The Thing Rainbow

I'm not mega crafty. I am a little bit, on occasion, but nothing close to mega. But when I do feel the urge, I especially like to craft with Anna and — let's be honest — sometimes more than she likes it. (But I really think my attention span is just longer.) Anyhow, thinking up projects to do with her is fun. And a few days ago, inspiration struck.

My idea was to cut things out of magazines that are the colors of the rainbow and then glue them onto posterboard in the shape of a rainbow. (This was a fun project AND fitting because Anna is in love with rainbows. I just asked her how much she loves them and she said, "As much as I love all my family and all the people I see." Wow. See? They're a big deal.)

And I think it turned out even cooler than I initially imagined. Presenting — what Anna aptly named — The Thing Rainbow:

And here she is with our work of art.

The Thing Rainbow is now hanging in Anna's bedroom. It's so bright and cheery, I kind of want my own. But good luck finding a huge block of scrambled eggs again or a giant red shoe, I tell myself.

If you want to try this at home, here are a couple things I learned:

• Keep your eyes peeled for purple objects right from the get-go, as they are very hard to come by. It helps if you have some senior-citizen gardening magazines around your house so you can cut out flowers. (It's a good thing purple was the smallest arc, too.)
• Toy catalogs were the most fun for Anna to cut out of and the most colorful. I felt like we hit the jackpot after flipping through some Good Housekeepings and Real Simples.

P.S. This reminded me of another fun idea I purloined from the book "Oodles of Animals" by Lois Ehlert.

The author made all these cool pictures of animals out of paper that was cut into nine basic shapes, using normal scissors, pinking shears, and a hole punch. She said she made them after she studied her favorite animals and their defining characteristics. I think this would be so fun to do with kids. Maybe ones a bit older, like 6+ or something. But anyway, it was cool to see animals pared down to simple, yet unique, graphic shapes, and I loved thinking of the creative possibilities.