Crayon Etching On Metal Tins Tutorial

I love these etched tins and am to excited to show you how to do it!  My children made these tins for their Grandfather’s Birthday.  They literally drew the pictures onto the tins themselves and the designs were then permanently etched into the metal! 
I have actually etched a few metal things before these using two different methods.  Then, I was doing some research online and found this method and thought it was something my readers might want to try.  I saw a few variations on this but I mostly followed this tutorial, by Kylyssa on Squidoo.  My technique is a combo from what I had already done, and then hers, using the crayon for the resist.
Supplies: Pencil, copper wire, 6V Battery, Crayon, Metal Tin, Medium Plastic or Glass Container, wires with alligator clips attached on both ends, Acetone (Nail Polish Remover), sandpaper (if using an altoid tin or other tin with design and/or color on it), salt, and water.
Your supplies are shown above, and can all be bought at your local store like at Walmart. That 6V battery, I found in the camping department (they use them for lanterns).  They are about $1.  The wire and alligator clips can be bought at Radio Shack.  They are about $3.
You could use Altoid tins, however, I bought a huge supply of plain tins, as I’m using them for many things.  If you have Altoid tins you will need to sand off the design on the top (or anywhere that you want to end up etched), using sandpaper and lots of elbow grease!
If you buy tins from a hobby store that are like mine, you will still need to remove a protective layer they all have on them.  You can remove this by using acetone (or nail polish remover).  Make sure you remove all of this protective layer because the etching will not happen where any of that protective layer is left.

I take the top off of the bottom before I start working with them.

It makes them easier to work with and they come apart very easily, just be careful not to break the hinge.

You will take your crayon and cover the tin in crayon.  Get as much crayon onto the tin as you can.  The crayon is actually going to be the part that resists the etching and the tin will stay shiny where you have crayon. 
Next you use an embossing gun (or hair dryer) to melt the crayon wax.  This is very important to get a nice crayon layer, as you will get pot marks of etched dots wherever the crayon did not end up covering.  I found this worked best by coloring a layer of crayon, melting the wax completely on the tin, and then adding more wax with the embossing gun going at the same time so it melts wherever you touch your crayon (because the tin is heated up and the crayon has the embossing gun over it as well).

You want as good of a layer of wax as you can get.

The above picture is what will happen if you don’t have a nice layer of wax.  This was my first attempt and actually I was pretty happy about it….until my next attempts were exactly how I wanted it!  If you look closely you can see lots of white dots etched all over the tin.  Yes, you do see the initials that I etched into the tin, but the rest of the tin does not have a solid shiny look that can be achieved if this is done correctly.
After you have your layer of crayon on you need to let it cool (those tins can burn you as you do this because the metal conducts the heat all the way through them). 
Take your pencil and draw a design into the crayon layer.  You want to go all the way through the wax to the tin.  This is quite easy to do.  But you are also not trying to draw onto the tin, either.  When you draw onto the tin, you are removing the wax.  The above picture shows how the wax can curl up in tendrils and still stay attached.  Make sure to brush this wax off or it can mess up your design by covering up some of the part that you drew.

Here is one that my Son drew up.  It is a picture of he and his Grandpa wearing pirate hats.  I did have my kids first draw out what design they wanted to do ahead of time.  I traced the tin shape a couple of times on a piece of paper to give my kids places to figure out what they wanted to draw.
I love what they each chose to do.  I was surprised by how easy this was for my kids to do.  I did not have to do any redos or even touchups on them.

Next you will set up your etching bath.  The above picture shows my set up. 
Bend the copper wire so that it holds onto the container on the side (as you see on the left side of my container).  Then you bend the wire back and forth the length and width of your container.  You do this so that you have an even current running through the container.
Boil some water on the stove and dissolve salt into it until you can’t dissolve anymore salt into it.
Put the bent copper wire in place in the container and pour in your salt water.  You should let the water cool off before continuing as the hot water could melt the crayon and ruin your design.
Attach the wires to the battery and into the water.  One wire will go from the negative on the battery, to the copper wire (see my yellow clips).  The next wire goes from the positive on the battery and then clips onto the tin (the green clips).  You will then float your tin (that is crayon covered and already has the design drawn into it) in the water with the design face down into the water.  To keep my tin completely level I draped the green clip’s wire over a glass.  This will help the tin to etch uniformly.
Leave your tin for 5-10 minutes.  You will see bubbles in the water and the water will get really yucky/mucky looking.  This is all normal.  The longer you leave the tin in the salt water, the deeper the etch will be.  Take your tin out and wash the gunk off and then remove the crayon. 
You could go one step further and put paint into the etched part, to accentuate the design.  However, I did not find that I needed to do this.
Here are my kids’ tins with their own designs on them:
The above tin is my Daughter and her Grandpa climbing a grassy hill.  The sun is in the top right corner, peeking out from a cloud.   

