VDV Craft Day - In Memory of Gramma C

Yesterday was the month anniversary of a dear friend's passing; someone affectionately known as Momma 2 to me and Gramma C to my boys. She absolutely loved butterflies, and the other day when I was at Bulk Barn, I saw two butterfly cookie cutters (two different sizes). I came across this website through Pinterest, and have made this sun catcher before for the boys' Gigi and Gipa. I thought it would be fun to make one for us, but incorporate the butterflies rather than just the circles. All you need is a container of clear coloured pony beads, a metal baking dish you don't mind using (it doesn't get wrecked, but you may not want to cook with it after you've melted plastic in it), metal cookie cutters and fishing line.

We put the smaller butterfly within the circle baking dish, and Bug filled the pan with the pony beads; leaving the space inside the cookie cutter empty. You only put enough beads in to make a single layer. I removed all the clear colourless pony beads, as the rest of the beads are clear anyway and I didn't want to take away from the already faint color of some of the other beads once they melted. This was something I didn't do before, and I prefer the look better without the clear colourless ones.  I had a second metal baking dish I've used for crafts so I was able to get Bug to do part of the next step so the craft wouldn't take as long. I took the larger butterfly cookie cutter and placed it flat in the other pan. Then I got Bug to fill the butterfly with the pony beads, again trying to keep it to a single layer. The next step can be done 1 of 2 ways. If you are worried about the smell of plastic melting (and possible toxins), you can heat up your BBQ and put the pans in there. This way took about 15 minutes to melt the beads flat (when they start melting, they look bumpy and you can stop there). The other way is in your oven, at 400 degrees F for about 20 minutes. I'm sure that time frame depends on your oven, so if the beads haven't melted fully, keep checking every 5 minutes or so.



Once the melting is complete, you take them out of your heating source and let them cool down. You'll start to hear cracking noises, and in about 10 minutes they are good and ready to be removed from the dish. For the baking pan, you just have to turn it upside down and the melted beads fall right out. The butterfly cookie cutters were a bit trickier, and required some manipulation; but they did come out. You do NOT need to grease anything for the melted pieces to be removed after they are cooled. Because I wanted to hang some butterflies from the larger circle piece, and I wanted to have a larger butterfly sun catcher for each of the boys' rooms, we had to repeat these steps a few times (just the cookie cutter steps). When the pieces were cooled, we took our electric screwdriver that had drilling pieces and used that to drill holes into the melted beads for where we were going to tie the fishing line. Bug obviously didn't use the drill by himself, but I got him to press the button while I held it in place on the sun catcher pieces. Then I cut the desired lengths of fishing line to hang the butterflies as well as add the piece of fishing line to use to hang the sun catchers.

Gramma C loved my boys...she unfortunately never got to meet Bear. She loved them like her own grandchildren, and it makes me sad they are going to grow up without memories of this wonderful lady. I'm trying to incorporate her memory in some of the activities we do, so the boys can know about her through me. I wanted to put a single butterfly in each of the boys' rooms, as if she is in there watching over them. I know she is watching over us and that she is at peace; and every time the sun catches our piece of art, or it moves in the breeze, I know it's somehow her letting us know she is still around.

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