Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Make Name Cards for Passover

There is no end to the many different ways you can make place cards for your Passover Seder. This idea uses up those plastic baskets that strawberries and other fruit may come in. My original idea was hoping that they would shrink like shrink plastic does alas they do not but this is still fun and it allows for some marker time and most kids do love marker time!What you need:
*scissors
*plastic fruit containers, washed & dried
*permanent markers (I know, I'm sorry but Crayola won't stick)
*foil
*cookie sheetscrumdilly-do it!

Wash and dry your plastic containers. Your kidlets can do this, easy peasy. If you can, remove the label from the container so that you can use both the top and the bottom. Each container will give you two place cards.

Cut apart your containers so that your wee ones can doodle-up the tops and bottoms. Save the sides for other fun but usually they are too bumpy to write on. You can even cut each top and/or bottom piece into two pieces for smaller place cards.
Have your tots use the markers to decorate each piece and then place on a sheet of foil on a cookie sheet and pop into a low temperature oven or toaster oven. 200 degrees or under is good.
The plastic doesn't shrink, but it does curl up quite a bit. You may choose to weigh it down with a cast iron skillet or other heavy oven safe pan. It goes without question that you are to do this part and NOT your tots! After about ten minutes, the plastic will curl and be pliable. As quickly as possible, remove pieces, one at a time and gently shape into a wave so that the place card can stand on its own. The plastic cools very fast and becomes rigid. And yes, it does get a might bit stinky.Viola! You are done! You may want to experiment with your kidlets and let them color up all bits of the containers and then see how wonky they will curl. Call it sculptural art!

3 comments:

  1. Cute project! #6 plastic is the kind that shrinks, just in case you'd like to try that!

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  2. Yup, I was going to say what Kara already did, try it with the #6 plastic if you want it to shrink.

    What can't you do with those permanent markers, they're so fun!

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  3. I really kind of like the curlyness of the non-shrinking berry baskets!

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