Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Straw and Pipe Cleaner Candles

My girls LOVE singing Happy Birthday, for the past few months it's practically been our family anthem. They both invent all sorts of things to be our 'cakes' and they think the part where we pretend to blow the candles out is utterly the best thing ever. Lately Bubble has been asking me over and over for 'real candles' to blow out, so today we did a bit of experimenting and came up with these. Suffice to say they were popular :-)

WE USED:

* drinking straws
* scissors
* pipecleaner (we used yellow)
* playdough or similar

First I cut the straws in half then cut slits in the sides about three quarters of the way down. Cut through about half of the straw but no more than that.

Push a cut pipecleaner through the slit in the side of the straw, it should slide in easily.

Push the pipecleaner all the way through the straw until you have enough of it sticking out the top to fold over. Bend and secure the other end into a loop so that it is secure and the pipecleaner cant be pulled out of the straw by accident.

You can then pull the 'flame' of the candle up and down using the looped end.



We made a playdough cake with our Christmas Playdough for our candles to go in.

As the girls blew out each candle we pulled the loops to make the flames disappear.

One candle blown out.

All gone! The flames pop back up easily when you push the pipecleaner up again. Be prepared for a LOT of singing ;-D

“Come over to play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up”
We Play


10 comments:

  1. Oh that is so cute.. I'll have to make one for Ben.. He loves singing..
    ta ta for now,,,from Iowa 13 degrees and sunny.

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  2. oh such a wonderful idea I really like it. we run a weekly blog hop if you would like to add it.
    www.monkeyingaround1.blogspot.com

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  3. Great idea! I bet my three year old son would love that- he's been into candles lately. He thought it was hilarious the other night when my husband put a candle in our bread at dinner and we sang happy birthday for no reason.

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  4. Visiting from We Play - great idea! I might try it out - I think it will be popular here too.

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  5. How cute! Little Bro's birthday is at the end of Feb. We will have to make these. As always, Caz, I love your neat ideas. Very original and fun:)

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  6. * Giggling here

    This is really fun! Annabel told me yesterday that it`s her teddy bear`s birthday soon. We can make these fun birthday candles!

    Thank you!

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  7. My Little One also loves the Happy Birthday song! This is such a great and truly original idea!! Thanks for sharing!

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  8. Thankyou for taking time and leaving comments everyone, hope you enjoy your straw candles :-)

    Alissa - that's so lovely! We love singing happy birthday for no reason too and had an 'unbirthday' party once - any excuse to eat cake lol.

    Monkeying Around - off to check out your page and link up, thankyou for the invite :-)

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