Rain Sticks

Who doesn't love to pick up those cool rain sticks in the store every time you see one?!

Today me and the kiddos made our own- here is how!

GATHER THESE MATERIALS:

• Gift wrap tubes
• Cereal boxes
• Packing tape
• Pinto beans, rice, split peas etc.
• Embellishments
• Scissors

DIRECTIONS:

1. Using your packing tape, tape one end of your tube. I just laid the tape in several different directions over the opening and then wrapped the base of the tube a few times around to secure the ends of each strip of tape. 

  2. Cut your cereal boxes into strips. Make sure they are thinner than your tube (about 1 inch wide should work). Then, fold the strips back and forth like a fan or accordion. 

  3. Add your accordion-like cardboard to the tube. I didn't count how many strips we put in each tube, but you want the tube to be full of cardboard, but not stuffed or packed tightly.

4. Add your beans to the tube. I used pinto beans and split peas for these, but I have also used rice for this project and that works well too. When your tube has been filled, tape the open end closed.



Now it is time to make these rain sticks cute! In the past, I let the kids color with markers, use stickers & ribbons & go crazy designing their own rain stick.

On the ones we made today, I used some spray adhesive and some tissue paper and just covered the entire outside of the tube.

The only reason I did this was because one of the tubes was used as a weapon to attack an unsuspecting sister while mom was getting some of the embellishments and the stick bent and split open in the middle.

In an effort to "Save the Stick", I wrapped the entire tube in packing tape to patch up and reinforce it. And a stick covered in slick packing tape doesn't do well with magic markers and stamps, so I had to think of a Plan B.

 Covering the entire stick in tissue paper looks cute, but I'm not sure I'd recommend this method- I had spray adhesive and tissue paper all over my fingers! Not to mention this took some of the fun away from the kids who would like to have decorated their sticks themselves. And, it took forever to dry... and my kids aren't known for having a whole lot of patience while waiting to play with something. (I have no idea where they get that from. Ahem.)

But they did eventually get to play with them and they seemed happy with how they turned out!

Here are some other pictures I have of making rain sticks a few years ago.

(And these sticks were made before I knew better about putting dark, ugly pictures on my blog, so I apologize for the poor picture quality!)

(Look how "happy" Ethan looks in the top picture! He was totally refusing to smile and be a part of it!)

And that is it!

Enjoy!