Melted Bead Sun Catchers

We made melted bead sun catchers last week. They were surprisingly easy to make. All you need is beads and muffin tins. (You will also need a drill and fishing line to hang them up.)

I bought multi-colored beads that were solid in color. I think if we do this again, I will look for translucent beads to let the light through more. They still turned out pretty though!

I told the kids they could each do 3 or 4 discs, then we would string them together.

The boys got started on their designs.

Miss Lily decided to take FOREVER to clean her room, so she was a little late getting to do the project.....

She finally got to make her discs though. She wanted an Ariel one, but was getting pretty frustrated with how she was doing it, so I helped her. This was as close as we got:

When everyone was finished, we stuck them in the oven at 400* for 30 minutes. This is what they looked like when we opened the oven door!

When I was reading how to make these, it said that after they were cool, they would just pop out, so I turned the pans over and they did not "pop" out. :0/
I turned the pan over again though and hit the bottom of a tin really hard, and then they did just pop out. :0)

These are Zach's:

 Riley's:

And Lily's:

Jeff got a tiny drill bit and drilled a hole in each one:

Then I thread some fishing line through each one and tied it in a knot.

I strung one line through all three of these:

Then I tied the line to a push pin and stuck them under the overhang on our back deck.

The kids like seeing their masterpieces glinting in the sun!