Livin La Vida Verde

Today I am getting ready for Livin LA Vida Verge (Tucson's 2nd Annual Green Festival). There will be a lot of kids there and since I have no product to sell until January, I thought that it would be fun to do an art project with them that incorporates an aspect of LolliDoo.

I was going to make bird feeders out of PET bottles. The issue was that I had to cut a perch in the bottle and I was afraid of little fingers getting cut by plastic.

Then I thought about making those water bottle tornadoes. They are very cool and what little kid doesn't like to to see the water swish and swirl around in beautiful patterns? I tried to make my own concoction using water, olive oil, rubbing alchohol and food coloring. I guess that water and oil do mix, who'd have thunk it? It made a pretty color but not the lava lamp effect I was after. So I looked up the recipe and it called for mineral spirits.

What are mineral spirits? I didn't know so I looked it up. Apparently mineral spirits are an alternative to turpentine. Uh...no thanks.

I had to be real creative. I thought maybe we'd make some pretty instrumenty things using rice and beads. So I went and bought 50lbs of rice. My wonderful husband pointed out that wasting food wasn't exactly green. Good point. Half of the rice went to a food bank and we kept the other half.

Finally I had an idea that would work. HALLOWEEN NOISEMAKERS. The parents are going to love me.

The kids are going to choose pebbles, beads, aquarium decorative rocks and bits and pieces to fill their bottles with. Then, they are going to glue the cap on the PET bottles and decorate them with Halloween decorations. I think it's brilliant and easy.

I will post pictures on Sunday.

Wish me well.