Magazine "Flowers"

 This was my favorite sort of craft - organic!  It started with Chiquita noticing a picture she liked in a magazine I was reading.  She wanted to cut it out and make a collage (like when we made the "flower vase").

Once she had (with a little help) cut out a few pictures I asked her what she wanted to glue them on to.  She jumped up and came back with her "telescope" - an empty toilet paper roll from my ever growing stash.  I'm always game, so without any expectations we started covering that tp roll, and then another and another.  After 3 she started to get tired of cutting and ready to do something else.

A little later I was thinking and wondering if we could do something else with those magazines.  I came up with making paper flowers, just like with tissue paper.  I wasn't sure how it would work with the thicker paper, but it really worked just fine.  Chiquita was not really interested in making flowers so this turned out to be just a mommy craft.  Chiquita also did not want me to use any of her pipe cleaners for this activity so it just tied them with string and was going to try to figure out stems later.  Chiquita suggested using her telescopes for stems.  I just threaded the yarn through the middle and taped it to the bottom.

A while later we came back and Chiquita added playdough to the bottom of the tubes so they would stay upright, just like we did with our stick decor.  She actually had started talking about this part as soon as we'd decided to make the tubes the stems.  She really liked the stick decor activity.

They are a fun and funky new decor for our house!  At least until the real flowers start blooming around here. I'm considering spray painting the petals a little for a more aesthetically pleasing display.  We'll see.

What unexpected crafts have you done lately?