hair gel sun-catchers

There are lots of ideas floating around these days that call for filling a ziplock bag with paint, or hair-gel, or slime, and I thought they looked like fun.  We made some today, and put a bit of a different spin on them, turning them into Hallowe’en/Fall Sun Catchers.   

We just used no-name sandwich bags, which really aren’t terribly durable.  If you’re planning on using yours for lots of play, I’d recommend using a name brand baggie that can take a bit of abuse, and perhaps also taping the top shut to prevent possible leaks. We didn’t tape ours shut.  We like living on the edge sometimes.

Here’s what we did:

Put a generous squirt of hair gel into a ziplock bag.  

Add a drop or two of food colouring, zip up the bag, and have the little ones mash that all around to tint the gel.

Open the bag and drop your add-ins into the gel.  We made an orange bag, and added orange lentils and black styro cut-outs to make a pumpkin face.  Another bag we tinted green, and added googly eyes,, purple glitter, black beans, and a piece of soft, black wire, hoping it would look like Frankenstein.  It doesn’t really, but they still loved it.  The third bag, we tinted yellowy-orange, and added fall leaves and orange lentils (it’s my favourite).

The Hooligans had a great time with the face bags, trying to create and re-create the jack-o-lantern, and Frankenstein.  The leaf bag didn’t work quite as well, as the leaves didn’t really want to budge in the gel.  

It did however, make a pretty sun-catcher, which made me think to tape them all to the window (tape them low enough that they can still be played with).

Cute?  I think so!!