This is something you can enjoy with your children or grandchildren -- or in my case -- I enjoyed with my father while he was in nursing home care because of Alzheimer's disease. Spending quality time with family is a rewarding experience, the benefits of which pay off for years to come. Spending time with your children or grandchildren is so much more important than spending money on them, and this is an inexpensive craft to do together.
Each evening after work for 15-months, I stopped at the nursing home and took something for my dad and me to do together. It was usually an easy crafting project that included painting clay pots. He really enjoyed it -- it made him feel as though he had work to do and he was being helpful. I enjoyed spending that time with him each night, and it gave my mother a break.
Spending time with your loved one that's afflicted with Alzheimer's disease is priceless -- all you need to do is find something you can both enjoy doing together -- engage your loved one and the time with them will be time well spent.
I have quite a few of these cute little projects that Dad and I did, and I use most of them as Easter decorations.
Here's the first one I'm going to show you how to make:
My cute little Easter Chick made from a clay pot, clay tray and wooden hearts.
Gather your supplies. To make one clay pot Easter Chick you will need the following supplies:
One 2 1/2-inch clay pot
One 4-inch clay tray that goes with clay pot
2 wooden hearts that are about 3/4-inch in diameter and about 1 1/4-inches long
yellow acrylic paint
blue or turquoise acrylic paint
pink acrylic paint
white acrylic paint
one yellow fluffy feather
8-inch piece of yellow satin ribbon
black thin marker
orange marker
1-inch paint brush or foam painter
One Q-tip
hot-glue gun
Paint the outside of the clay pot yellow and set aside to dry.
Paint the entire wooden hearts yellow and set aside to dry.
Paint the inside and the outside of the clay tray either turquoise or blue.
When clay pot, tray and hearts are completely dry, apply a second coat of paint to each and set aside to dry.
On a paper plate, squeeze out a little bit of the white paint and then squeeze out a little daub of the pink paint. Using the end of a small paint brush, dab the end into the pink and make a dot on the outside of the completely dry tray. About a half-inch away, make a white dot. Continue in this pattern until you have painted dots all the way around the tray.
Set aside to dry.
Using the thin black marker, outline one side of each completely dry heart and set aside. You can outline the hearts with a solid line, or you can make it look like stitching by drawing tiny little lines around the hearts.
Using the thin black marker, draw two tiny little beady eyes.
Right below and right between the eyes, draw the beak - an inverted triangular shape.
Fill the beak using the orange marker.
To make the cheeks, put a little of the orange marker on the cotton end of a Q-tip and lightly rub the Q-tip on each side of the beak.
Heat up your hot-glue gun.
Make a small bow using the yellow satin ribbon and glue it onto the Chick right underneath the beak.
Glue the hearts onto the Chick on each side and slightly above the eyes, making sure the outlined side is facing out.
Then glue the fluffy yellow feather inside the drainage hole of the painted clay pot. You don' t have to, but you can put some Easter grass in the tray, then put the Chick on top and guess what?
You're done!
How cute are these little gems? I'll tell you...they are super cute!
I had my dad sign his...he wrote the date and my mother's name. You can do the same by having your children sign and date them, then you can give the Chicks to your children as gifts when they celebrate Easter with their own children.
My dad and I did these together on March (I know it looks like an 8, but he had some trouble writing) 15, 2001.
Fun, Fun times!
