Crafty Christmas Tree Challenge #2 – Fun Foam Chains
Posted under: This has been an unreasonably awesome experiment.
Yesterday, I went out to Dollar Tree and scored two packages of 20 sheets each 8.5″ x 5.5″ fun foam with multiple colors inside. One package had red, green, blue, purple, and yellow and the other package had red, green, blue, yellow, and orange. 4 sheets of each color. I was very excited. Also, I picked up 2 packages of pipe cleaners in the same colors. Maybe I’ll use them for ornament hooks or something, but I had to have them. That brings my grand total to:
$4 and something! Because the Runts don't count.
Later, I ran over to Hancock Fabrics for felt, since Dollar Tree was sadly lacking in that department. Felt was not on sale at Hancock Fabrics, but they still had a 5 for $1 sign up on that display. The nice saleslady gave me the felt for the previous sale price! So, adding another $2 to my total we’re up to $6 something. Yay! But today is not about felt.
Materials gathered.
Today is about fun foam and how well it makes chains. Let me tell you, it makes awesome chains. The foam from Dollar Tree is really thin, only slightly thicker than a standard construction paper. This lends itself for ease of cutting out and gluing together. I sorted out the six colors I wanted to use and cut out one piece of each color into eight little strips. All put together, 48 little 2 1/2″ loops makes a chain 4 1/2 feet long. Grand total I’m looking at 18 feet of chain garland, and I still have four sheets of four other colors leftover for something else. The first chain took me about 30 minutes tops, most of the time was spent fiddling with my Tacky Glue that refused to come out of the container. I ended up trying a glue stick and it works perfectly. Check out the results!
Sadly, the chain is less kid-proof than I had hoped. I let my son play with the first six links or so, and he had it mangled and halfway ripped apart in seconds. Oh well. Still easier to fix than a paper chain where I’d have to make new loops.
Also, as a child of the 80s and a huge Rainbow Brite fan, it was very difficult for me to not make the chain in proper rainbow color order. I just automatically sort colored things that way. I instead sorted it where each color is two steps away from its contrasting color, because I’m a goofy art snob. I don’t think it really makes a difference, but I want them all to be the same.
Man, I’m weird. But Christmas is on its way!
I LOVE how this came out! The color organization is awesome, it’s bright, fun, reads as “colorful” but is still organized in a pattern. I never would have thought to use craft foam to make a chain, but so much sturdier than a paper chain would be. I totally love it.
Thanks! I really think I lucked out with the type of foam. Anything thicker would probably require a more serious adhesive, like my favorite stand-by for everything – Fabric-Tac.
Hi Kristy! I participated in the Mega Crafty Christmas Tree Challenge with you. I think that you were able to make a tree entirely kid friendly is so cool. I could have used a dog friendly tree myself.
A few blog friends and I are collectively presenting a new challenge idea and I wanted to be sure to invite you personally to join. If you have a second, check in at http://www.thespacebetweenblog.wordpress.com on Monday to learn more, and feel free to email me if you have any questions!
Karah @ thespacebetweenblog
Thanks! I’ll be sure to check it out!