Party Problems

Em and Camille threw Merle an awesome Pre-Birthday party this past weekend. We thoroughly enjoyed it. It was such a fun spin on the normal Baby Shower (not that Baby Showers are bad at all, I just loved their creativity and spin on things). Birthday parties are a blast. Well, any party is a blast really. I just love parties and putting together events. If I were a cat and had 9 lives, in one of them I'd be an event planner. Where we live just isn't very conducive to being an event planner...you need somewhere with more people really. But I do love our rural area. 

Anyway...Merle's Pre-Birthday Party has me in a party mood, so I thought I'd go through our submissions and pull out some that have to do with party planning and shin-dig shenanigans.

So...what's the staple of any party? The food. We try so hard to put forth food that not only tastes fantastic, but that looks like it belongs in a food museum as well. Sometimes we end up with both good looking and tasty...and sometimes they are just one or the other. Or in sad cases...neither. So to start the post off, I give you a few Party Palate Pinstrosities:

Original Pin #1

http://www.raspberricupcakes.com/2013/04/gummy-bear-layer-cake.html

I do love me some gummy bears (just not in ice cream...they get too hard and weird in ice cream). This cake is fun and colorful and sure to please just about any kid! 

Amber's son loves gummy bears, so she decided to give this a go for his birthday, but as the post didn't have any instructions, just a picture, she had to wing it.  Here's how hers turned out:

Pinstrosity #1

Amber says, "I told my son it was a gummy bear avalanche cake. NAILED IT!"  

Round stacked cakes can be a booger. I've only made one and it took me a while to get it not too lopsided or full-of-crumb frosting. The hardest part? Getting the bottom pretty! The plate/board is so hard to keep clean and/or to wipe clean. That's why I stick to pan cakes (where they only come out of the pan when you cut it up and serve it). I'm just not that adventurous. So when I see people try these round stacked cakes, I applaud them, regardless of how they turn out.

 So cakes aren't the easiest. What about cupcakes? 

Original Pin #2

http://www.ivillage.com/rubber-ducky-cupcakes/3-r-139110

I'm impressed that Tré even attempted these. I would look at them and think, "How cute! But not a chance." I'd give up before even trying. So hats off to you Tré. In his email he explains, "My daughter turned 1 last Wednesday, so we planned a Rubber Ducky themed party for her this weekend.  I got a little cocky and decided I'd try these."

Pinstrosity #2

"Well, a few things didn't go as planned...  The frosting I used to hold the head and tails on was too warm, so they started falling apart. Then the beaks refused to cooperate; I don't know what was supposed to happen there.  Then we put the eyes on with the frosting too warm, and that all melted...  I ended up with weeping zombie ducks.  My daughter still loved them, but really..."

Zombie ducks, bahahaha. I love his description. At least the daughter was happy! 

So the cake isn't always a success...but drinks. Those are the easy part, right? Hehe. 

Original Pin #3

You know how this turns out...I love this. Jen says, "I threw a baby shower for my best friend this weekend. I was using Pinterest for inspiration for a lot of decorations, foods, and games. One pinterest project went particularly wrong, however. Since the theme of the shower was penguins, we decided to take this punch recipe and use penguin rubber "ducks" in place of actual ducks. Furthermore, we were not able to find blue Kool-Aid and thus used the suggested replacement of blue Hawaiian punch. Let's just say the punch didn't turn out exactly as shown on the pin... "

Pinstrosity #3

"Our punch was a polluted mess! The color of the "bath water" turned out to be more of a green-brown murky color! Then, we put the rubber penguins in and they all fell over...

The bright side? It was delicious and quite hilarious. We named this new recipe 'Global Warming Punch.'"

Once we have the food figured out for a party, if we have extra time and energy the next step would be the decorations. How fancy do we go? Just the food table? The entire room? The entire house? The front porch? Here's a submission with party decorations that didn't quite match the Pinspiration:

Original Pin #4

This was a pin uploaded to Pinterest. I've spent nearly an hour trying to track down the original pinner/creator but I keep hitting dead ends.  But here was the caption on the pin: "Took $1.00 table cloths, cut slits and braided the tops to create fun party wall cover ups for my daughters birthday party at home."

