This is All Ana's Fault OR One Thing Leads to Another

Chatting with Ana on the phone during the morning, like I do every day, I asked if she knew any good crafts. We'd made valentines recently, but I felt like the kids really needed something to do, especially since it was in the single digits outside and we certainly weren't going anywhere. She said she didn't know any good crafts. We lamented that most of the good projects are still too advanced for our kids and how our kids mostly just draw and paint. Not that there's anything wrong with drawing and painting, just that it would be nice to challenge them somehow.

As we talked, I flipped through a book we got at the library, Nature's Art Box, noting the sand and seed/flower/leave drawings. That sort of thing seemed simple enough. Unfortunately, there's a layer of snow and ice on the ground, so our supplies are limited, if not totally unavailable just now.

Ana and I talked about making pasta and bean drawings and pasta necklaces. We agreed that pasta necklaces are generally pretty unattractive and boring. Then she said, "well maybe if you painted them and added glitter they'd be pretty." I thought this was a great idea and quickly scoured the kitchen cupboards to find an open bag of penne. Then we set to work. Aleks continued playing video games while Bastian and I worked. Bastian set to painting all the bits of pasta I gave him. He didn't do so hot at covering them, but did sample each shade of paint we had.
Then he insisted on more.
Then it was time for glitter, as if there wasn't enough glitter all over the dining room from making valentines two days previous.
So then I got it in my head to expand this project to wands. I cut out two star shapes from a piece of cardboard in the recycling. Aleks painted them red, which is most of his contribution to the art for the day, as the rest of the time he spent playing Sherwood Dungeon (a free rip-off of World of Warcraft that he luckily doesn't do much in).
Then Bastian and I laced the penne onto a piece of yarn, which Bastian recognized as the same yarn that comprises his scarf. I also cut out a piece of cardboard for a crown, which we painted blue and green.
We used a yarn needle to string the pasta on. Bastian got the hang of it himself pretty well, though I had to re-thread it periodically.
He focused intently on getting all the penne on the string. I stole 20 pieces though to hot glue to the crown.
Aleks came back to model our handiwork. He helped get everything out of mama's secret craft box too. We added glittery studs, feathers, poms, and a painted & glittered rock.
We glued the wand stars onto chopsticks and painted and glittered those, adding a coat of découpage to seal it (and prevent endless glitter on hands).
The boys cast spells at one another while I tried to take pictures of everything finished.
Then Bastian hit Aleks over and over in the back with his wand.
The paper we put down was as decorated as the pieces we made.
There are a couple of fancy googly-eyes hidden amidst the jewels.
This is really before everything was dry.
We secured the front of the crown with criss-crossed popsicle sticks to support the rock and used a strip of elastic at the back to ensure that it fit a number of heads (though it seems most suited to fit me).
All three pieces together, finally finished at about 8:00 at night. This is all Ana's fault.