Sunday, September 2, 2012

Pony Bead School Spirit

Welcome to September!

Kids back to school, cooler days, crackly leaves, and College Football!

This house cheers for the Nebraska Huskers! Go Big Red!!!

So today I'm going to share our crafty project from yesterday and I'll be linking it up with Sara over at Mom Endeavors. Sara hosts a College Football Tailgate party...a great place to check out lots of fun & footbally (totally a word) ideas!

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(and I forgot to mention...Sara cheers for the Huskers, too!)

On to our project! 
The Sun Catchers from I'm Feeling Crafty caught my eye and I've been wanting to try it for a long time.Yesterday the kids were all antsy and needing to focus on something and I thought, "Carpe Pony Beadium!" (that is Latin for Seize the Pony Beads)


We got to work picking out Husker colors from our bead stash. It was about this time that I realized I only had a handful of clear pony beads. But we were in GO mode...so we kept going!


I let my little Pony Bead Artists have free creative license with arranging the beads in their muffin tins.



All Right! So you take your beads and arrange them in the design you want in a metal pan or muffin tin. 


Single layer would have been better...but this was a Fly By the Seat of Our pants sort of project.


Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees and bake your beads for 20ish minutes. 


And you will get awesome melted bead mosaics!


Then my Hubby drilled some holes for me. Feel free to leave a comment about how he needs to stop chewing on his nails...he won't listen to me!


And string them up!
Since ours didn't turn out to be transparent...I went for wind chimes instead!

This is something we will do again with clear beads. I have Visions of Christmas Presents swimming in my head! Taking a little more time to make sure the beads are all flat and in a single layer would make the finished project smooth. But I kind of like our Funky Bumpy Clacky Wind Chimes!


FYI...this did make our house smell pretty bad. I'm not sure if it was the opaque beads or maybe my oven just really needs to be cleaned (blush!). We opened all the windows and let the house air out for about an hour. I see that these are doable on the grill...and I think we'll experiment with that next time!