Enjoy your own rain shower without getting wet when you make this kid's craft.

I am so thrilled that spring is here, and we celebrated its arrival by making a rainstick.  Everything we needed for this craft was already around the house, and some of it was even recycled.  How’s that for getting into the spirit of April?  Not only have we covered the whole “April showers” thing, but we kind of hit on Earth Day, as well.

Once your rainstick craft is done, you can turn it from end to end and hear it “rain” as the rice inside slides from one end to the other.  I find that turning it slowly makes for a more realistic rain effect.

Related Pages: Recycled box aliens, 12 More Recycled Crafts for Kids

To make a rainstick, you will need:

• An empty paper towel roll
• Left over tissue paper
• Scissors
• White glue
• Paint brush
• Rubber bands
• Wax paper
• Aluminum foil
• Rice/Popcorn kernels (if I made another one, I would just stick with the rice because I think it sounds more like rain)

The materials for an April showers rainstick craft.

Start with a sheet of aluminum foil about 25" long.

Roll the aluminum foil into a long tube to make the interior of the rainstick craft. I wrapped ours around a dowel.

Curl the foil into a spring. Again, I used the dowel.

You'll want the final coil to be just about the length of your paper towel roll. It then gets placed inside the rainstick.

Wrap wax paper around one end of your rainstick craft, and affix it with a rubber band. I then cut off the excess.

Have your kiddo help you pour in rice, popcorn kernels, or whatever you've decided to use to make your sound effects.

Seal up the other end of your rainstick craft with wax paper and a rubber band.

Cut your tissue paper into small pieces (about an inch or so). We recycled tissue from presents we've received.

Mix white glue with a little water and use your paint brush to decoupage the tissue paper on to your rainstick.

I decoupaged the tissue paper right over the wax paper to make it less likely to come loose and fall off.

What I Learned the Hard Way: I originally had cut out wax paper circles to put over the ends, but I found them really hard to work with, so I ended up just using a bigger chunk of wax paper and cutting it after I put the rubber band on.  Also, the popcorn doesn’t sound nearly as good as the rice.

Serves 3-4 people, prep time less than 20 minutes.

Healthy Recipes for Kids: Pasta Birds Nests

Healthy Pasta Birds Nests for Kids Ingredients

1/2 stick butter, softened

1 tsp garlic paste or one crushed clove of garlic

1 tsp basil

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp onion salt

12 oz package of spinach fettuccine noodles (or other long noodles that are either green or brown, like whole wheat noodles)

1 container of cherry tomatoes

1 package of pre-made puff pastry or can of Pillsbury Crescent Recipe Creations (basically unscored cresent roll dough)

You will also need a bird cookie cutter

How to Make Healthy Pasta Birds Nests for Kids

Combine the butter, garlic, basil, oregano and onion salt together, and stir into a garlic butter paste (yum.)

Next, roll out your puff pastry or crescent roll dough and cut out as many birds as you can fit (with my cookie cutter and the Pillsbury dough, I got 10 birds out of it). Place them on an ungreased nonstick cookie sheet. Spread the garlic butter on the top of the birds as shown. You won’t use all of the garlic butter, save the rest for the pasta.

Bake the birds according to the bread package directions. Check them early, as I baked mine for about 11 minutes and the package called for 13 minutes. The smaller your birds, the less time they need to bake.

Cook the spinach fettuccine according to the package directions. Drain and toss with the remaining garlic butter and salt to taste.

Place the noodles onto your plate and spread out the noodles a bit to make a well in the center. Place your cherry tomatoes and baked garlic bread birds into the “nests” and enjoy!

You may like our cute cupcake ideas, too!

I’ve collected 16 awesome-looking (and much, much easier!) Halloween treats and party food recipes below. I have put together similarly large collections of Halloween Rice Krispie Treat recipes and healthy Halloween treats, too!

Chocolate Witch Hats Easy Halloween Cookies	Eyeball Cookie Recipe	Ritz Cracker Spider Snacks	Halloween Cat Cookies
Witch Hats Halloween Snack	Halloween Hot Dog Mummies	Healthy Halloween Apple Treats	Halloween Egg Critters
Witch’s Broom Breadsticks	Healthy Halloween Banana Centipedes	Bloody Punch Recipe	Ghostly Hand Halloween Punch
Spider Web Pizza	Frankenstein Tamale Pie	Monster Mouths Halloween Party Recipe	Candy Corn Pizza for Kids

Be sure to check out our Halloween handprint crafts and Halloween paper bag crafts, too!

Halloween Party Favors

Spooky Halloween Party Favor Kit
Price: $4.99
The Spooky Halloween favor kit for one guest includes: (1) Halloween Pumpkin Container, (1) Plastic Bat (comes in black or glow in the dark white, our choice please), (1) Beaded Necklace w/Trick or Treat Medallion, (1) Pumpkin Squeeze Ball, (1) Rubber Band Bracelet, (1) Bounce Ball.

Halloween Celebrations

Halloween Celebrations: Everything you need for a fabulous Halloween party shown in 120 photographs–recipes, costumes, decorations and games for the whole family
Price: $9.99
Pages: 64, Edition: illustrated edition, Paperback, Southwater

Halloween Parties

Halloween Parties: How to Throw Spook-Tacular Soirees and Frighteningly Festive Entertainments
Price: $14.95
Pages: 80, Paperback, Harry N. Abrams

Halloween How To

A Halloween How-To: Costumes, Parties, Decorations, and Destinations
Price: $16.15
Pages: 272, Edition: illustrated edition, Paperback, Pelican Publishing Company

But today was not one of those days. *grin*

Today I was in a rush and I was trying to figure out a way to make easy bunny cupcakes. I did, and they are quite cute… but then I looked at the almost-full bag of colored marshmallows and the last few undecorated cupcakes and I was inspired.

So viola – the easiest flower cupcakes on the planet:

Easter Dessert Flower Cupcakes

How to Make the Easiest Flower Cupcakes Ever

Quite honestly, these are so easy they are almost self-explanatory.

Bake cupcakes from a mix.

Frost them with store bought frosting.

Pop colored marshmallows on top.

Done.

For the flower leaves and the pointed yellow petals, all I did was cut the cupcakes in half diagonally like this:

Cut marshmallows

Even a little kid could cut the marshmallows, because you could use a plastic knife to do it.

By the way – my kids devoured them so fast I didn’t get to try one. So if you make these Easter cupcakes, please let me know how they are!