I promised another Spiral Unplugged Project post and I am finally here with it - at the eleventh hour (a new Monthly Unplugged Project theme begins tomorrow)!
All day yesterday I was looking after four girls in addition to my own two girls (my son was very happy to escape this overdose of estrogen by fleeing to a friend’s house).
The age of the girls ranged from 4 to 11 and after boredom appeared to be setting in, I tried this totally retro idea out on them: Spirograph Shrinky Dinks. Just 3 words: THEY-LOVED-IT.
I had bought some shrink plastic at a Michael’s craft store on my last trip to the big city. We pinned the Spirograph rings on to the plastic sheets with no problems. NOTE: The frosted type of paper worked out best with markers, the shiny white tended to smear.
Since my original Spirograph ball point pens were long dead after 30+ years, I had also bought some fine point Sharpies in many different colors and they worked great! The tip was small and long enough to fit through the holes in the Spirograph disks and produce beautiful results.
Before they went in the oven, we punched holes in some of the finished Shrinky Dinks. A regular one-hole paper punch works fine and, once shrunk, produces a hole large enough for a thread or fine wire. If you need to thread on something larger than that, then punch several times to make a bigger hole.
The girls strung them on thread to make necklaces. I actually have an even fancier idea in mind, so check back!
If you like this, then be sure to read my original Spirograph post. To find out how to make your own Shrinky Dink plastic from home trash, don’t miss my Homemade Shrinky Dinks post!
The theme for this month’s Unplugged Project is spiral. All along I had been thinking Spirograph and dug out my old Spirograph sets (yes, I am a packrat!), but we haven’t had a chance to play with those yet.
Coincidentally, my husband gave each of the kids a gift bag full of Valentine’s Day goodies, including a very cute, small, heart-shaped Spirograph-type toy! They pulled those out this afternoon and had a blast with them. It was their first time playing with such a thing (although the results reminded the kids of our very fun string art project).
It is still a bit hard for my 4 year-old to manage on her own (holding frame still and keeping the gear tracking along the teeth), but she loved it and it seems like a great exercise in fine motor skills.
When I was a child, the classic Kenner Spirograph was as ubiquitous as Crayola Crayons or Play-Doh. Everyone had one! But nowadays, as far as I can tell, this is considered a “vintage toy” that can only be found at places like Ebay. Am I vintage too?? Feeling a little old here…
Anyhow, I have lots of not-so-vintage ideas of things to do with our Spirograph creations. Hopefully we’ll get to try them and post about it before the end of the month.
LINKS:
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Do you have a spiral-themed project to share? Then please consider joining our Monthly Unplugged Project and link to your post here. Read more about the Monthly Unplugged Project here!
Welcome to the new Monthly Unplugged Project!
February’s Unplugged Project theme is spiral. Remember, the theme will be up for a month now instead of just a week. I will close this linky on March 1st and also open up a new one for a new theme.
The “rules” are basically the same:
- If you do a spiral Unplugged Project, then please link to your project post, not just your blog. I am trying to build a library of project ideas, so we want people to always be able to find your project in the future.
- If you don’t do a spiral project, then please DO NOT LINK. I will remove any links that clearly do not fit the theme at all, no matter how nice your blog is. Sorry, nothing personal, but I just want to keep this organized.
- A link back to Unplug Your Kids in your project post would be greatly appreciated! :-)
- If you have the time, energy, and inspiration to come up with more than one project for spiral, then feel free to link to each spiral project separately in the linky.
- If you have no blog, then please leave a comment on this post with a description of what you did. The more ideas we get, the better!
The Unplugged Project is very flexible. The point is to be creative and have fun!
(I will have the buttons available later in the week.)
THE LINKY IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS TO ALL WHO JOINED IN!
I have been a bit burned out on the Weekly Unplugged Project lately. We just don’t seem to get to it every week and it has become more of a Blog Burden for me, then a Blog Benefit. Plus, public participation seems to be waning along with mine. Sigh… Time for a change.
I have heard from a few people who are still interested. I am still interested too, but now that my children are older I can no longer get to it every week and it MUST NOT become a chore. The point is for it to be fun. So, I have a new plan.
How about a Monthly Unplugged Project? I will announce a theme on the first day of the month, and close the Linky on the last day of the month. That will give everyone (including me) a month instead of a week to come up with a project, do it, write about it, and link to our posts (and/or leave our project in a comment). Those with more time and enthusiasm could do as many projects as they want for each theme.
Over the years I have also been contemplating creating “Unplugged Project Buttons” that people could download and which would link to the project. Button display would be entirely optional of course, but I have had some requests from people over the life of the project, so I guess interest is out there.
After about two years, I am finally getting to the buttons, and have even created a few! Once I figure out some of the technical issues, I’ll put them out for any interested readers to take.
How does it all sound?
Goodness! I have been bad about getting to these Unplugged Projects lately. Never did get to last week’s thanks (other than to cook and eat Thanksgiving dinner!) and for this week’s writing theme, we are too busy traveling and visiting family.
But if you did a writing Unplugged Project this week, then please link to your project post in the linky below. If you didn’t join in with a writing project, then please do not link, but read more about how to join us here.
Due to seemingly waning interest and the holidays, I think we’ll have a bit of an Unplugged Project vacation. Enjoy and stay creative!
Comments (5) 
out there.
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Themocracy