I spy bags

I've seen homemade I-spy bottles on other blogs and wanted to make some for my boys.

After having done it, I'll have to admit- it's addicting!

I purchased just a big ol' bag of the cheapest rice.

And colored that rice.  Ha!  So fun.  If you google "coloring rice" there is a great photo tutorial, and it's a pretty easy process.

I had purchased a bunch of things to distract from the "to find" items, from crafting and jewelry sections of discount retailers.

And received an incredible package of exactly what I wanted novelty buttons as the main attraction, from a very sweet friend.

I plan on filling some tins too, but I started by using the clear school binder bags, so I could put these in their church binders.

I deliberately made these really busy.  It was interesting to see the reactions.

Jace and daddy were GLUED to them.

Aidan was overloaded and put his away within a few minutes.

As I suspected, Damon shook his like a maraca and moved on... he just gets SO mad when I don't make him the exact same thing, I put things he can't do yet in the binder anyway, to keep him from having a meltdown.

Anyway, I will make differing degrees of busy and different themes as time goes on.

Each one has a really hard to find, but extra special item stuffed in there.  

A tiny little man with a letter shirt. A for Aidan, J for Jace, and D for Damon.

It's small enough, and heavy enough it's the most difficult to find.

Of course, because these were for church, I have things in there like coins that say "faith," "love," "courage," etc.  I will be making another batch with character medallions eventually.

This was seriously as fun as making homemade playdough.  I was one calm, "all is well with the world" sort of mommy when I got done.