My oldest thought it through and knew her Grandfather would be using these for all his small parts.  She labeled one tin “gears and gadgets” and another “springs and stuff” and then drew gears and springs onto them.  I thought that was so ingenious.

Here is my Son’s all finished up.  Notice how shiny the rest of the tin is?  We got good layers of wax on these babies to protect them during the etching.

Here they all are together.   

My final thought is to have your kids also etch the bottoms.  I had my kids write a message as well as their name, age, and the year.
My kids’ tins say “You are #1 Grapa from______”, “Love You”, and “I (heart) U!”.
What person wouldn’t adore a momento like this?  I will be having them make some for themselves as well as for me! ;)
Keep tuning back in because I will have parts 2 and 3 to this tin etching!  Each one will show you a variation on this kind of etching!
Rebecca

I am linking to the following parties; Stephanie Lynn

Kool Aid Playdough Legos

I am so excited about these!  Anjeanette, Katrina, and I all have boys with Birthdays this month!  All of these boys picked Lego Themed Birthdays.  Thankfully they each went with a different secondary theme.  YAY!  We had no clue that the other boys were doing this theme as well.  How fun!  Normally we talk a lot about the work we are doing on our parties.  This time we didn’t.  We wanted to come up with our own ideas.  So be prepared for some neat Lego Parties in the next month!
Another interesting tidbit is that these boys’ ages range 4 years!  I love Legos, and that they are universally cool for all ages!

Those clear plastic squares above are molds that were made from actual Lego pieces using orthodontist tools.
My Son is just going with a straight up theme of Legos!  I was thrilled when he came up with this idea.  I LOVE these molds and am going to make so many different things with them!  (So stay tuned).
In our family, as many of you know, we have to be concerned with special dietary needs of many of the cousins (which makes it kind of nice that not one is singled out for it!).  So, one of my goals is always to come up with as many things that are not food related as I can.  My goody bags will have no candy in them, so that no one feels left out.  Having these molds opens up so many fun options for me (I’m keeping the rest a secret)!

First up, I made Kool Aid Playdough Legos.  I used to buy knick knacks from Oriental Trading Company, Dollar Store, etc to fill my goody bags.  Now I try to make the things that go into my goody bags (including the goody bags themselves).  I am quite aware that once the kids get their hands on their playdough legos, they will no longer be lego shapes.  However, that is fine with me.  I wanted something that kids would actually want to play with.  Making it into the Lego shape just fits well with the theme and will look cute in their goody bags!
  
I chose to make Kool Aid Playdough because the Kool Aid would automatically color it, and I love that it scents it as well!  Plus, it’s always fun to make.  Here’s the recipe that I used, but there are a million recipes that I’m sure will work just fine!  I’ve heard you can even store this kind of playdough indefinitely.   I did keep my Pumpkin Spice Playdough around for the whole month of November and it was still just fine when I finally tossed it.

Kool Aid Playdough
1 C Flour
1/2 C Salt
1 pkg Kool Aid
2 tsp Cream Of Tartar
1 C Water
1 TBL Vegetable Oil
Boil the water and vegetable oil.  Stir all dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.  Add the dry ingredients to the boiling water and oil.  Mix until it forms into a ball.  Then, knead the dough by hand.  It will be quite hot at first so be careful.  Keep the dough in a sealed container like a ziplock baggie.  No need to refrigerate.
This is NonToxic!  YAY!

I figured I needed to throw in a few posts that were not Valentine’s related, this month!  Plus, I am just so excited about my Son’s Birthday that I thought I’d give you guys a preview of some of the things I am hard at work making for his party!

Rebecca

We are linking up to Fireflies and Jellybeans and Skip To My Lou, Twice Remembered, and amylouwho, and DIY Day, and Today's Creative Blog and The Girl Creative, and Blue Cricket Design, and WFMW, and Life As Lori, Somewhat Simple, Look What I Made!

Make Science Kit Gifts

Last year I made some science kits for a niece and a nephew as Christmas gifts. Over the previous year my boys and I had an explosion of fun with science experiments and I wanted to share our favorites with their cousins. The kits you buy in the store aren’t all that complicated. You are mostly paying for the written experiments themselves. The supplies included aren’t all that expensive to get and some of them are household items. You can put together a $20 kit for less than $10 and have money left over to add some items to make a really amazing kit.

