I was SO impressed with their creativity! Every single one of the designs you see in the photos were their creations, and they made several variations on these themes as well. We made ornaments for our whole family, their teachers and some friends, and since we had all the materials on hand already, they were FREE. (Even if you don't have everything on hand, this is a very inexpensive project).
Here's what you need:
- Various styles of pasta. The pinwheel (fiori) pasta was key, we also used large and small penne and rotini, but I'm sure other types would work as well.
- Hot glue gun (for parental use)
- Craft glue
- Paintbrushes
- glitter
- ribbon
Once the pasta was adhered, the children "painted" a thin layer of craft glue over the sections they wanted to add glitter to, then simply shook the glitter over those sections. More than one color of glitter? Repeat the step!
The holes in the fiori pasta made it easy to tie ribbon to the ornaments to hang on the tree. I am sure you could use hot glue to affix a ribbon to pasta that doesn't have holes, also.
Tada! My children were so proud of their creations and I loved how cheap, easy and open-ended this activity was. We spent a couple of happy hours creating our ornaments, and they asked to do it again the next day. Heads up to our family and friends...you just may be getting pasta ornaments every year from here on out!