Marissa saw this and gave it a try. "The pin said to use three table covers from the Dollar Store, and I did buy 3.  However, two were rectangular and one was round so I ended up using two.  As you can see I FAILED lol."

Pinstrosity #4

Luckily, the food and decorations don't make or break a party. Sure, they help...but you don't need a Disneyland worthy party for your guests to have fun and for the party to be a success! 

Thanks to our awesome readers/submitters for the party Pinstrosities!

Dyed Memory...

So...in the spirit of New Mexican politics, today I'm keeping the post all in the family and giving them preferential treatment because I just get to do that. :)  My younger sister Carolyn submitted a Pinstrosity that she ended up with when she tried an activity from the blog about baby/toddler playtime activities that another one of my younger sisters writes. 

I am the oldest child and got married first, but 2 of my younger sisters soon caught up, got married, and passed us in the "family development" department and I now have 3 nephews between them. This has worked out great for me because for once I don't have to be the pioneer. I get to watch what they do and learn from their adventures in kid-land! My sister Diedre has a degree in Early Childhood Education and started a series on her personal blog about what kids learn from various playtime activities. We all convinced her that she should start a separate site/blog specifically about these activities and it has been fun to watch her build the site, add the activities, and to learn what these activities help babies/toddlers learn from just normal playtime activities. My sister Carolyn has used some of those activities with her 2 boys and I'm sure I'll use some with Merle when he comes along. Carolyn was looking for something to do to entertain her oldest boy (2 yrs old), and turned to her Pinterest boards and found one she had pinned from Diedre's Playing to Learn blog and decided to try out this activity:

The Original Pin:

http://weplay2learn.blogspot.com/2013/04/rainbow-spaghetti.html

Rainbow Spaghetti! For eating, for playing, for discovering. She had read through the directions when she first pinned it and figured she could recall the process from memory. She did pretty good, but got two steps jumbled together instead of keeping them separate. The instructions say to boil the pasta with food coloring, adn then afterwards add some oil to keep the noodles from sticking together. Carolyn added the oil while the noodles were cooking instead. She said, "So I separated the pasta into thirds, added a few drops of coloring, red, blue, and green, and about a half tablespoon of oil.  I started to mix it together and the color didn't spread very well.  The problem was that the oil kept the color from spreading well."

The Pinstrosity:

So the coloring process didn't work real great, but she forged on anyway. After the pasta was done cooking and half dyeing, Carolyn says she "mixed all the colors together in my large pot, and placed it on the floor.  It took a minute or two for Wyler to get in there and play with it.  But when he did the spaghetti was flung across the kitchen floor. No big deal, vinyl floors are easy to clean... except picking up angel hair spaghetti, that is a little oily isn't the easiest.  Especially when a two year old empties the pot before you can put a handful back in the pot.  So now my floor is nice and oily.  Next time I am going to put a sheet down first.  Keep the oil mess contained better, and I can shake the pasta off into my compost pile."

So this was a great activity for Carolyn and Wyler...they both got to learn, lol. Most of us on here are guilty of just winging a project we read the directions for way back sometime...and sometimes it works out and other times we end up having to improvise or throw away. But that is part of the learning process, and there's nothing wrong with it. I end up having to improvise quite often, but I have learned some great new things to do (and things not to do) that I wouldn't have learned otherwise. I know there are some of our readers who are driven batty when someone wings it, but personally I think it's a great part of life to be able to explore, exercise our brain, and adventurize. I'll probably wing things my whole life. Now, I'm not saying throw out the instructions every single time...trust me, I love a set of well written instructions. But sometimes you just have to deviate a little. Are you not the wing-it type? That's okay. We like you just as much as we like the wing-it lovers. We all have our own method of learning, discovering, and creating.

