Friday, August 24, 2012

Baked Cotton Balls

I've been looking for things to do with Munchkin around here now that he's a little bit older.  He's 19 months old so I figured I should try and start doing some crafty things.  Just sprinkle them in throughout the week to break up the monotony of being at home all the time.  We've got a music class lined up but that doesn't start for a couple more weeks.  We also have no backyard to play in because we are attempting for a second time to get grass growing, thus it's a dirt pit at the moment.  The front yard is pretty dangerous with the street and crazy drivers/wandering toddler/holding a 3 month old, SO, I went searching on Pinterest.  I found a craft of sorts in baked cotton balls.  Seems simple enough and I had the stuff.  YAY!
These are baked cotton balls.  Or prior to baking.  While butterball was sleeping I threw together the flour, water, and food coloring with the little boy.  Then you dip the cotton balls in the goo, put them on a tray and bake them.  Simple enough.  Munchkin didn't want to touch the soggy cotton balls.  He only wanted to touch the clean cotton balls.  Go figure.  Apparently he's got a thing about touching gooey stuff. So I ended up making all but a half of one of these.  That's the one he put in the bowl halfway and then stuck it in my face  in an attempt to keep the goo off his little pristine hands.
This is the end result.  I think I baked them too long.  Forget that...I KNOW I baked them too long.  We ended up playing in the pool in the garage (our pseudo backyard) and I sort of forgot about them, but they still ended up being crunchy anyways albeit a little dark and ugly.  So I dump them out after his nap to see if he would enjoy stepping on them and smashing them with a spatula.  No.  Not at all.  He just looked at them like they were....well, like they were over cooked cotton balls with junk on them.  I tried to show him they crunched when you stepped on them but he just got out his markers and crayons and started coloring. That was a bust.
On a positive note: I'm a genius.  GENIUS!!  I had my husband buy a canvas painters drop cloth at Lowes on his way home the other day.  I have turned it into my drop cloth for toddler messiness  It's great!!  He can color on it and the marker and crayon doesn't get on my floor.  We can do gooey things on it like play with flour and water mixtures, and it all stays on the drop cloth.  I even made some moon sand junk out of flour and baby oil and the drop cloth catches it all!!  Then at the end of the day I just shake it off outside, and the mess is GONE!!  GONE PEOPLE!  Why in the world didn't I think of this earlier?

Baked cotton balls: 1
My creativity: 1
New toddler fun: 0



1 comment:

  1. that drop cloth is brilliant! winner winner chicken dinner.

    ReplyDelete