My biggest score at the insane estate sale I went to the other day wasn't the hand-painted, eight-inch-high vintage wooden platform shoes in their original box (although those are pretty great). It was an open, half-used-up bag of pipe cleaners, also known as craft stems. I got them for pretty much free, but I think they're going to get way more use than the shoes will.
I don't think pipe cleaners are as high on the hierarchy of kid-craft supplies as they used to be, presumably because modern kids are dumber than we were and will use the pointy wires to maim themselves or others (they are pretty hurty if you poke yourself, I'll grant you). When I handed them over to my kids they were met with blank stares. Then, in a breakthrough moment, one of the kids accidentally bent one of them and it was like floodlights went on in their heads. Eventually I'll probably need to organize some more formal projects, but for now giving the kids any kind of direction would just be overkill (and experts in the field of pipecleanerology agree with me).
When my girls were in the baby/toddler stages, I never left the house without some Mardi Gras beads in my purse to get through the tough times at the grocery store, on the freeway, or in the DMV line because they were a guaranteed distraction. I think pipe cleaners may be the Mardi Gras beads of the preschool age.