I hope you all have a great Thursday! I'm off now to get my house ready for Diedre, our Mother-in-Law (Diedre and I married brothers), and my nephew to come visit for a few days. Mostly that just means making sure I put away my craft paints and Cameron's knives out of Erik's reach. It's liking going on a treasure hunt through my house, hahaha.

Bleach Blotches and a Pin Spin Save

What do you do when you see a t-shirt with a cute design, but you don't want to pay 24.99 just for a tee? What do you do when you have a specific image you want on a shirt but you can't find it anywhere? 

DIY

I love making custom shirts. For Girls Camp we did a super-hero theme, so I was trying to have super hero shirts for as many of the days as I could. I decided I wanted some sort of pregger super hero shirt, but I just didn't find anything that I really liked. So I printed off the Incredibles logo onto an iron on transfer, along with "Incrediboy" in a font I liked, and ironed that onto my shirt. It was a huge hit and was really fast, cheap, and easy to make (I don't have any pictures, or I'd show you). Your options with DIY design shirts are endless. Iron-on Transfers, bleach, paint, heat n' bond, etc. You can do just about anything! But...as with all DIY projects, sometimes one method may be more finicky than another. Katie learned this when she was making adorable shirts for her daughters. She ended up with a Pinstrosity at first, but kept persevering and found out how to get the results she wanted using another method. Here's her adventure:

The Original Pin

http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2012/01/diy-bleach-t-shirt-tutorial-perfect.html

The link I gave with the Original Pin goes to the actual original tutorial by Six Sisters...this isn't the actual pin that Katie used. The pin that Katie had pinned had directions in the caption that she followed. The pin itself didn't actually link back to the correct site...or a site that even had this photo on it. It did however produce some, ahem, lovely pop ups instead. So lesson #1 today...be careful what you repin. Some people pin a picture, change the link to a spammy or dirty site, and then change the caption to make you think all is well...and it's not until 50 repins later that someone finally realizes they've inadvertently pinned a cute and seemingly harmless craft photo that really links back to porn. Check you pins Pinstrosipeeps...don't help spread these spam pins.

The pin she saw on Pinterest had this caption:

"DIY Bleach T-shirt. Put bleach in a spray bottle (70% bleach/30% water), lay your stencil on a shirt with some double sided tape, place cardboard inside the shirt so the bleach doesnt leak through and spray. Could take 20 min for full color effect. Rinse shirt in the sink then wash to get all of the bleach out. :)"

So that's what she set out to do. 

"I wanted to make ladybug tshirts for my two daughters, featuring their ages, for my youngest's first birthday party this weekend. My idea was to cut freezer paper templates (which came out amazingly cute for my lack of skills and a dull exacto knife). I had shirts ready, bleach in a fine spray bottle, and was all set - just had to wait two days for it to stop raining so I could rush outside and spray."

"Well. First, I sprayed and sprayed and the shirt didn't even look wet. So I got closer and sprayed more. Then I realized that the bottle was dripping big wet splotches all over the bottom part of the shirt. I gave up and moved to the 2nd shirt - which worked better, I just think I oversoaked it. I didn't even wait the 20 minutes; I gave the shirts about 8 and then realized that the splotchy drips looked awful, and this was probably going down. I rinsed the bleach out by hand in the tub, and then in the washer three times. The result:"

The Pinstrosity

"I didn't cry. I just laughed and laughed. And went to the craft store. I came home with this:"

Katie started over with her project, simplifying her design and cutting it out again. 

"I ironed the freezer paper soooo carefully, making sure every  single speck of edge was really stuck to the shirt, I sprayed as the can instructed, and ended up with a goopy mess. My husband recommended brushing the goop around a little, so I used a sponge brush and smoothed it out - and dabbed a little, to keep some texture."  

I have used this kind of paint before, and it is goopy and doesn't spray evenly. It's a little finicky to work with. 