I purchased a $1.00 plastic shoe box container to hold everything.

I then added:

Color mixing Trays for color experiments. Use primary colored water to make 24 different colors! Just go buy some bath color tablets. You can find them with the bubble bath at places like Walmart and Target. I like the ones by Crayola. You can cut the tablet in half or even fourths for your experiments.

Pipettes are great for most experiments like color mixing. You can use them to squirt the vinegar onto the baking soda in your volcano. My boys love any reason to use them.

These test tubes are the coolest. I will tell you why. They are soda bottles before they are expanded. That is why they are called “Baby Soda Bottle Test Tubes.” I believe the gumbo test tubes are the 2 liter size soda bottles. So not only are they great for a science kit they are also a cool thing to point out to your kids. Let them compare the test tubes to an actual soda bottle. Encourage them to think about how they get from point A to point B. Think about it. If a Soda company wants to order bottles for packaging, wouldn’t it be better to receive them in their pre expanded form? Think of all the wasted cardboard if they got them shipped in the final size! Seriously cool fact. Ok I know my geek is showing.

Look in the dollar section of your craft store for Insta Snow tubes. I found some last year at my Local Michaels store. You can find these for around $1.00. I highly recommend that you try it. A little goes a long way so don’t use the whole tube at once. I suggest this be used outside. It is basically tiny water gel crystals so it won’t harm your grass. In fact it will help keep your grass hydrated and it will eventually break down.

Add a cube of polymer clay so the kids can make their own reusable volcano. If you want to get fancy then give them a cube of brown and a cube of red so they can make lava flowing down their volcano. Basically they make a mountain with a well in the middle for the baking soda and the vinegar to go in. Then their parents can bake the volcano and it is ready to be used over and over and over. To “erupt” their volcano all they need to do is pour some vinegar (with red coloring if desired) in the well of their volcano and drop in a small amount of baking soda. Be sure to place the volcano in a container or on a plate to catch the “lava flow”.

Supply Elmer’s school glue and a small container of Borax along with a science experiment sheet that tells them how to make their own slime. Get the directions here. (they called it glacier gak but it is the recipe for traditional home made slime). Beware that children with texture issues may actually throw up when kneading the the slime just after it is poured into the borax solution. Once it is kneaded it will be less like lightly cooked egg whites. (We have video of my little guy gagging every time he put his hand in the mixture to knead. Like good parents we have played the clip for all that we know and still get a big laugh out of it.)

Other items you can add are:

Pick up a Tornado Tube and then go to the experiments tab and click on weather experiments.

I love the Steve Spangler Science web site because you can get individual test tube experiments like these or these. What ever concept you want to teach they have fun products. You can get items for individual experiments or buy an entire classroom kit. So much fun.

You can find so many gift ideas from this one site it is hard to choose. If you don’t want to build a science kit from scratch they have lots of Kits in a bag that come with a rack of 6 test tubes all with a different experiment in each tube. If you clicked the link I provided you will see so much more than the test tube racks. I had done a search to give you a link to all their test tube racks and came up with a ton of kits that range from inexpensive to not so inexpensive depending on your budget.

Don’t for get to go to their science experiments tab to print out some very cool experiments. There are tons that use every day house hold products. Each one not only tells you the “how to” but the “why it works” behind the experiment. I would suggest going through them and printing out the ones you like and then purchase any “Lab Supplies” that aren’t easily found around the house. Some of them have video clips showing the experiments. Steve Spangler’s enthusiasm for science is contagious. He makes science fun!

Here are a list of some of the ones I printed out for the kits I made for Anjeanette’s and Rebecca’s children. All of them use every day items and you probably already have around the house.

Density column experiment using house hold liquids.

Pop Rocks experiment

Film canister Rocket This one says to use Alka Seltzer but you can use baking soda and vinegar. Go to a photo developing place and ask them if they have any empty film cans. I got a ton from Walgreens. The ones that work the best are the see through ones with the lids that fit inside the lip of the canister. I found the type that the lid fits over the top lip are harder to get together in time. Give them a piece of fun foam so they can hot glue fins on the sides. They can use half a mini easter egg as the nose for their rocket (or half a small styrofoam ball). Give them stickers to decorate their rockets (use stickers that won't come apart when wet).

Lava Lamp Tube

Color Changing Milk

Color mixing tray experiment

Cloud in a Bottle

Ketchup packet Diver a version of the Cartesian Diver experiment.

