Gracious Rain

We threw a shower for Lyndi and baby chomp this last weekend. Don’t worry, as soon as she picks a real name, we can stop calling this sweet baby “chomp.” Anyway–it’s scary to throw a party for the girl who worked for years at Partyland. She’s the celebration queen. But we knew her weakness and ran with it…the girl loves STARS! No, really. She thinks that stars belong everywhere–her ears, her hair, her wallpaper, her wrists, her toast. There’s no end.

You probably think stars are suppose to be yellow–but depending on what you are decorating for–Autumn, Winter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the color is up to you. Adding sparkle to anything never hurts. The shower invites were pink and blue so naturally, we chose shades of pink and blue. April raided her scrapbook files and found double sided paper–four colors for the price of two. Except it was free.

First, Jillian and I took turns tracing the stars while we watched both dvds of Jane Eyre (Masterpiece Theater–the only true version). It was wonderful and took our minds off the fact that we were cutting out six million paper stars.

We used a cardboard pattern, a cookie cutter and a notepad to draw our cutouts, and took turns again cutting them out. The next day we got down to the real fun. Even Rhen, who normally shies away from sticky, messy stuff, couldn’t resist the glitter part. He just kinda showed up saying, “So–what’s up?” Next thing we know, he has his own glue bottle and has become a crazy man slathering Elmer’s everywhere. Be careful who you invite to play with some of this stuff. It can get ugly.

Next, we mixed regular and translucent glitter in a Pyrex baker. When the kids finished hosing the star down with glue–in whatever pattern suited them–they dropped them into the glitter pan… sometimes on top of each other…which is to be discouraged. Duh.

Since I needed to feel ultimately in charge of the world at this point, it became my job to shuffle the gluey stars around so they were well coated with the sparkly stuff.   Note: This job can make you a tad punchy after a while–no doubt having something to do with the repeated shaking motion and an otherwise perfectly good brain–so take frequent breaks or let go of the “total control” factor and trade off.

Spread them out to dry–better than we did, or you will get lots of accidental “constellations” rather than individual planets.

After they dried, we punched a hole in the tips or crooks and strung them with cotton string–all over the house.

This would be a great activity for many different age children–you would just need to match the job to the ability. Tracing, cutting, gluing, glittering, drying, punching holes, stringing up…tons of age-friendly stuff here without the fear of messing up. It’s just paper. All my guys are older–but it’s nice to know that even teens can be attracted to glue and glitter. And before you know it…there’s all that happy chatter and messing around that makes it one of those, “Remember-when-we-made-all- those-goofy-stars?” kinda moments. We need lots of these.

Millions and billions of sparkly stars…and a day to remember.

Priceless…