Crafting with Kid

Sunday was our annual crafting day with my niece. This year she wanted to tie-dye shirts, make sorbet, make rolls, and experiment with wax. Three of those fell under the dude's purview: tie-dye, ice cream making, and bread baking. I made candles with Lala. And spent most of the day cleaning up. Remind me next year to make "my" crafts more appealing.

Here's the action shot of the tie-dye. She dyed two shirts and a pair of socks. We could't decide if she was an adult small or a child's large so we bought both and figured either her sister or mine would get the spare shirt. The socks, she loved. We could tell when she opened the side of her mouth and said, "cool." (Oh, she's a preteen. We're lucky she wants to do anything with us!)

I'm sorry there are no shots of the sorbet or the candles. You'll just have to trust. We made ice candles--you probably did this as a kid. You pour melted wax into a mold (frozen juice containers!) filled with ice and the ice resists the wax and makes holes. My ice cubes were huge, so I am hoping they worked out.

See these rolls. Best.Ever. I think we're going to make clover rolls every time we need bread. We brought them to Sunday dinner, and everyone was impressed.

We had to leave the tie-dye to cure for a few hours, so it was down to me to do the final step: I did three loads of laundry yesterday to wash out the excess dye. The socks came out great. She decided to try two techniques on them so they are different. (Yes, she's a big fan of Little Miss Matched.) The pink shirt looks fabulous (it's the one she's working on above) but doesn't photograph well. Unfortunately, the green shirt didn't come out as we had hoped. We tried to make a heart, and she basted in the heart shape, but we left out a step. D'oh. The shirts were also 50-50 instead of 100% cotton, and I'm sure that affected our results. The kit was supposed to dye 8 shirts, and we used all of the dye on these items. I think we'll have to try again. I know someone who'll be up for it!