Beaded "Sun Catchers"

Here is a project Mia and I recently did on a rainy day. The goal was to create "sun catchers," but since our beads were more opaque than translucent, we just ended up with decorative ornaments. I found this idea here. The original directions said to bake for 20 minutes, but I found that ours took a bit longer, more like 30 minutes. I suppose this depends on the size of the beads you use.

{Make a single layer of cheap plastic beads inside an oven-safe dish. I think ours were from Walmart. We used ceramic ramekins, but muffins tins, cake pans, mugs, or glass dishes would all likely work. Note: I first lined ours with parchment paper to protect the ceramic in case this didn't work; I didn't want plastic melted to something I use for food.}

{Once the dishes are filled, bake at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes, checking every so often. Note: This may be slightly smelly while the plastic melts, so I turned on the fan.

{Remove from the oven and allow to cool. This does not take very long. Once the plastic is cool, overturn the dish and the sun catcher should pop right out. Peel off and discard the parchment paper if you used it to line your dish.}

{Thread fishing line through the finished project to display. For the top one, I found a pin hole already there, but the bottom one required that I use a cordless drill and make one.}