Deck the halls with Dinos!

Family Project Weekend presents home-made refrigerator magnets.
Dinosaur refrigerator magnets.
That in itself hits so many levels of coolness!

It was one of those Mould-and-Paint Crafts Kits from 4M --a Christmas present from Tita Annie which was definitely up Kenji's alley.  Dinosaurs?  Magnets?  The opportunity to mess up the living room with Plaster of Paris?  Yup, definitely up Kenji's alley.

Now, it may look daunting at first but this project is fairly easy to accomplish, and very kid-friendly.  Kenji worked the plaster mix himself.

Pouring the quick-hardening mixture into the dino mould is his favorite part.

Waiting for it to dry --not so much.

An hour later came the fun part:  Popping the prehistoric sculpted figures out of the plastic mould!  This requires lots of care specially if you're thinking of letting your kid do the popping.  You can trim the edges of the figures with a knife to give them a cleaner look.

The 'funnest part'?  Painting!  Kenji went to town dabbing his dinos with what he calls 'crazy colors.  I don't like brown dinosaurs.  Brown is boring.'.  Good point.

He asked me to help him apply some of the tinier details.  And then it's waiting for more drying again.  If your child's patience doesn't run dry before the plaster does, then it's time to stick on the magnets!  Magnet strips with back adhesives also come with the package.  You may want to help your kid with this step.  It gets a little tricky.

Finally --time to adorn the fridge with these dinos' magnetic glory!  Woohoo!
Of course, Kenji and I had to push the envelope a bit so we made Jurassic foliage and volcano cut outs to keep the dinos from feeling homesick.

Uh-huh, this boy is proud of his work.  This one's for you, Tita Annie!