Yeah, it’s rainy here.  I’m not sure it’s at deluge level yet, but it certainly is raining pretty hard.  And steadily.  Check the 365 photo for an image.

The good news is that the gutters seem to be working much, much better now that they are cleaned out.  I know, shocking, right?  I can’t remember ever hearing that much water pouring through the downspouts.  But this is a good thing.  I’d rather have the water going down the spouts than pouring off the roof, that’s a certainty.

But today is a holiday, and the kids are home but RM Husband is at work, so I’m stuck in the house with the 3 year old and 6 year old.  Thankfully, I’d been stockpiling activities for just such an occasion.  And I found one recently that completely took my back to my childhood.

Shrinky Dinks.

Seriously, these things are still around!  I found them at Michaels.  They seem a little less– quality?– than before, which I suppose is saying something significant because it’s not like Shrinky Dinks were the height of craftsmanship in my childhood.  But these worked fine, and now with all the advancements in Shrinky Dink technology, the instructions tell you to use the toaster oven instead of the regular oven.  But do NOT try to use the microwave, folks, they are very emphatic about that.

Now they also come pre-cut, so you don’t have to do all that tedious cutting.  Ah, progress.  We set to work coloring our dinks– I bought the vehicles pack, so we had cars, trucks and airplanes.  (I was really hoping for planes, trains, and automobiles, but no luck.  ”They’ll be able to buff this out, no problem.”)

After coloring, you put them on some foil on a baking sheet and lay them out, and then you stick them in the toaster oven.  Each boy did three.

Yep, we did it in our PJs. Isn't that what school holidays are for?

And then they shrunk!  This video isn’t the greatest, but it’s kind of cool.

[vimeo 8824598]

Listen to the delight of the children!

[vimeo 8824712]

Here’s how they turned out up close.  So much tinier!

So it was a nice little 30 minute activity for a rainy day.  I hope you can get you some shrinky dink fun sometime soon!

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