Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Throw Down! I Double Dare You

Forever and two years ago, I reviewed The Daring Book for Girls. And I looooved it, for those of you who don’t want to go traipsing through the old post.

Now they’re out with a brand new book, The Double Daring Book for Girls. Also a hoot, but if you want another book review, you’re not getting it here. If you’d like to learn more about the books, check out the daring book for girls website.

Instead, I’d like to challenge you to do one of the activities. Of course, the minute I got my hot little hands on my copy from the publisher, my daughter had her brothers create a diversion and she promptly stole said copy. (She’s getting to be quite the little book thief and I couldn’t be prouder).

She went right to work, and made the snow globe below from instructions on page 149:



For Gracie’s snow globe, she cleaned out a jelly jar, removing all of the label from outside. Then she drew a snowman, and snow scene on a piece of paper and taped it so it could be viewed from the front of her globe through the glass. She filled the jar with water and added sequins for her ‘snow’. Of course, she read the directions but then created her own take on the project.

So what do you think? Can you do better than an eleven year old?

If you’d like to follow the actual instructions: Find any fun doodad to glue to the inside of the jar lid – a plastic statue or toy works well. Instead of sequins, you can use glitter for your snow, and you may or may not like to create your own backdrop to apply to the back of the jar, that can be seen through your snow scene.

Make sure to glue the lid on tightly and leave to dry before shaking.

If any of you already own the book, I’d love to hear about the projects you’ve created. And if you’d like to do your own snow globe, or make one with your kids, post your creation on your blog so I can come take a look.

Now to find another challenge to kick off my kids’ summer. On page 201, there are instructions on “How to paint a room” hmmmm.... I wonder if they’d fall for that!

5 comments:

Flower said...

I have never heard of this book. My girls are six and three, are they too young?

Merry Monteleone said...

Hi Malanie!

No, they're definitely not too young - and both books are awesome. They have about every game and craft you can think of for girls, and a lot of history, letters, all sorts of stuff... plus, it was a lot of fun for me to look through with my daughter.

You'll love it, and the kids will be able to use it for years.

Mary Witzl said...

I read about this book on you blog and wished my daughters were just a little younger -- they'd have loved it. We used to do the arts and crafts from other magazines -- Christmas decorations made from oranges, cloves and ribbons; Easter baskets woven from grass and paper. Ah, those were the days...

Merry Monteleone said...

Hi Mary,

Ah, the good old days... funny how in retrospect the mess and clean up doesn't seem as annoying :-) It gets alot funner when they're old enough to gather and put away their own supplies.

Colleen_Katana said...

Haha, if you manage to get your kids to paint a room, that'd be AWESOME.

I think it's hysterical that I'm 25 and I enjoy this book more NOW than I probably would have as a kid. I keep reading more and getting excited about various projects...like candle-making. I've been trying to convince my niece to make candles with me, but she thinks it sounds too dangerous. Especially with Aunt Colleen handling the hot wax.