Foam + Contact Paper = Fun

This was so fun and so easy! I bought foam sheets (I think they are called Foamies) at the fabric store and cut them into one inch squares. I have access to a nice paper cutter at school, (and they are cheaper by the sheet,) but you can buy pre-cut shapes, letters, flowers and animals. I just saw tubs of them at Wal-Mart last week. I thought about getting them for the swap (more on that soon) but the $4.95 price tag was going to put me over the $10.00 swap budget. Anyway...

I taped the contact paper to the dining room table sticky side up and let the kids make mosaics with the square tiles. They had a hoot. K loved sticking them on, pulling them off and then moving them, (it's all about power when you're two,) while S decided it was more fun to pretend they were merpeople all standing in a line. (He is really into mermen / mermaids right now.) I just had fun watching them and listening to their conversations... and of course the complete lack of clean-up. The only down side is only the first layer will stick to the contact paper, so the designs can't be three dimensional. Pieces can overlap, but part of each piece must touch the paper. I used clear contact because that was what I had on hand, but the patterned kind would work well too. Since the kids work on the back, it would just look like a white piece of sticky paper.