spin some fourth of july art

This nifty doohickey was made from egg carton pieces and beads. Add a bell or two and you can call it a wind chime!

Back in 2009 I shared with you my fondness for spin art. This year I discovered this awesome idea from Not So SAHM via pinterest. I thought the idea of using egg cartons in the salad spinner was brilliant and tucked it away in the noggin for a Fourth of July project. The only problem was I no longer had a salad spinner and so I kept my eyes peeled for one at the thrifts and scored this basic model for $3.25! Cutting it quite close to the wire, I managed to actualize what I visualized and now I have a diy for you!

Materials:

*salad spinner

*egg carton cups

*acrylic, tempera, or biocolor paint

*embroidery thread

*fat needle

*assorted beads

*scissors

The first thing you need to do is liberate your cups from a paper egg carton. This is not a kiddo project as the pulp from the egg carton is a bit wonky to cut. Keep this part for the grown-ups. Sharp scissors work best.

Place egg carton pieces into your salad spinner and add paint. Your kiddos can easily do this and will thoroughly love squirting the paint on top of the egg carton pieces.

Place lid on spinner and have your kiddo give it a whirl or two. There are at least three different styles of salad spinners out there. We use all three at the preschool I work at as each of them offer different challenges to children. Keep this in mind when hunting for a salad spinner. Will your child be able to turn, pump, or pull the mechanism? For toddlers we use a pump model. The pre-k children love the pull model and the threes like to crank away.

Set aside the egg cartons to dry.

While the paint is drying, have your child sort out red, white, and blue beads from your assortment.

When paint is dry, thread a needle with a longish length of embroidery thread. Double the thread and knit it. This will keep the needle from slipping off (I did not double my thread and lost my needle twice).

Begin adding beads. You can ask your child to count out and thread a specific number of beads to practice counting or let them create patterns as they thread away. After they have threaded a series of beads it is time to poke the needle through an egg carton piece. Poke the needle up through the inside of the cup so that the cup faces down over the beads. Add more beads, then another egg carton cup, then more beads, repeating until your child has their desired number of cups and beads on their thread.  Tie of thread into a loop and use scissors to cut off any excess.

 

 

Hang in a happy place and watch it blow around in the breeze. Add bells to the bottom before beading to create a wind chime of sorts.

Happy-almost-fourth!