"The can said to remove the stencil and then let dry for an hour. I was nervous to touch anything, but after about 3 or 4 minutes the paint started getting tacky, so I used the exacto knife to pick the pieces of my stencil off the shirt. The results were much happier!"

The Pin Spin:

"If I had managed to check the 1 year old's shirt and make sure I painted the design on the FRONT of the shirt, instead of the BACK (facepalm) then I'd be totally ecstatic. Instead, I'm just glad my baby has a chubby neck and no one will know that her shirt's on backwards. :)"

The bleached shirts can be hard to get to work satisfactorily, but we LOVE how the painted shirts turned out. Way to stick to it Katie! If you want some tips on how to make your own bleached shirts, Emilee did a post on that last year with her tips, tricks, and advice. Check it out!

Sensory FAIL

My nephew is incredibly active and curious. Toys and gadgets don't keep him entertained for long. He wants to be exploring, dismantling, jumping, and moving. The two things he'll sit still for are Elmo music videos and videos of himself. While this really is cute and funny, I know it wears my sister out. She is a trooper though and has worked hard to find activities for him to do that will help keep his attention, focus his curiosity, and let him explore things. She's found things that work well...she's found things that don't work (she's kept a log of the various toddler/baby activities, which you can find here). Anytime I see something cool on Pinterest for her to try out with her boy I tag her in it. She probably gets tired of her obnoxious childless (okay...technically I do have a child right now, but I'm not really raising him yet...just growing him) older sister sending her activities and links...but what is an older sister for but to annoy and meddle? Two traits I found I mastered in my life (I'm typing up my old journals from when I was a kid...if I weren't already pregnant that'd serve as a pretty good prevention technique). Today's post has an activity I would have definitely tagged and sent to her on Pinterest. It looks like a blast. Sarah thought it looked like a great idea as well. Bubble Wrap and shaving cream combined into a fun kid's activity? What could go wrong?! 

The Original Pin

http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2012/05/play-with-bubble-wrap-and-shaving-cream.html

Look how happy she is! It makes me want to play in shaving cream and bubble wrap. Ultimate slip and slide?! 

Sarah says, "I was trying to get creative with sensory activities for my boys. Enter, Pinterest's "The Bubble Wrap Sensory Slide". The picture of the adorable little girl looking thoroughly pleased and shrieking with joy as she played in the bubble wrap and shaving cream had me sold...Shame on me for thinking this seemingly effortless activity would turn out like it was supposed to AND that my kids would actually enjoy it.  I recruited my mom to bring us bubble wrap from work, went to the dollar store and stocked up on shaving cream and planned the showdown with the ever-fickle game of perfectly timing organized activities with nap time, meal time, potty time, daddy-comes-home time, bed time, etc. I put a notable amount of energy into making this deceptively uncomplicated project into a three-minute reality for my family."

"It is important to note that my children are familiar with both shaving cream and bubble wrap. This is how it played out:"

The Pinstrosity

I'll just give you Sarah's play by play in her own words:

• Laying out the bubble wrap on the grass really just involved me chasing it around the yard as it blew in the wind."
• It took more than five 12-oz cans of shaving cream for "desired effect".
• The kids wanted *nothing* to do with that strange mess mommy made on the ground.

• After I enthusiastically demonstrated what they were supposed to do by jumping up and down, popping bubble wrap with my feet and using my best supportive and overdone, over-zealous mom voice to encourage their participation (and realizing it is way harder than it looks to stand on slippery plastic covered in shaving cream), I picked up each boy and set them right on top of the bubble wrap and made them try it.
• My 16-month-old sprung right up and off the bubble wrap like a wind-up toy the second I set him down. I'm pretty sure he levitated; irate baby #1.

• My almost-3-year-old stood up and fell down and stood up again then tried to walk but the bubble wrap stuck to his feet as he tried to walk away and it "followed him" - you can feel the passion in his fury in these pictures. 

