Heather's Hands: What, Me Crafty? Again! (Glow worm caves)

This past Christmas, my husband's sister got the kids a subscription to Little Passports. If you've never heard of this, it's amazing. Once a month, the kids get a package containing a letter from the three characters traveling the world, a post card, activities, stickers and a special present all relating to a theme.

The "monuments" month came with miniatures for four famous landmarks (the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall, aaaaaaand..... The Statue of Liberty, I think) and the "food" month came with this really nice solid wood fishing game. This month was "natural wonders" and it came with a big chunk of pyrite (Fool's Gold) which the kids are now obsessed with.

These aren't the worms. These are sticky strings of saliva they use to catch food. But how beautiful are they?

The point of my story is that in the activity book there is often a craft. Which we don't do because mummy isn't much of a craftypants. Usually. Today, however, was a different story. The craft was inspired by the Glowworm Caves in Waitomo, NZ, which are amazingly cool. If you haven't heard of them, watch BBC's Planet Earth. Ah-mazing. And the end result of the project was also amazing! How was that for a segue?

I did tweak the instructions a little, mostly by adding glitter and trying to make it look more like the actual glow-worm chains in the cave. And really, no project is ever made worse by the addition of glitter!

This isn't the glow worms, either. It's the end result of this craft! How awesome!

Materials:

Glass jar with a lid

Yarn or string

Glitter paint

Glow-in-the-dark paint (in a squeeze bottle works best)

Paint brush

Glue or tape

1. Cut the yarn into various lengths, dependent on the size of your jar.

2. Paint the pieces of yarn with glitter paint, leaving about 1cm unpainted at one end.

3. Once the glitter paint is dry, add dots of glow-in-the-dark paint down the length, leaving about 5mm between dots. Let dry completely.

4. Glue or tape the unpainted ends of the yarn to the inside of the jar lid. I covered the inside of the lid with double-sided tape so the kids could stick their bits of yarn on without getting themselves stuck or making a huge mess.