table time (thebabysitter flies)

When I walk in to work, there is one question that I am frequently asked, “Can we do an art project… pleeeeease?”

On occasion, I’ll walk into a very specific request, like earlier in the week when I was asked to help make Palpatine’s house from Star Wars (still thinking that one through), sometimes I will have a project planned, but most of the time I just wing it.

It was already after dinner and bedtime was lingering in the air like sweet reprieve, when the begging began. “Pleeeeease can we do an art project… puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeease?”

Not wanting to disappoint my pint-sized admirers, I dug around in the art bin and brought out a few goods to play around with while we downed desert. What we came up with was simple, a pom-pom family, assembled quite quickly with colorful pom-poms, self adhesive stickers and magic marker faces.

We spent a few minutes fiddling around, giving them names and places in the the family lineup… mother, brother, sister, baby, neighbor… babysitter!! And then they went to bed.

Projects don’t always have to be complicated, messy or involved. Sometimes the point of a project is spending quality time together!

Finally, a beautiful and simple project for colorful pom-poms.

If you’ve crafted with kids, the one thing you know is that pom-poms never stay put. Glue them to paper, they pop off. Glue eyes on them, they pop off. Nine times out of ten pom-pom projects don’t last. And kids LOVE THEM!!

Scanning through the project bin, we realized there was a giant bag of brightly colored balls of fuzz, so we came up with a plan: needle, thread, pom-poms and pipe cleaners.

First, we twisted together 3 pipe cleaners to form one long line. Then, we found the perfect empty space, and twisted the ends of the pipe cleaner around a couple push pins to create the base (see image below).

Next, we threaded pom-poms onto multi colored thread with a needle. We tied the bottom one on for security, but left the others loose, so they were easier to space out and rearrange later.

After each strand was complete, we tied it to the pipe cleaner at even intervals. Once we felt there were enough strands, we perfected the piece by sliding the pom-poms up and down the thread until they were well spaced… then we stood back to admire our new masterpiece!!