Keep the kids busy melting pony beads to create colorful and fun suncatchers! This is an inexpensive and fun craft that kids of all ages will enjoy creating.
Last week we were studying the letter “S” and “s is for sun” as part of our homeschool lessons. We were getting a little bored with just worksheets so I went on a search for a sun themed craft. I thought about making a sun with hand prints – you know I love Christmas tree or reindeer handprints, but I wanted a non-messy craft. I found a cute idea to melt pony beads in to suncatchers on Pinterest. I adapted the craft to make smaller, star shaped sun catchers so that we could make them in the toaster oven.
First, you have to use a metal baking dish. Glass will not work. I have these small foil star shaped baking cups that I bought at a dollar store years ago. They worked great!
These are our pony beads that we already had on hand. They are the three pointed ones and they worked just fine!
Lay the pony beads in a single layer on to the bottom of your baking dish. I tried to coordinate the colors and patterns, but that didn’t go over well. I try hard not to micro-manage crafts the kids are doing so I let them figure out what they wanted to do.
Then bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.
Ok, well, not exactly the nice crisp star I was looking for. It was hard to get the beads in to the nooks of the star so a simple round shape would probably work better. This was super fast, easy and NOT MESSY! Plus you get a craft that you can actually keep around for a while or give away. These would make great Mother’s Day gifts!
Linked to: Pinterest Challenge