Pipe Cleaner Bubble Wands

I have seen lovely, whimsical bubble wands made from bent wire and beads, and while my girls would love these, there is no way they could bend the wire. So I decided to try making them from pipe cleaners and pony beads! (Fortunately the lovely folks over at CraftProjectIdeas.com kindly provided the pipe cleaners and pony beads. While they were given to me free to use however I wished, I do purchase their products frequently!)

We started with 2 pipe cleaners for each wand. We twisted the first pipe cleaner together to make the handle adding beads along the way.

We twisted the second around the first to make it a bit sturdier and then shaped it. I think to make them again I would twist half of each pipe cleaner together to make the handle and the second half to make the top. That may be a bit sturdier and easier.

While the girls were busy working on their wands Eli was using the pom poms that came with the pipe cleaners to practice putting one in each section of a silicon baking pan. Then he went on to stringing beads on pipe cleaners (I didn't know he could do this, but he grabbed a pipe cleaner and started)!

Once we had a bunch of wands made, we headed out to try them!  It was super windy, but we still got some bubbles.

 Once we were finished, I rinsed the wands with water and laid them to dry.  The next morning they are good as new and quite useful as princess wands too!

I am sharing this over at the Spring Learning and Play Blog Hop! Make sure you stop by and see all the great Spring posts!

Here is the line up:

Monday

Teach Beside Me  ~ Nature and Play ~   Royal Baloo  ~Life with Moore Babies

Tuesday

The Pleasantest Thing ~ Artchoo ~ Smiling like Sunshine ~ Preschool Powol Packets 

Wednesday

Growing Green Fingered Kids ~ Inspiration Laboratories
~ Montessori Tidbits ~Wildflower Ramblings

 Thursday

Kitchen Counter Chronicles ~ No Doubt Learning
~ Sugar Aunts~ Craft to Art ~ From a Country Road

Friday

Rainy Day Mum ~ Creative Playhouse ~ Scribble Doodle and Draw ~ True Aim Education

Join in the fun and link up your Springtime Posts!

Coloful Bubble Snakes

It's definitely felt more like SPRING around here! That means warmer weather which leads to more time outside and bubbles! I saw tons of people making these Bubble Snakes last year, but it took this long for us to get around to it. Really no reason for it either because they are super easy! 

Start with a plastic bottle, an old mismatched socks (I don't really even know why I hold onto these), and some duct tape for each kid. Cut the end off the bottle (please squish it and cut with scissor, do NOT stab it, and your finger, with a knife like I did). Slip the sock over the cut end and duct tape it one.

Mix some dish soap with a small amount of water in a shallow dish. Dip the sock end in the bubble solution and blow! See easy!

Then the best part was adding color! Using liquid food coloring, we put small drops of color on our socks. Blow through the sock now, and you have Colorful Bubble Snakes!

The girls were amazed at the colors! And Eli, of course, couldn't help but attack them all! 

After seeing how incredibly easy these were, I can't figure why we waited so long to make them! And the blowers are reusable, so we will likely have a whole summer of Bubble Snakes!

Bouncing Bubbles

This winter I have made multiple effort to freeze bubbles.  All have FAILED! Well the most recent one wasn't a complete failure.  I think the bubbles were starting to freeze, and I figured if they were cold to start with it would work.  I shoved them in the fridge over night only to be met with a warmer day the next day! So freezing bubbles will have to wait again.  

However, it wasn't a complete failure because we did get some bouncing bubbles out of the mix! The recipe I found online for touchable bubbles called for:

2 C bubble solution

1.5 C water

4 T corn syrup

4 T dish soap

This did NOT make touchable bubbles! I threw in 4 T of glycerin just to see what would happen, and they BOUNCE! They aren't as touchable as the touchable bubbles you buy in the store, but they bounce a lot better!  They were actually hard to catch because they would bounce off your hand.  Bria was able to catch a few while Eli were more concerned with popping them, and Nadia just wanted to watch for some reason.

 

If you are trying to catch them I would definitely wear gloves; they seem to stick a little better that way. And don't be discouraged if the first one or five bounce away!

They also do leave a sticky film when they pop just like the store bought ones.

It was a fun surprise from a failed experiment, and I will still be trying to freeze the bubbles as soon as the cold weather returns!