• The worst part of the bubble wrap sensory slide was every time you lifted your foot to walk or take a step, the bubble wrap would stick to your feet; it stuck to everything.
• It was over in three minutes.
• Side note: Food coloring plus children is a stupid idea.
• Thank you Pinterest, for underhandedly bringing me an experience of foolishness I never knew existed, in front of my children, husband and on-looking neighbors. Not cool, Pinterest...not cool.

Poor Sarah! All that hard work and excited anticipation for a let down. Magdelyn and Stephanie I'm sure could say, "I know how you feel!". Even though I don't have kids yet, I feel like I can commiserate as I do with with the teenage girls at church (I love them, but sometimes I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall). Having a highly anticipated activity flop is so disheartening. But kids' fickleness does have a plus...in a year, this activity could be the coolest thing those to boys can imagine. Or it could be a repeat trauma for all involved. I'd give out advice on how to help a kid like an activity like this or on how to try this activity again and making it a positive experience...but I'm pretty much a zero on the experience meter here. Oh I could make something up and still give out ideas and advice...but I don't imagine that'd be all that helpful, lol. Mom's out there...any suggestions?  

Magdelyn vs. The Pinterest Water Blob

Today I have a "guest post" for you from my good friend Magdelyn. I loved how she wrote this up and knew you all would enjoy it as well.

Magdelyn vs. The Pinterest Water Blob

Oh Pinterest, why do you taunt me so? Why do you make it look perfectly manageable to make a 4 course meal and set up a kids birthday party with horse drawn carriage and re-purpose paint chips into chandeliers and making a ball gown in an afternoon? If you too fall into the Pinterest trap and think you can do all these things, don't be fooled! Every once  in a blue moon, like as often as my resolve to give up soda actually lasts, my attempts at recreating Pinterest finds works;  95 % of the time it doesn't. The following is one such attempt. This is a true account of the events, reader discretion advised.

This has been a blistering summer. Probably because I was 9 months preggo for half of it and had a baby attached to my chest nursing for the rest, but it has felt unmerciful this year. And the monsoon, that usually is my favorite time of year, has kind of stunk. So I have tried to find lots of water activities. Enter the Pinterest water blob. The original idea I saw seemed simple. You buy a big sheet of plastic sheeting( BIG! like 10 feet by 25 feet) fold it in half, seal up the edges and fill with water. You end up with this giant water bed/ water blob thing that the kids can jump and play on. I thought, "Self, that looks like cake. You can make that in an hour and it will entertain the hooligans for hours. Win win". So I ran myself down to the hardware store and bought some plastic sheeting and duct tape already giving myself mental high fives for being the coolest mom ever.

The first Pinterest pin I saw duct taped the edges together. I am not exactly the most coordinated person and knew that I would just end up with a hot mess ball of folded over tape if I attempted that. Then I saw this link that said to make a leak proof blob you could use an iron. AHA! I can iron, I'm not a complete idiot. Plus then we can reuse it. Sold. So I sit down during nap time with my folded in half sheeting and my iron and ironing board laid flat on the floor. I looked at the PLASTIC sheeting and realized plastic and irons don't mix. I looked up the pin again and it said you sandwich the plastic between parchment paper. Parchment paper?? I should have read the instructions better, I don't have that hanging around my house. The only people who do are serious bakers and Martha Stewart. So what do I have? Wax paper. Luckily I only tried to iron a small corner with the wax paper before I quickly remembered wax melts.....seriously I have new baby brain damage.

