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Dried Bean Mosaic Art!

My daughter and I love anything that allows us to glue and work with our hands! We looked in our pantry, and found some bags of dried beans and lentil that we could work with, although dried pasta would also work.

Begin by gathering your supplies:

-Beans, pasta, or lentils (anything dried will work). We used red and black beans, then yellow lentils for the cheeks.

-Elmer's White Glue

-A paint brush or foam brush

-A pencil

-Paper

-Paint (optional)

We sketched a simple emoji face.

Start by gluing down your beans onto your pencil lines. This is good practice for staying in the lines! We added glue to a cup, and dipped our paintbrushes, then added that to the back of the beans. If you don't have a paintbrush, a foam brush would also work. You could also spread the glue with your finger.

The Finished result!

Once our beans were all glued down, we painted them and let them dry overnight! We used yellow for the face, and pink for the cheeks, then left the eyes and the smile as regular black beans (no paint). Here is our final emoji mosaic! We think she's pretty cute.

Pie Paperweight!

My daughter and I ran out of air-dry clay (I am a huge fan of Crayola clay), so we decided to make our own. We let these dry for about three days before we painted them. Here's a recipe for easy, no-cook air-dry 3-ingredient clay, using everyday kitchen staples:

Large mixing bowl + measuring cups

2 cups flour

3/4 cup salt

3/4 cup warm water

Ziploc bag (to store any leftover clay)

In the mixing bowl, measuring and add all three ingredients. Use your hands to knead the dough for about 2-3 minutes. If the clay becomes dry while you're making art, simply add a bit of water. You can store any unused clay in a Ziploc bag.

To make the pie paperweight: Simply roll your clay and cut a triangle (we used clay tools for this part). Add a strip on the top of the triangle for the crust. Next, roll as many balls of clay as you'd like, varying the sizes (you can do cherries or blueberries or even apples!). Lastly, cover your pie in more clay strips, overlapping them in a criss-cross to look like real lattice work! Let dry for 3 days - week before painting. Clay will turn a bright white as it dries. This is a good thing! You can achieve that "glossy" kiln-fired look by using Mod Podge as a sealant after your paint dries.