Vinyl and Rice and All Things Nice

This is a great Easter project you can involve the kids in (they can help out with everything but the sewing, depending on the age of course). I found the tutorial on the wonderful MADE blog. Here's what I did:

• Use food coloring to color rice. I used Wilton in red and purple and the Norwegian 'konditorfarge' in yellow. (The yellow didn't work out too great, only about half of the rice took color.) Let dry overnight. 

• Cut out egg shapes from clear vinyl (I bought my vinyl on Ebay) and sew two and two together, leaving an opening at the bottom. 

• Fill with rice and sew shut. Of course, the eggs can be filled with anything. I used green mung beans for one of them:

• Hang up and watch them spin in the wind!
  
  

Beady Bowls

If you have kids and live in Europe, I'm sure you're familiar with the Hama beads. After having the house filled up with these, I thought it would be nice to try something new - and use up some of the thousands of beads we have stashed:

Truth be told, I haven't come up with the idea all by myself. I found DIYs a couple of places (in Danish): Here and here. You need an ovenproof bowl with sloping sides and some cooking oil. Smear a thin layer of oil in the bowl, fill it with one layer of beads and put in the oven at 200 degrees for 10 - 15 minutes. I used a spoon to press the beads flat, and then put it back in the oven for 5 minutes. You can repeat the process until the result is as you wish. Allow to cool before taking the bead bowl out. Great fun for kids of all ages! (Well, at least from 3 years upwards.)