Saturday, December 20, 2008

"The 12 Pains of Christmas"


Saturday, December 20. 2008 - Feast of Saint Dominic of Silos



A friend, her children, and her children's friends made this hilarious video! Make sure you watch it to the very end. Oh, an adult performed the third day.

The 12 Pains of Christmas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bXRXq0RHLE


Thursday, December 11, 2008

Reviews

Hearthside Homeschool Reviews has a great post on some books for children on cleaning (reminds me a bit of FlyLady). If my children knew about these books, they would beg for them to save them from my lectures on how they don't help out around the house! LOL!

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Shrink Art

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 - Feast of Saint Bibiana


Queen Lucy is using Seton's Art 7 for Young Catholics (It is now "Art 6", but we have an older book). A recent lesson was on stained glass. One of the assignments was to color a picture of the Blessed Mother, Queen of Heaven, and her Holy Child.

I had the bright idea of putting it on vellum or something else that is "see-thru" to hang in the window, then I remembered something from when I was a child - Shrinky Dink!

I got some Shrinky Dink Frosted Rough and Ready. I placed it over the picture, shiny side up, and traced with a black permanent marker (I simplified the smaller details). On the rough side, Queen Lucy used her colored pencils. I then trimmed off the excess plastic, punched holes in the top (regular sized hole puncher), put the picture on a cookie sheet & put it in the oven (per the directions on the SD package). I have a window in my oven door, so Queen Lucy and I watched in awe as the large piece of plastic melted, shrunk, and rolled up - uh, oh, I thought all of her hard work was ruined! But I remembered that the directions said it will flatten in the last 30 seconds.... so we waited. Suddenly, it unrolled! After it cooled, she checked out her finished project.

(I scanned this, and it looks much better in real life.)
Now all that is needed it to thread ribbon through the holes, and hang it.

Things we have learned:
***Sometimes it will stick when it rolls up, but it can be reheated, gently pulled apart, then left in the heat to unroll the rest of the way.
***The finished product stuck slightly to the pan, and left some of the permanent marker on the pan. I have read suggestions to use a non-stick cookie sheet, foil (shiny side up), parchment paper, or a paper sack (the oven does not get hot enough to burn it.) We are going to make Christmas ornaments, and will try the other suggestions.
***The softer the colored pencil the better (I guess they blend better, leaving less blank/uncolored spots). We are also going to try permanent markers.
***Plastic #6 (not the foam kind) can be recycled from various sources like food containers, to be used as shrinkable plastic. I have not tried this yet because I am confused about whether or not it emits gasses when heated, and I do not want to possibly contaminate the oven I cook our food in.
*** There are many projects on the internet - Google "shrinky dink" or "shrinkable plastic".