Poke a Straw through a Potato Trick

Do Not Open Bottle Prank

I printed out these experiments and put them in a presentation folder with a cover letter explaining the kit. I included a summary of all the fun experiments they could do with their kits. I also typed up a few pages for color mixing suggestions.

Put a primary color in each of 3 test tubes and put the caps on. Then band them together with a rubber band. Hold them up to the light and look through them. Turn the test tubes and watch the colors change as you look through two colors at once.

If you have water gel crystals, soak some crystals in each of the 3 primary colors. Layer the colored crystals in a test tube. Watch as the colors create a rainbow in a tube. Where two colors touch it will make a third color. Eventually all the colors will mix and the crystals will all be brown.

I have talked about these crystals Here and Here

Some of these experiments would be great for science fairs….. The kids can pick a concept like density and demonstrate a couple of experiments and then elaborate on how they are related and how they show the concept.

I hope you get around to making one of these kits for a gift. They are fun and educational all at the same time and they don’t have to cost you an arm and a leg.

Katrina

Technorati Tags: science experiments,gifts,kits

Save on Water in your garden

In honor of Earth Day, April 22nd, I thought I would post about a way to save water in your garden.


Add some water gel crystals (aka crystal soil) to your pots. Add some when planting new plants. Add some to your lawn. You will be able to cut back your watering. They are biodegradable and will last for up to 8 years. Come see how I am adding some to my garden.


If you have been reading my earlier posts many of them have been using these crystals. If I haven't convinced you yet that these things are great...keep watching for future posts. My boys love these things. We can't get enough. I hope to give you many reasons to go out and get some for yourself, or what to use them for now that you have them.


This product can be found in the garden section of your home improvement store or at your local nursery. If they don't have this product you can ask if they have crystal soil, watering crystals. They are all the same thing. If not, I found them on line by searching "crystal soil for gardening." My parents recently found them in the fertilizer section. The kind they found have fertilizer added to them. Which makes sense to me. I was actually going to try soaking them in water with fertilizer and see how well they do. Now I know that is a viable option.

I have two methods for adding these crystals to existing pots.

The first one involves a turkey baster. (I just love how silly that sounds! It has kids written all over that statement.) Your kids will have fun filling the bulb up with hydrated crystals (they have to be the smaller finer crystals to work in the baster, not the ones you get from the craft store they will be big like crushed ice). The product I have pictured at the top of the post is what I used for this. You can still use the others just not with a baster (unless you are willing to cut the tip off to make the end bigger).




This is something that your young children can do with you and they will have lots of fun along the way. I had a little helper while adding these to my strawberry pots. My oldest got interested and asked what we were doing. I told him that we were adding the water crystals to the soil next to the plants so that they could help water the plants. I explained that they soak up water as we water the pots or when it rains. They help to save water that would other wise be wasted. He said "I like giving toys to kids who don't have any like the way the crystals give water to the plants when they need it." What a wise thing for a 7 year old to say. My 4 year old just liked making holes and squirting crystals in to fill them up.




Push your turkey baster or what ever you are making your hole with into your soil. This is nice loose potting soil and the baster went in easy. Make the hole as deep as you can. You want to encourage the roots to go down.
Pull your turkey baster or stick or what ever back out. Here is the fun part for your kids. Let them squeeze the bulb of the baster to put the crystals in the whole. Fill it to about 2" below the surface. Do this next to each of your plants in the pot. These are fairly small plants so we made a lot of holes. If you have bigger plants you may want to put 3 or 4 holes filled with the water gels around each plant. These are the hands of my 4 year old.
This is what it looks like with the hole filled with crystals. This one looks a little over filled to me, but with the dark soil it is hard to tell. No worries, we made our holes fairly deep. I then just covered up the holes with soil. Rinse out your turkey baster outside so you don't fill your drain with crystals. Then wash it and you can use it as was intended next time. If yours is like mine it is old and may be time to get a new one for the kitchen. Personally, I don't use pesticides around my edibles so I have no problem washing and putting this back in my kitchen.

The second method isn't as much fun but is less messy. Poke holes into the soil with something about the diameter of a turkey baster (large tent stake, dowel). Try to make the holes as deep as you can. Then sprinkle dry crystals into the whole. This method requires a lot more guess work. Remember that from my neck cooler tutorial 1 teaspoon will hydrate to 1 1/2 cups total. Then you have to water normally for a week or two to hydrate the crystals. Even though this method is quicker, I like my first method because I knew the amount of crystals I was using would fill the hole exactly as I wanted it to. The other thing is that they are already hydrated and I can cut back my watering right away.

