and then she said...

OK. I know that vacation is OVER, but I wanted to share a really easy (& time consuming) craft project that we did at the cabin: Clothes Pin Fairies
I purchased a bag of flat sided, wooden clothes pins at the local Ben Franklin store. I also bought a fat quarter of fabric that looked like the forest - sort of... and pipe cleaners.
Then, when I got home, I told the little girls that we were going to make "woodland fairies!" Oh, boy. What is it about girls and fairies? We colored faces and hair first - you might want to use permanent markers. We used washable markers because Yaya is drawn to creating body tattoos the moment a marker is placed in her wee little hand. Unfortunately, the fairies were left in the garden and the trees overnight and the rain made their features a little mushy.
I, luckily, have an uncanny ability to lie convincingly when put on the spot: "Ahna, look at our fairies. They are ruined." (Lips quiver, eyes begin to fill with tears.)
"Oh, no, honey. They are not ruined. They are just working so hard on becoming REAL fairies that they get a little blurry for awhile. We'll have to look for them when we return next summer and see what they are really going to look like."
(I am pretty sure that I am going to hell for lies like this. But it made them so happy to think about their creations becoming real fairies...)
Any way - color the hair and eyes first. Then, cut our a skirt and snip a little opening for the skirt. A small opening means that the skirt will stay on the clothes pin w/o glue or stitching. Then, create wings and arms from the pipe cleaners.
The fun isn't over there - oh no. The 5 bestcousinfriends spent HOURS playing with these fairies. They made new clothes for them. They made houses for them in the trees and gardens (Sorry, Oma.) They created adventures for the fairies that took them all over the place... many quiet read-a magazine-without-being-interrupted hours of imaginative fun and creative, cooperative play. All 5 cousins from 2 and a half years old to 8 and a half years old even played together. That was the best $5.41 I have ever spent.