Meeting Four Prep

For meeting four, we will be reading a few passages from 5 Flowers, 4 Stories, 3 Cheers for Animals! Including Perfect Surprise in the Garden and When a Camera Meets a Nest. That will then transition into our project, making all about me nests. We looked around for things that we could use to make these nests and were a little shocked how much some of the supplies cost. Our next idea was to head out to one of the local parks to gather materials for free, until it started raining.

So, just like a couple weeks ago, we were looking around my house for inspiration. It just so happened that my awesome father-in-law had just sent a box to my fabulous husband. It had a long wad of brown packing paper in it. We noticed that the paper was crinkled up, much like the pre-cut crinkle paper you can buy in the gifting supplies section at most stores. That's when it hit us. The next thing I knew, I was standing on my kitchen counter looking in the cabinet above my fridge for paper bowls (yes, I realize that might be an odd spot to keep them, but it's the only free spot I had).

For our first moment of deja vu, there we were, on my living room floor, cutting up the paper. We wadded it up a little more and cut it in thin(ish) strips. Not knowing exactly much we would need for 15 bowls, we cut up the whole thing (which was roughly 20 feet long). The strips were on the thick side (roughly a half inch wide), but would be perfect for what we were doing. Our intentions were to have the girls glue the paper in the bowls, and then using whatever they could find in our arts and craft box, pick out what they like and what represents who they are. For this specific craft, we added a few things in, including pipe cleaners, tissue paper, foil, pom-poms, ribbon, and asked the girls to bring small things from home they might want to put in.

What you will need:
15 paper bowls (16 if you want to make an example)
brown packing paper, wadded up and cut into thin strips

glue
paint, or crayons, or markers, or colored pencils
misc. items, such as ribbon, pipe cleaners, tissue paper, foil, cotton balls, pom-poms, buttons, Easter basket grass, and other small things that you might find in a bird nest

The how to is pretty straight forward- just glue it all in, color it, or whatever their little hearts want to do with their nests. That's the beauty of this project- the nests are about them, so they get to decorate it to reflect their personalities. All of our girls in our troop are so unique and all have a lot of the same and varied interests. I am a chef and a writer, but I also like to do things such as sewing, knitting, scrap booking and more, so my fearless leader and I each made a nest as an example to show them who I am.

I can not wait to see what they come up with tomorrow!