Cotton Ball Bashing

Although I did so horrible with achieving my 2012 goals, I feel like I have hit the ground running for 2013!  I've already worked out three times in the past six days, I have gone through half of my filing cabinet and burned all kinds of paper-work (tax forms from 1996?  Really?!), and, best of all, I did a fun craft project with Parker on Monday!

I had pinned something called "Cotton Ball Bashing" a long time ago, and while browsing through my "Playing With Parker" board the other day for some pinspiration (get it?  Ha, ha!), I saw it and figured we would give it a try.

If you want to do some cotton ball bashing for yourself, it's pretty simple:

• cotton balls
• equal parts of water and flour (I did 1 cup of each) mixed together
• food coloring (optional)

Coat the cotton balls in the water/flour mixture and bake at 300 degrees for 45 minutes.



Stirring the flour and water.

I asked Parker if he wanted the cotton balls to be a color and his answer was, "Orange!"  That is his favorite color so I was not surprised.

Coating the cotton balls.

 

"Mama, my hands are dirty."

   

 

 Apparently my son takes after me in the I-don't-like-to-get-my-hands-dirty department.  About half way through he began complaining that his hands were dirty and I had to coat the last few cotton balls myself.  Oh well!  After I had all of the cotton balls coated and on the baking sheets, I baked them in the oven.  

 

 

After I took them out of the oven I let them cool for a few minutes.

 

Have you ever seen an orange cotton ball?

 

 

Now, this is where the fun part really begins!

 

Parker was ecstatic when I told handed him his hammer and told him to bang on them!

 

 

At least, that's what I thought.  I had expected the cotton balls to kind of shatter.  They did not.  Instead, they sort of bounced back into their shape.  (Wouldn't they do that even if we hadn't done anything to them?)  At first I was letting Parker bash them on the pan, then I decided to see if they would be more fun to bash if I took them off.  Warning:  Do not try to use a spatula.  Just tear them off with your fingers.  It's easier! 

 

And....they don't do anything!

 

Since "bashing" the cotton balls wasn't working out so well, I gave him some other tools and told him to go to work!

 

 

Once they were off of the pan they were a little bit more fun to play with!

 

 

The highlight was when one bounced off the island and landed right in Parker's shoe!  He thought that was awesome!

 

That smile is the reason I'm looking forward to doing these fun projects with him every month!

 

 

While I considered the project to be some what of a bust, it did keep Parker entertained for about three minutes.  Then, he was over it and I had weird looking orange balls all over my kitchen island.  While he was napping I threw them away.  When Parker woke up, he came into the kitchen, looked around, and said, "Mom, where are my meatballs?"  That explains why he tried to eat one of them...