I searched through my crafting stash, rummaged through the recycling bin, hit Goodwill Outlets, and searched the clearance bins at Michaels for Busy Bags goodies this weekend. My goal was to spend no more than $1 per Busy Bag, and I think I did great! Not all of the Busy Bags are completed, but here’s what I came up with:

Board Puzzles

 The first Busy Bag was from a box of board cards (like individual pages of board books) meant for infants. It was a sample that came in the mail, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it until now.

I cut up the different board cards to make puzzles. You can see the cut lines if you look closely at the picture. I put them all in the same Busy Bag, which makes putting them together pretty challenging! You could easily do the same thing with a board book that has been outgrown!

Cost to me: Free!

Felt Scenes

Michael’s had felt on sale this week 5/$1. I bought 5 different colors (for this and the next Busy Bag) and created felt scenes — one for summer, and one for winter (or Canadian fall). The shapes can be rearranged and put back together.

Cost: $1

Alphabet Snake

Using ribbon from my ribbon scraps, buttons from my button jar, leftover felt from the project above, and fabric paint from my craft stash, I made a button snake, but wanted to make it a little more interactive as the kids learn letters, and eventually words. I painted commonly used letters on the felt, rather than using the whole alphabet, so more words can be spelled.

Cost: Free!

I Spy Bottle

I emptied out a shampoo bottle this weekend, and it seemed like a good size to make an I Spy Busy Bag activity. I went to my button stash again, and found a fun selection of medical and academic buttons. I took a picture of all of the objects, so they will know what they are looking for. I put the buttons in the cleaned-out and dried bottle, added rice to within a 1/2 inch of the top of the bottle, and then used hot glue to glue it closed. A good shake of the bottle, and the items were hidden. They were fairly easy to find — at least some of them. But I imagine that finding all of them might take a while. (Yes!)

Cost: $1 for the rice

So for spending $2 out of pocket, and using some creativity, I came up with four Busy Bag activities. I’ve got some other Busy Bag projects in the works, which are even better, and I’m have a good time putting them together! It will be even better when there are some kids around to use them!

If you’ve not heard of them before, “busy bags” are gallon-size resealable bags that contain activities that can keep a preschooler busy while on-the-go (church, doctor’s offices, traveling) or during quiet times at home. As I think about boarding a plane for an inhumanely long flight with two preschoolers, who don’t know us, who don’t speak English, who probably have never seen a plane before, who have unknown language, mathematical, and fine motor skills, who will likely not understand that silly seatbelt light, I think: “Perhaps we need to have some fun activities on hand.”

The basics of busy bags are:

• The contents must fit easily into a gallon-size resealable bag. The flatter, the better, in my opinion.
• The activities should not be messy or contain many small parts that can’t be lost.
• The activities must be relatively quiet.
• The activities must be reusable.
• The activities should cost around $1 or less.

Creativity and using what you have on hand is key. Sounds great to me!

There are hundreds of ideas for busy bags online, and I’ve been wading through great suggestions like:

Playmats! Add in a matchbox car and some small plastic animals, and let the fun begin! Ken has already been given the task of creating a couple of these on the fabric from my never-ending fabric stash, or even an old bread cloth would work. Ken’s quite an artist, so I’m really looking forward to these!

Lacing cards. Some cardstock, or even a cereal box, some shoestring, and a hole punch: magic.

Felt board with shapes. Where can I get small amounts of felt for cheap, by the way?

I spy bags, which contain small objects hidden in the beads or rice that kids must find. This could also be done with a clear plastic bottle. Glued shut, of course.

The button snake. Cut holes in the center of felt squares, and slide the pieces over a button onto a ribbon.

Even better? A linky party with hundreds of ideas here!

As I’ve been sorting through tons of ideas, I’ve realized that it might be easier to create lots of the same type of bag, and then swap with others in a “Busy Bag Swap.” In fact, momblogiverse posts frequently of such swaps, so I know they work. For instance, 15 people create 15 bags each, and then everyone swaps so that each participant ends up with 15 different types of Busy Bags.

Would anyone be interested in Busy Bag Swapping with a group of people, including me? Or, if I were to use my crafting time over the next few weeks to create massive numbers of these, would anyone be interested in purchasing sets of 15 different Busy Bags? Do you have any Busy Bag ideas that you love?

Tis the season for t-shirt crafting! Target recently had some of their super-soft scooped neck t-shirts 75% off, and at Big Lots this past week, plain t-shirts were marked down to just 75 cents! 

I wanted to create something subtle that didn’t scream “Look at my t-shirt!” but still conveyed the verse that started us on our adoption journey: “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” — James 1:27

I wish I could say that everything went smoothly with this project, but it took two tries, including a step in the middle where I bleached the shirt back to white and started over. I’ll try to be detailed in my instructions so you can avoid the same level of pain, frustration, and stain. Lessons I may or may not have learned will be reflected in italics, ahem.

I started with my Target $2.50 t-shirt, some Elmer’s blue gel glue, and a box of Rit dye. The shirt was originally going to be pink, but when I lifted up this box, it had left blue speckles of dye on my nice white shirt. Blue it is!

Wash the t-shirt, but do not add fabric softener, and let spin dry in the washer. While still wet, place the shirt over a water resistant surface to protect the back from the shirt.  I used the lid of a 5 gallon plastic tote.

I sketched out a proposed layout of the words, and then followed the basic pattern, more or less, by writing on the t-shirt with the gel glue.

CAREFULLY remove the shirt from the board taking care not to smear the glue and hang to dry, preferably outside. It will take at least 4 hours to dry, or overnight.

Put on clothing that you really don’t care about, or that you’d like to turn into a freckled mess. Mix Rit dye powder in hot water (I used 2 tsp.), then pour into approximately one gallon of cold water. The dye powder needs to dissolve, but you don’t want the glue on the shirt to dissolve.

Carefully submerge the shirt in the dye bath and let soak for 10-30 minutes, depending on the depth of color you want, how much patience you have, and how much you trust your glue to hold. 😉 Stir gently, but occasionally. While you’re letting it soak, use bleach spray to spray down every counter and floor surface that you looked at or breathed on while making the dye bath, otherwise you’ll be surprised for the next week about all the flecks of dye that turn up in unusual places.

Carefully remove t-shirt from the dye bath, and hang to dry in a place where it’s safe to let it drip dry. (Like outside above a patio that you don’t mind if it’s stained blue.) Let dry overnight until completely dry. The glue will appear speckled with dye, which will wash out. One does not need to start over because of the speckles.

Gently rinse the shirt in a cool soapy bath to remove the glue. Rinse several times, until water runs clear.

Wash as usual, and dry.

I love the subtlety of the design, and the power of the message. And I love the fact that it doesn’t have to be perfect to be pretty, otherwise I would be a complete craft failure! If one was artistic (Ken) pictures could be drawn, or patterns made. The possibilities are endless . . . as is the time it takes to complete the project! 🙂

What do you think?