The whole time, my daughter was sitting on the couch above me peppering me with questions and trying my already frayed patience. So I told her we might have to do it another day and she became distraught.  Hmm... time to McGyver something here. Aha! Paper Towels. So I fold the paper towel in half and put the plastic inside the paper towel sandwich and it works! Eureka! The original directions said to mark a line on the paper and only iron up to that. C'mon, like I am going to be that precise or perfect about something. So our ironed section looks like a drunk sorority sister did it, but at least its working and sealing together. The only problem I had was the paper towels started getting worn after a couple times so I went through A lot of paper towels

exhibit A, only half way done with the thing

Again, my daughter is pelting me with questions. "Is the darn iron working now mom? Why are you doing that mom? How much longer mom?" Right as I was doing the last corner she distracted me and the iron went up on the plastic and melted it a little. SERIOUSLY?? I have spent nearly 2 hours ironing the dang thing and the last corner gets messed up? So I move the paper and iron up and try ironing above it. It works but my paper towel is worn through and when I move it the iron gets it again. 5 minutes later and a few mutterings so the kids didn't here my choice words ("what did you say mommy I can't hear you?")  and I finally have a seal across with no holes.

a hot mess, please note the paper towel ironed to the bottom

So we take it outside and start filling it. Of course my boy has woken up by now and they get super excited and roll all over it while it's still filling. Yes! Success! I McGyvered it and it is awesome. Who needs fancy parchment paper?

"you're the best mom ever"

Shortly after this, I realize that there are puddles collecting on the sides. Hmm.. Isn't the beauty of this project that the water stays in the blob and nobody actually gets wet? I go to inspect and realize there are tiny little pinprick holes by my seals. The only thing I can figure is I moved the paper towel too soon and the plastic got warped and my kids crazy jumping tore it. So I spend the next 20 minutes scrambling around like a fat kid chasing a donut truck duct taping all the little holes. I finally got most of the holes and stopped worrying and watched the kiddos enjoying it instead.

"can we sleep here tonight mom?"

The funniest part was when my parents came over that night and my daughter was so excited to show them the "awesomest thing ever mom made". My dad saw the duct tape and asked what happened. She informed him that "the darn iron didn't darn iron it well enough and it got some darn holes".

I obviously didn't patch all the holes because, much to the kid's dismay, when they went out the next morning to play some more this is what greeted them.

completely flat with duct tape patches

All that heartache and it only lasted one day. I'm glad they loved it so much, but next time I'll fight the allure of the "easiness" of Pinterest and just buy a darn slip n slide...

Flubber Blubber

Any of you 90's kids ever dream of getting Slimed on the Nickelodeon show? 

http://www.nickkcapress.com/2010KCA/art/

That just looked like so much fun. Why is that? Why is getting slimed so appealing to kids? Maybe it's just something in human nature? The annual mud pit football game at the institute at college was always such a huge hit. And then tubing down a river of mud after the first big monsoon rain...that's always fun! Paint wars. Never been in one, but they look like a blast. There's just something about getting slimed/muddy/paint splattered that is fun. Especially for kids. 

So when Stephanie saw the following idea on Pinterest, she knew she had to try it out for her kids. 

The Original Pin

http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2012/08/slime-baskets-messy-bath-play.html

That looks just like the Nickelodeon Slime! It makes me want to try it out on my nephews. Stephanie whipped it up, hung the baskets, poured in the slime, and got this:

The Pinstrosity

"The consistency was way off on the slime. Looked like little beads of cellulite. It did not drip and ooze through the baskets. I had to dump it on them. My 3 yr. old still loved it but the 1 yr. old was a bit traumatized. I have made the recipe before with somewhat better results, though it was still not runny enough and also I think you would have to double or triple the recipe that she provides to get the adorable slimy experience her girls seemed to enjoy.  What went wrong?"

After reading through her post and the flubber/slime posts she linked to I'm guessing that the consistency issues were due to too much borax (for a great post on the toxicity of borax, read http://www.crunchybetty.com/getting-to-the-bottom-of-borax-is-it-safe-or-not). The Juggling With Kids post that was linked to in the slime basket post said this: "We followed the flubber recipe that Familylicious posted on their blog, however because the kids could not wait for the flubber to cool down, we ended up adding more borax/hot water to thicken it up quicker.  The reason why Familylicious created this recipe, is so that the flubber would remain at a runny consistency even after it has cooled down.  I will post their recipe in this blog post, however I would recommend you wait till it has completely cooled to do this activity.  If you can't wait, like us however, just mix some more borax with hot water and slowly add it while stirring (watching for the consistency that you want)."