Also when planting new plants, add some hydrated crystals to the bottom of the hole you dig and then put your plant on top.

Adding water crystals to your lawn:

Adding these to my lawn requires that I aerate my lawn. I have a tool for this. It pulls out two cores at a time out of my lawn. Leaving a hole behind. It is called a core aerator.


Yes this will be time consuming, however, it is recommended that you aerate your lawn 1-2 times a year, in the spring and fall. This keeps it from getting too dense and helps with drainage. We have Bermuda grass and it gets very dense and spreads by seeds and by putting out runners. The under layer becomes a mesh of the runners over time. De thatching by using a heavy rake is not one of my favorite jobs. It is like trying to comb extremely tangled hair on a much bigger scale. Back to the crystals. I have also seen a tool meant for aerating the lawn that does not take out cores of the grass and soil but rather pokes holes. This would also work. Or have some one come out and do it for you. When you aerate your lawn you will want to water it and let the water soak in and soften the soil.



With my core aerator I just step in the middle and push it all the way into the grass. Go along and poke holes all over your lawn. Don't worry about picking up the cores. They will dissolve and help to nourish your lawn.



I made my holes about the same distance apart as the core aerator does. About every 6" or so.

Then you can go through and just put the crystals in all the holes. Be careful not to put too many crystals in your holes. When you water they will expand and come up out of the holes. For this reason, I suggest you use an 1/8 teaspoon to measure your crystals. However, I would suggest you use less than that even. Show your kids how to do it so they can help put the crystals in. For little kids you can give them a little funnel to put in the hole and then pour the crystals into the funnel. The funnel really helps to get the crystals exactly where you want them, in the bottom of the whole.

I did the rest of my law with my children. I gave them the funnel and a 1/4 teaspoon (because I don't have a 1/8 teaspoon) and instructed them not to use a full scoop. As I went along making the holes, they followed behind adding the crystals. Even still I had a few holes that, when we watered our law generously, had crystals coming up out of them. I simply scooped them up and mixed them in some of my pots. I think that one of the best parts for the kids was watering the holes after we were done. They just can't resist playing with water. I also found that it too several days for all the over filled holes to over flow. So maybe a pinch would be a better measure for kids. What ever you use make sure it isn't very much. A little goes a long way.


I figure if I am going to spend the time to make the holes, then I might as well add water saving crystals. I can't wait to see how much time this is going to save me this summer. I don't have sprinklers set up in my lawn yet. So I spend time nearly every day in the hottest part of the summer watering my lawn. Though honestly, a lot of the time it becomes water play time for my kids so I don't mind so much.



It makes me happy to have my little patch of green. It has made it more enjoyable for us to play in the back yard. At one point my kids spend a good 80+% of their day outside when the weather was nice (meaning not over 100). Even then they were out side, just kept going in to cool off and then back out again. Little by little over the years we have added things so we could enjoy our yard more. My oldest was a runner as a toddler. I would take him to the park and before I knew it he was heading off the other side of the playground. I couldn't take my eyes off him for a second. It got to the point that I didn't want to take him to the park, especially with his newborn brother. I just couldn't relax, I couldn't even sit and talk with friends. I was always on guard. So I created my safe haven for my kids to play safely outside in our own yard. It is my little patch of heaven. My friends son refers to our yard as "the park."

Katraina

Make your own Fossils

A few years ago I dreamed up this project for my youngest son's Dinosaur themed party. At that time they didn't sell kits for these. I hadn't seen this idea any where. I just thought of how you can use plaster to pull up impressions of foot prints in sand or dirt or whatever. On the East Coast there are real Dinosaur foot prints in rock that you can make your own plaster cast of. I remember a sign with instructions on how to make the cast. This picture is from my oldest son's World Explorer party this year. It was a huge hit for all the kids. Their ages ranged from 4 years old to about 11 years old. When we did this the first time the ages were even younger still. I would say that any child that either likes to play with Play Doh, likes Dinosaurs or fossils would love this project. I think that even some adults would love this project.

What you need to get:

Oil based clay the kind you have to bake...We used Sculpty clay

(if you use something like Play Doh that is water based it will get soggy and make it difficult to remove from your plaster fossil. Though it will be more like an added excavation project, using tooth picks to scrape Play Doh out of the details, but it will take hours, we tried it. Be careful while the plaster is still soft. I would say for little kids you are better off with oil based clay.)

