Invitation to play: Markers and Clam shell boxes

permanent markers, clamshell boxes (the kind in which the blueberries, strawberries and grapes in NTUC come in) Instructions: Dont throw away the clamshell boxes and clutter them in a corner of the house and drive everyone crazy. When there are a good number, cut out the straight parts, you may cut out the straight parts to begin with and not worry about the storage, as I realized a little too late

Draw on the plastic with permanent markers. This is the result

At this time, we can either string them together to make a nice colorful suncatcher, or (this is what we are going to do this evening) bake them in a low oven to make shrinky dinks

Update: We drew and colored around seven small pieces. Every one contributed.

Then I tossed them on some wax paper and threw them in the oven. 100dec C for about 10 minutes. It probably took shorter, but we were reading Harry potter and forgot all about them.

They had hardened beautifully white (I think we could do the next time as a science lesson as to why this kind of plastic shrinks white when you heat it, the last time we did those bottle beads for Ramya's birthday bag, they shrank but didnt turn white)

 Not all of them were perfect though, some curled up. Again, the science of it would be interesting, why some curl and some dont and we had to throw them out

 Suganti had given a jevellery making kit for Anjali was recovering from surgery, but the kit hadnt seen much use till now. We had punched holes in the clamshells before throwing them in  the oven and now we slit the keychain rings into the holes" Voila: Home made Shrinky Dink keychains for the kids to take to school and show off.

 Good, clean, cheap non tv fun.