Well the colder days are here and I hate to say it but winter is coming. Bleh! Time to dig out some great crafts and fun DIY things to do to beat the winter blues and/or to keep your kids busy when they can’t play outside.

My mom found a huge bucket of pony beads at a thrift sale. We’ve been using them to make all kinds of fun things. My kids love to use them to make jewelry. All you need to do is buy some elastic jewelry string and let them have fun making whatever they want.

I just found another really fun idea and great use for pony beads. DIY Suncatchers!

These are easy to make and give the kids not only something to do but something that they can really express their creativity. And let’s face it, having a project for them to do that keeps them busy, is great! I love anything that my kids can keep focused on for any length of time. I even enjoyed this one. 🙂

DIY Suncatchers

All you need is some clear pony beads and some cake pan molds and your kids can let their creativity flow.

First, we separated the colors into muffin tins so that it was easier to find the color we were looking for. Then just add the beads to your pans in whatever design you’d like. Faith decided to just make a multi colored one so not much creativity but it turned out beautiful. Abbie and Caleb were a bit more creative and decided to do different designs.

Once you have your patterns, put the pans in a pre-heated 400 degree oven for 20-25 minutes. The longer you bake them, the smoother they will be. For some patterns, you may want to take them out a little earlier so they are melted but still maintain the pattern with out running together. I actually found that I liked them baked a little less so that the “bumps” of the beads were still present.

You will notice a plastic burning smell from your oven…so make sure to turn the fans on while you let these bake. We weren’t bothered by the smell but there definitely is one.

Once the suncatchers are done, pull them out of the oven and let cool. Once cool, they will pop right out of their molds.

Depending on how long you’ve let your suncatchers bake, you might have a few holes that you can tread fish line through in order to hang. There was a few gaps in between some of our beads so that we didn’t have to create holes at all. Otherwise, you could carefully drill a hole or use a hot nail.

Very easy and full of possibilities. Have fun!

Topic: DIY Suncatchers