Plastic Dinosaurs-skeletons look the coolest but you can any small plastic Dinosaurs

Leaves with interesting texture (optional)

A shallow container just bigger than your Dinosaur (we used plastic food containers you can buy at the store)

Aluminum foil

Plaster of Paris

Something to mix the plaster in (that you will throw away when done)

Something to measure water and plaster powder
Something to stir the water and powder together (you will throw this away when done)

We set up a large table with a throw away table cloth and had the kids do this outside. Clean up was as easy as rolling up the table cloth and throwing it away. However, the table cloth was a mess with plaster powder and bits every where. Do this outside, you will thank me.

First you will need to give each child a sizable chunk of clay (don't worry you can reuse the clay for something else since it won't dry out). They will have to kneed it to soften it up. (his is great for kids with sensory issues and gives great input to their hands. Also great for strengthening hand muscles to get them ready for writing and other fine motor skills. Also a great way for adults to release some tension that comes with planning a party.) If you are doing this for a party, you can have the kids do this in shifts. It will take about 20-30 minutes for these to dry. So plan on doing these right away. These were the party favors for the kids to take home along with some other trinkets from the pinata. Oh and when you are done put the Dinosaurs in your sand box and have them do a Dinosaur Dig!


Then they will need a piece of foil large enough to line their shallow container. Crumple the foil some first before lining your tray/container (it will give an interesting rock like texture around your fossil) Be careful not to rip it. You don't want the plaster to leak out any holes.

Make your lump of clay wide and long enough for your dinosaur to fit. Don't think it out too much, you don't want to hit the bottom of the clay while pressing in your dinosaur. You will want to press the clay into the foil to try to prevent the plaster from seeping under the clay. It will make removing the clay easier later on. Lay out your dinosaurs. Let the kids decide what they want to do. Some of the kids at the party took sticks and pressed them in. Some drew their initials into it. Here you can see I used several types of dinosaurs. Some of the kids did all of the little dinosaurs, "like a mass grave." Others added a little dinosaur next to the large one and said "it's Mama and Baby." Kind of depressing if you ask me but they were having tons of fun letting their stories come to life. In the picture above I picked some of my parsley because I thought it would leave an interesting pattern. Look around and see if you have something that you can imagine is prehistoric looking.

When making your impressions, you are going to have to help your child make sure the whole side of the dinosaur is pressed firmly into the clay. You may have to rock the dinosaur as you press to get the entire profile. The neck, tail and spine at the pelvic area are usually the places that don't just press in. We had to show the kids how to press on the legs and then all along the dinosaur to make sure we got a good impression. If you are careful you can put the dinosaur back in place if you need to go back over an area. Some kids will find that they have rocked their Dinosaur two much and made a double image. The beauty of this project is they can mash it up and start over till they have something they like. This picture is a bit deceiving because it almost looks like a positive image, when it is in fact a negative image. When you pour the plaster over you will get the positive image and it will look like a skeleton that has been partially excavated.

Mixing and pouring of the plaster should be done by an adult. Follow the directions on the package for how much water and how much plaster you need. Remember if it is really dry and hot the day you do this, you should add a bit more water. It will give you more time to work with it before it begins to harden. Plaster starts setting fairly quickly so mix up only enough for the fossils that are ready. Pour a fairly thick layer of plaster over the clay. You want it to be thick enough that it won't break easily. Remember the edges will be thicker than the center where the clay is. It is a good idea to either make your plaster a touch on the runny side and be sure to tap your tray on the table or ground to encourage all the plaster to fill all the little spaces of the skeleton. Tapping will make the air bubbles come up to the surface. Adults should do this for little kids. You don't want plaster flying around. Did I mention that plaster can be messy? This is the fun part. This is where all the OOOOO and AAAAAAAAAAs come in. Seriously this is where all the other parents think you are the COOLEST MOM EVER!!! Your party will be talked about for a really long time, probably years and years. Once the plaster is dry use the foil to help you lift the fossil out of the container. Gently pull the foil away. It is ok to rip it but if you are careful you can place your fossil on top while you pull away the clay and it will catch some of the flaking plaster. The thin edges make break off a bit and this is where some more mess will happen, particularly if some of the plaster leaked under the clay.

Now the kids have a fossil that they can proudly display in their room on a plate stand or on a wall hanger of some sort. We didn't have the kids paint them up at the party. This project takes up a bit of time as it is. I think they look great just the way they are. Mine will remain unpainted. All of the kids were excited about the fossils they made. This is crafting made cool! Boy and girls alike will love this. I know from personal experience.

