Marbles vs. Glass All Over the Floor

One of the things that fascinates me about pinterest is the photos that people pin on their "make with kids" or "fun kid projects" boards.  I don't know about your kids, but the majority of these projects  would neither be fun to make with my children nor they would turn out ANYTHING likes the gorgeous shots.

Testing this hypothesis . . . I set out to make "fried marbles".

originally pinned by http://pinterest.com/anniemjordan/ and originally on http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=202515.0

You know, totally appropriate with kids.  Take a glass marble and put it in a 400 degree oven. Cook it for 20 minutes. Then throw it in a bowl of cold water. What could go wrong?

As it turns out - nothing did go wrong in the creation of the project. They worked 100% as promised . . look at my cool shot . . . in a funky bowl. I know, the pinterest shot with velvet is even cooler, but who just happens to have a piece of luxurious velvet lying around?

And then . . . the question was . . . what to do with them?  Well, all the pinterest folks make sun-catchers, wind-chimes, necklaces, etc. out of them. But my children were having none of that . ..  I mean, they are marbles . .. they wanted to play with them . . .

Ahh . ..  turns out that fried marbles, when played with by small children for 2 seconds, turn into shards of very sharp and very crumbly glass that sticks in fingers, feet, floor crevices, and even managed to work its way into my daughter's ballet tights.