#conciouscrafting

Today I’ll be instructing a roomful of kids on how to make their own recycled golfball eyeball pendants. I love creating crafts that don’t involve the purchase of single-use craft store materials (glitter, resins, plastics, excess packaging that will all end up in the trash) but rather focus on the reuse of other familiar materials/objects that have already lived one life and I get to give them at least one more before they hit that trash heap. 

For this project, we have a bunch of toilet and paper towel rolls that have been cut down to make mini easel stands for each golfball to sit on while the kids draw on them with permanent markers. I thrifted that giant roll of black cording at least a decade ago; I’ve used it for endless drawstring bags and today some of it will be cut into 20 necklace lengths. 

A friend gifted me a bag of used golfballs that her dad was done with and I cleaned each one off, drilled holes in them and attached screw eyes (because we have less than an hour), so they’re all ready to go. 

And lastly, to add in that nerd level I always desire for any project, I designed a handout that talks about iris muscles and illustrates many of the pupil shapes that exist in the world. Did you know that some frogs have HEART-SHAPED pupils?!?! Yep, exactly. Mind blown. Conscious crafting with some sweet, sweet knowledge on top. Oh, and we’ll talk about aerodynamics and how many dimples are on a golfball; I’m also bringing in a golfball my youngest and I cut in half so everyone can see what it’s made of. It’s going to be a long day!