My brother was here for my son's Birthday party a few months ago. He did a fantastic job running the fossil making table for me while I was able to focus on making sure other things were ready to go. I will also say that he had as much fun as the kids doing this. He does not often have opportunities like this to make something with kids. Grandparents are also usually happy to help out with projects like this. My Dad also got into this project and helped out. I also noted that many of the parents were standing by to see this project in action.

I always recommend getting other adults involved in manning an activity like this. Give them a quick tutorial on what the project is and have one or more adults work with the kids. You will thank me for delegating some of the party activities. At this party I asked a friend to take pictures. It ensured that I got more than just a handful of party pictures. Isn't that what family and friends are for? They make my life so much easier during parties. Too many years I did all the work and didn't have any time to socialize because of it. Because I delegated this on the last party I was able to socialize far more than any other party we ever had. I never knew parties could be so stress free!!

Katrina

Dying eggs with natural dyes

My red cabbage juice experiments got me thinking. What if I used the left over red cabbage juice to dye an egg? What I have for you is the beautiful blue egg in the above picture. I did add a bit of vinegar to the cabbage juice to help the process. I left my egg in the cabbage juice about 24 hours. You have to be careful when you place the egg in the juice. Any place that the egg touches the sides of your container will not take on color. I also found that when I checked on my eggs early on, I removed some of the color when picking them up out of the juice with a spoon. It seems that the coloring is more of a coating than actually coloring the shell itself.

Since using red cabbage juice worked so well, I decided to go ahead and try another food item known to be used as a dye.

I decided to see what strawberries would do. I cut some up and put them in a sauce pan and added enough water to just cover the strawberries. I boiled them for about 20 minutes. I added vinegar to both of my solutions to help with the process and left them to soak for 24 hours. Even though I strained my strawberries through a sieve I still had pulp in my strawberry juice. I very carefully rinsed off my eggs after removing them from the juice. I wanted to wash away the pulp but not the color. What I ended up with was a pretty marbled rose colored egg.

Here is my Strawberry Juice dyed egg.

This was a fun experiment to see how different fruits and vegetables would add color to my eggs. Though I can tell you it is not at all practical for dying a dozen or more Easter eggs. You won't save money but you will have fun with your children. They will learn a little bit about how their clothes get their color and what people used for early dyes.

Note: While the eggs were still wet the color was a bit unstable. That is to say, you can rub off some of the color if you are not careful. Once they are dry the color will hold. If you need to rinse pulp off, do it in a slow trickle of water or dip it carefully in a water bath. You only want to rinse off the pulp not the color. I also wanted to note that I put them in the refrigerator after putting them in the dye. I didn't want the eggs to spoil.

Here is a link for how to make the Red Cabbage Juice.

Color changing volcano

Everyone pretty much knows how to make a volcano using vinegar and baking soda. You make a mound with home made dough, Play Doh or some other modeling compound, put in some vinegar and then drop in the baking soda (or have the baking soda in the mound and pour in the vinegar). Most of the time I have added a bit of red food coloring to make it a bit more dramatic. What if you could change it up a bit? What if by making some red cabbage juice you could have a color changing volcano? If you did my "Acid or Base" experiment posted earlier, you know that red cabbage juice changes color depending on if it is mixed to an acid or a base. If you took my advice and saved the red cabbage juice then your are probably ready to go with this experiment.

What you will need:

Red Cabbage juice (How to make it)
Flour
Baking Soda
White vinegar
Child's medicine syringe, eye dropper or pipette (plastic eye dropper)
3 cups
White plate or light colored so you can see the color change better

To make your volcano mound you will need to:

In a cup, mix 4 Tablespoons baking soda, 1 tablespoon flour and 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons red cabbage juice ( this is enough to make two small mounds). Stir together dry mix with 1 tablespoon red cabbage juice. Add 1 teaspoon red cabbage juice at a time as needed to make a crumbly paste. (If you add too little liquid your mound won't hold together as well, but if you add too much your mound won't hold it's shape.)

Take half of the mixture and put onto the plate. Mold it into a mountain shape in the center of your plate. I added a small indent in the center of the mountain. Mine is a rather large indent. Since you have enough mixture to make two, try making one with a very small indent and one with a larger indent just for fun.

Now you will need to gather:
A cup filled with red cabbage juice
A cup filled with white vinegar
Your medicine syringe or dropper

I suggest you take everything outside in case there are spills.


Now you are ready to begin.