Sadly, I don't know much by way of tips to offer to help the kids enjoy it. Perhaps let the young child watch the older child playing with the slime for a few minutes so they see that it's fun (and then there's always the "I want what they have" tic in the brain between siblings), and then they might get into it a little more. But...I'm not a mom yet, so don't rotten tomato me if that doesn't work.

I'm thinking I seriously need to get my nephews over so I have an excuse to make this. It just looks way too fun. We'll see if I can get the consistency right and if they freak out or not. I may just end up with a tub full of lumpy slime and two freaked out 2-year-olds. Who knows. 

Ogre Snot, Glow Worms, and Tea Lights

In Wednesday's post you got Kendra's awesome owls and a flashback to our early owl cake post. I'll continue with the flashbacks and pull out another post from the early days to go along with 2 submissions we have had for it since.

This is one that so many of my friends have pinned to try with their kids. Those who have tried it haven't been super impressed with the results. It's just not the sparkly beauty the pin makes you dream of. 

The Original Pin

http://organisedchaoswahm.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/fairies-in-a-jar/ 

When I tried it, this is what I got: 

The Pinstrosity

http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2012/03/i-do-not-believe-in-fairies.html

It looks more like Ogre Sneeze Juice than it does Fairies in a Jar. How did our two ladies fare with this project? Theirs were slightly more fairyish...but still not what the original picture shows. 

Here is Tonya's run:

"I am so disappointed in this pin that I HAD to share what an epic fail this is.  I am pretty sure the original pin is photoshopped which was hinted by others in the comments.  You are suppose to use diamond glitter and then cut a glow stick into a mason jar - instant fairies.  WRONG.  What you get is creepy, clumped to the sides glitter.  What a waste!"

It doesn't look like the original, but it does look pretty awesome. It reminds me of the Glow Worm's down in New Zealand:

http://i.imgur.com/cYWveEa.jpg

So, they're not fairies in a jar, but glow worms! That's be cooler to tell boys anyway, I don't know many who are interested in fairies...so that works. 

Here is JoJo's run:

"I've been wanting to try the Fairies in a Jar project for awhile.  The following 2 pictures are what are featured online.  So sparkly right?  The instructions are so easy!  Just get a glowstick, crack to activate, then cut the end off and splatter inside a jar and add 'diamond' glitter.  The only info I could glean on diamond glitter is that it's the white & iridescent kind, of which I have plenty.  I also had some glowsticks left over from the 'toilet paper roll eyes' project last Halloween."

"I cracked the blue light stick and shook it out and around this jar, then sprinkled in the glitter.  While it did stick to the jar and was sparkly, it was only so due to the external light source in the kitchen."

"In the kitchen with only one light on over the stove and no flash.  Blue is real pretty, glitter picking up the stove light."

"Looking at the bottom, taken outside at dusk."

"Dusk shot too."

 "After dark, no flash.  Real pretty blue, but the glitter isn't twinkling."

"With flashlight pointing straight down into jar."

"Just flash."

"With a candle inside which had a cool effect but you couldn't see the blue anymore."

"Looking inside with candle light.  That's as close to twinkling fairies as it gets."

"I'd say it only twinkles with a light source that's outside the jar.  It was pretty seeing the blue jar, but the glitter definitely doesn't sparkle like the internet photos show.  The twinkles are obviously photoshopped in the first picture and upon review of the second picture, it looks like the glow in the dark paint was dabbed on in dots; it's possible there is glow in the dark paint that has glitter in it."  

"The ironic thing was that as I was outside taking the pics, there were lots of real fireflies in my yard.  I'd say just use the jars to catch and release actual fireflies, rather than make a mess with this project!!!"

So...still no Fairies in a Jar, but between the three of us we have ogre snot, glow worms, and fun tea lights. That's not too bad, lol.