Not all garden projects turn out the way you’d expect and our gazing stone project was definitely one to remember.  (What a mess!!!)  As I had made up an example stone I already knew that the grouting process was a little messy so thankfully Rachel and I divided groups and she went off to make sun catchers in the kitchen.  I set the kids to work gluing their stones with the most heavy-duty, fastest drying, best glue I could find – actually two different kinds.  (We tried No Nails instant grab quick dry and weather proof rain ready clear silicone)

 

For the next 20 minutes I heard a chorus of “Mrs. Jenn, my gems keep falling off!”  Egads!!!  Well,  we managed to remedy the problem (somewhat) by just using our grout instead of relying on the glue to hold the gems.  But this, of course, made things very messy and did not allow for us to clean off any excess as the gems would’ve shifted around.  So what we were left with were some gooey blobs covered in glass gems.  Excellent.  Now that they are dry we will be able to rub away the excess grout from the stones… but, really… what this project needed was some good – old-fashioned – hot glue.

 

So here are the do’s and don’ts for this project:

 

Do: Purchase a large quantity of vinyl gloves to prevent sticky fingers.

Do: Keep a rinse bowl of water handy nearby when grout or super sticky glue inevitably gets where it’s not supposed to be.

Do: Keep this activity to a small group.  (It’s messy, even when done right!)

Do: Use a glue gun with adult supervision ( Older kids can handle a low temp gun safely enough)

Don’t: Use cold glue to adhere gems to your Styrofoam ball… it just takes too long for it to dry and the kids aren’t patient or careful enough to work with it.

Don’t: Do this inside. Go Outside! Unless you are awesome, in which case, craft on my friends!

 

 

Click HERE to visit the site of someone who’s project turned out a little better than our first try.  (Next week we will give it another go!)

Cheers,

Jenn Sedor