1: Pour some of the red cabbage juice around your volcano. Your volcano is an island in the middle of the sea. Observe how the purple juice changes color around the volcano and slowly makes the whole sea blue.


2: Draw up some vinegar and drop it onto the volcano. You can keep doing this until your volcano has dissolved. To really see the color change effect squirt some vinegar on the side of your volcano. It will bubble less and you will be able to see the sea change color. You will need to pour off the old red cabbage juice at some point. Your volcano won't slide around on your plate so you can just dump the juice in the sink or in the dirt. Add more red cabbage juice around your volcano and keep going.



In this picture you can see the reaction of the vinegar added to the center of the volcano. You can also see what happened when I squirted the vinegar down the side of the volcano. You get a much clearer view of the color change when adding the vinegar down the side and it will make neat swirls.

What you are going to see:

The reaction between the vinegar and the baking soda will cause a bubbling action. Depending on how concentrated your cabbage juice was when you add it to the baking soda mount it will turn anything from a lighter blue-green to a deep blue. When the vinegar (acid) hits the baking soda volcano the initial color reaction is to turn red (if you look closely you can see the bubbles have a pink hue to them). When the "lava" hits the "sea" it will turn pink red-ish color. As it mixes together it will turn back into purple. The color changing you are looking for is in the volcano mixture when you mix it. Then when you pour your purple juice around the volcano, it will slowly turn blue. When your volcano erupts it will again change the color of the "sea".


How this works:

If we go back to the Acids and Base experiment, we learned how acids and bases effect red cabbage juice. Bases (like baking soda) turn the red cabbage juice blue. Depending on how basic the solution is the color change will be anything from green to deep blue. Acids (like vinegar) will turn the purple cabbage juice anything from light purple to a red-ish pink depending on how acidic they are.

The bubbles created when mixing vinegar and baking soda are evidence of carbon dioxide gas. The bubbles are filled with the colorless gas.

*My volcano was made using red cabbage juice that was not reduced. The stronger your red cabbage juice is the deeper blue your volcano will be. As you can see if you don't reduce it, both your indicator strips and your volcano will work just fine.

I hope you try this and I hope it makes you want to try the Acid or Base experiment too.

Stand by with the cabbage juice.............if you have any left. See what plans I have for it for Easter........

Acid or a Base? Indicator strips

You can make your own PH indicator strips. Test all kinds of liquids with them to see if they are an acid, a base or neutral.

Did you know that red cabbage juice changes color when a base or acid is added? Oh the fun you can have with red cabbage juice!!

What you will need:
small red cabbage

bowls
water
saucepan
jug/container
strainer
paper towels or coffee filters

sheet of white paper
colored pencils
solution liquids to test- Lemon and orange juice, vinegar, milk, tap water,soapy water,yogurt and, baking soda in water, salt in water, just to name a few.

glasses or paper cups

Step 1: Chop into small pieces 1/2 a small red cabbage. Put the chopped cabbage into a saucepan with just enough water to cover it. A parent should boil it for 20 to 30 minutes. Until the liquid turns a dark purple color. To make it stronger simmer uncovered to reduce the water content a bit.

Step 2: Let the cabbage juice cool and then strain into a jug or container.

Step 3: Cut 2 inch strips of paper towels or coffee filters.


Step 4: soak the strips of paper in the red cabbage juice until they turn bluish purple.

Step 5: Lay the wet strips flat to dry. These are you indicator strips.

Step 6: Label the cups and fill each with a different liquid to test.

Step 7: Use the indicator strips to test the liquids. Dip your strips in the liquids. Start with something like vinegar and explain that it is an acid. Then test baking soda in water and explain that it is a base (alkali for older kids). Wait a few minutes for the color to fully develop.

Step 8: Make a chart and label by dividing a piece of white paper into 3 sections. Label the first section "Acid". The middle section "Neutral" and the last section "Base". Then have your child make squares for the vinegar (in the acid column) and the baking soda (in the base column). Now let your child test other liquids around the house. Then have them tell you if they are an acid, neutral or a base. Label them on your chart. You can print out mine if you like.

Why this works:

Your cabbage juice is a simple pH tester. The pigments in the red cabbage react differently to different substances, acids and bases.

When you dip your strips into your substance and wait a few minutes the color will fully develop.

The strips will turn red-yellow in acid. Green in neutral and purple blue in bases (alkali).

Don't throw away your un-used red cabbage juice!!! Save it and put it in the fridge.

I will show you how to make a color change volcano! I will be posting the instructions for it Soon!!