Countdown Chain!
On Tuesday of next week, we will be 101 days out for our trip. I finally decided I would do a countdown chain for the first time and tie it in to a movie night each week. On an earlier trip to Home Depot Id tucked seventeen Alien Green Mickey heads in my purse so I knew I wanted to use those somehow. Off we went to the dollar store for colored construction paper. Wouldnt you know it, the one I went to didnt have any at the time as they were re-arranging the store with Halloween items!!!
so we improvised. Including the LGMHs, here are the supplies we ended up with:
- white newsprint paper
- Princess and Winnie the Pooh marker stamps (pink heart, orange butterfly, purple crown, orange flower)
- pipe cleaners in assorted colors (including lime green!)
- hole punch (I needed one anyway, so this was technically a household item)
.. for a total of $5 spent leaving lots of leftovers for future crafting fun. We determined what size of links we wanted and while I cut out 101 strips, the kids got to stamping. At first they were quite creative making words out of the stamps and fancy designs, but as time went on we pretty much just did anything to fill up the strip!
I punched a hole in the top of each LGMH and didnt bother with detaching them from the card backing. I like them that way and it was one less thing to worry about.
We chose which link to put at the start and which at the end, just for fun, and then just randomized the rest in between. We then cut each lime green pipe cleaner we had in half. We didnt quite have enough so I went with pale yellow as a close alternate and decided to use those for the ones at the end of the chain, just to make it different.
Heres a jumbled close up showing some of the creativity they had on the strips.
We then got to hanging up the chain in the living room using every eighth link to tape it. Each kid had a job, Alex was the hanger, Ariana was in charge of handing Alex the tape when he needed it and Kathryn was detangling the chain as it was going up. Demetri was the supervisor and would help with the Mickey heads.
Then we took the LGMHs and making a hook out of the pipe cleaner, just tucked one on every seventh link. Demetri was in charge of making the hook and handing them up to Alex when he was ready.
The finished product!
We have the last three links with LGMHs too! The last link is one Alex created. I didnt take a picture of it but hed used the stamps to spell out FLORIDA. Such a smartie he is!
So the plan is each Tuesday will be Disney movie night. Theyll take turns choosing the movie, and the only rule will be no repeats. Well take a segment of the links up to the next LGMH off each week. Hopefully I wont have to change it from Tuesdays but Ill have to wait still and see what Alex and Demetris hockey schedules are like. The LGMHs are only hooked on so if we have to adjust to a new night thats done easily enough.
So, what do you think?
thanks! He will be soooooo excited!
Say what?!
I know I have said it at least a hundred times...but boy do I wish we had a closer one.
Aww....Cheshire Cat too!! How cute!! And Wheezy...
How can you not love Wheezy? Cute picture of Demetri cuddling them!
I thought I'd throw out an invite to anyone wanting more Facebook friends. Click this link .... Let me know if it doesn't work and hope to see you there!
Hopefully someone posts here soon, or if I read it somewhere I'll post it too.
George just shakes his head at him. 
15 years old today!!!! 
It was a lot of fun. I'm still stealing all your fun ideas for celebration nights..... 
