A Yarn Octopus And Other Crafty Endeavors

​     Tom and I spent the week of April 8-15 in Los Angeles on a spring-break grandparent baby-sitting visit with our two grand daughters.

     Since my daughter had informed me that the girls, ages 6 and almost 4, had recently discovered the joy of arts and crafts, I planned a couple of crafty projects for us to do during the week, starting with the decoration of the birthday cakes (see post from  4/15/2017).

    On Sunday, after we'd returned home from the birthday party (see post from  4/15/2017 again), we made our next craft project, a yarn octopus, an idea given to me by one of my Posse members who is a master with a skein of yarn (see post from 3/30/2017). ​

     First I gave the girls the job of measuring and cutting the the yarn into 12 strands,

...a task they found so enjoyable that I had to let them cut many more strands than needed.

     Next I pinned the strands across the top of a  styrofoam ball three and then secured the strands at the bottom of the ball with a piece of yarn.

​...and had my grand daughter hold the ball while I braided the strands into two legs.

    This we continued doing until we had an eight-legged octopus.

     I ended up having to wrap more yarn around the ball to cover it.
    Mayhaps no work of art this first try, but the girls were thrilled with their little octopus which they named Pinky Pie. 

     The next day we colored Easter eggs, which we first blew out,

...then dyed.

...using this ingenious hi-tech dipper I found,

...which made the job of dipping the eggs into and retrieving  from the dye cups exponentially less precarious.

     The eggshells we accidentally broke we tossed into the garden to give the plants some nutritious calcium.

     Later  that day, in preparation for the piano lessons I gave the girls during my visit,

    I had them do some coloring exercises to practice learning right hand from left hand and finger numbers,

​...circling the groups of two black keys then three black keys,

...and drawing quarter note stems

     Over the course of the week we also discovered the fun of coloring in the newspaper pictures,

...or cutting out  the pictures and embellishing them,

​...and cutting  out the pretty ads to make a collage.

     We also colored some shopping bags to make them prettier.

​    One day we did chalk art with friends in the park,

​...and another day we did some water creations.

​    And we did lots of drawing.

     There's always time and inspiration for drawing, right?