Ever wonder what to do with plastic containers that food or other household items come in? Well, you have come to the right place, because I certainly do. For some reason I have trouble throwing them away. I usually hold them in my hand for a moment, try to think of a valid reason to keep them, and then either stash them away in cupboard to use another time, or reluctantly purge them. I wouldn't label myself as a "green" person by any measure considering that I drive a SUV and don't recycle as much as I should, nor would I say that I think much about the process that goes into making such an item and then disposing of it. It's just I like them. I think their cute. I want to keep them around, because I know that I can reinvent them somehow.
Recently, I did just that. I, or should I say we, turned one of Presley's baby snack containers into a Telescope of Imagination. It was fun, it was simple, and it gave Giulietta and I a chance to turn our daily humdrum walk down the street into something different, something big, something exciting.
All we used to make the Telescope was one container, one sheet of felt, a few dabs of hot glue, a pair of scissors, one small piece of foam, and some other random art supplies from past projects that we had stuffed in the cabinet.
Once you have the perfect container and felt picked out, you want to lay them both out on the table. Squeeze a line of glue along one edge of the felt, place the container on top of it, and roll. If you do not have felt, and do not want to make a trip to the store, simply use paper.
When you have reached the end, squeeze out another line of hot glue and tightly stretch the felt around the container.
Give the little fingers the big scissors, and allow them to cut the excess fabric around the top of the container. When they have finished, go ahead and trim it up for them like so.
Cut a circular hole in the bottom of the container. Apparently
Gerber makes their containers with some heavy duty plastic, so it required me using a knife, not scissors like I had originally planned, in order to cut my hole. Whatever you do, make sure the kidlet is a safe distance away when making your cuts.
Next, take your piece of foam (or paper), fold it in half, cut a half circle in the middle, and allow the kidlet to glue it to the top of the container using hot glue.
Cut the excess foam off , and the Telescope is complete! Well...at least as far as the building goes.
Now it's time to let the decorating begin!
And...boy did she decorate. Giulietta's weird fascination with the jiggly eyeballs totally cracked me up. She wanted them everywhere. In fact, I had to suggest she use the other materials to decorate, and thankfully she willingly did, otherwise I think we would have ended up with a telescope full of jiggly eyes.
With the telescope now complete, it was time for us to put it to the test. It was time to look through a telescope of imagination as we walked.
A walking we went. The path we took, was the same old one down to the corner which we had down hundreds of times since we was born. But, this time it was different. It was brilliant. It was magical. Maybe it was the imagination that was triggered by the new homemade telescope which added to the atmosphere, or the warm summer sun quietly setting below the palm trees. Perhaps, it was the fact that it was just the two of us exploring, laughing, talking, discovering new things about each other, and growing closer together.
As the summer winds down and the days get shorter, I am reminded of how the time I have with my girls is much the same. As tiny fingers turn into little fingers, and littler fingers turn into big fingers, the sweet giggles, tender touches, and pitter patter of toes are longed for even more. I know my journey in motherhood has just begun, and there is still many more moments of wonder to come, but I just can't get the fact that they are growing too fast, and slipping away too soon out of my mind. As much as I want them to grow, become independent, and experience the world, I want to keep them young, innocent, and mine forever.
