turned 2, and not alexander, who's almost 4, who was totally into the project and was mommy's little helper.

i decided to make a paper mache head so that i could use it to display my headbands, cuz everyone thinks i need to put them on my etsy site. so when i was at a bead shop yesterday and the owner was totally gushing over my headband, i decided it was time *smile*. when family and strangers say they're cool, i'm like "okay...", but when someone who does beading for a living thinks they're totally awesome, then i really hafta think that maybe i've got something really great on my head *smile*.

so i set everything up in the backyard with a drop cloth and lots of newspaper that the kids helped me rip and my paste and the balloons. originally i was gonna do 2, but one popped, so we only ended up with one. and once alexander realized exactly how messy it was gonna be, he decided he just wanted to watch *smile*. needless to say, isabelle and i were pretty much covered in paper mache paste. it's very itchy when it dries. and then, of course, i decided it was really too big to be a realistic head (even for me *smile*), so i let some of the air out of the balloon and then had to reapply most of the paper. oh well. i'm pleased with how it turned out. now, when it dries, i'll hafta figure out how i'm making it not look like newspaper (scrapbooking paper and decoupage?) and how i'm doing hair (i'm thinking yarn *smile*). we'll see how it turns out in the end.

it was pretty fun doing this with the kids, although it's interesting that alexander's the one who doesn't like getting dirty. i swear i have my brother and sister's children, cuz that's totally my brother. although i was always clean as well. okay, maybe he's mine *smile*