Shake it up

Did you know that spices expire?  You probably did but do you have any expired spices in your cupboard?  I recently read an article about the shelf life of spices and realized that we had many that were 8+ years old (a wedding gift, yikes!).  So in an effort to weed out old spices I ended up with a few empty containers.  Seemed a waste to throw them away so I thought of a craft.  Yes, very un-crafty me thought of something to do all by myself. ;)

I took the empty containers (I may or may not have bothered to wash them out first) and some extra stickers we had lying around.  Added beans, rice and some leftover jingle bells and we got started.

My daughter filled the containers part way (so they can still shake) with the beans, rice or bells.  You could use many things around the house such as marbles, popcorn kernels, buttons or beads.  Hmm, we had some beads I should have done one of those.  Anyway, then I glued the top to the container so that I (hopefully) won't find rice and beans all over my house!  I used elmers glue but if you have superglue that would probably be better.

She then decorated them with stickers and tried them out.  

The baby likes them too, especially the sound the rice one makes.  Although we of course don't let her play with them by herself just yet. ;)

Ta-da! Four more ways to make noise around the house.  Now I need to throw away more spices so I can have her make one with pretty beads. ;)