The "Big Boy's" Creative Space

My eldest has declared he wants to be known as the 'Big Boy', even though he knows that within a couple of years his younger brother (by three years) will be taller than him.  Being school holidays, today's Creative Space is all about the Big Boy.  Here's what he came up with yesterday:

Pikachu from Lego

 3D hand picture inspired by this Pin.

He's thrilled with both, and now wants to do more drawings of his hand and of other shapes (a hot air balloon is next I understand).

There's also been a whole lot of CS Lewis (he's made a Lego Dawn Treader and associated paraphernalia), interspersed with Nintendo, going on here.  How are your holidays panning out?  Does a break from school mean more or less creative time for you?

Introducing Gaspard & Lisa

Its been quite a productive day in our house - this morning I finished the Christmas Stars quilt, and this afternoon the boys and I finished 'Gaspard' and 'Lisa' - their presents for the Newbie.  They're proud of the fact that they made the bears themselves (with varying levels of assistance - the Kinderboy got to choose his fabric and trims, trace around the pattern pieces, supervise sewing and help to stuff; the Schoolboy also got to 'steer' the fabric through the sewing machine whilst I used the presser foot).  We've named them after the characters in the TV show that's currently on ABC kids.

The pattern came from this book:

I borrowed it from the library with a view to making some stuffed birds for the Christmas tree / as party favours for the Kinderboy's birthday next weekend, but found that there were so many projects I wanted to try that I've actually ordered a copy of the book for myself to keep.  The bears and also the birds are quite simple, and readily achievable by primary school aged kids if you're after a craft project.

Oh, and as you can see, the quilt is now dry and the tree up and decorated.  Time to sit down I think!

Variations on a theme

I've been following Pascale's coin purses here, here and here.  The last one brought back memories of a bag I bought in Warrandyte years ago.

The long cord/shoulder strap gets around my concern that the hand-held versions might be too fiddly to open and close when you're out and about (although I'd like to make one with elastic through the holes to see how that worked).  I liked the bag so much that I made an upsized one that I used either as a bag over one shoulder, or as a back pack by adjusting the length of the cord and looping it under the buckle strap.  I thought I'd share them with you.

Unfortunately, the leather version's a bit squashed from being under too many books in my bedside table, but what I'm trying to show is that the design has the same principles as Pascale's, but is a semicircle (or thereabouts) attached to a flat back panel which folds over to make the flap.  Both versions are quite easy to construct and definitely worth a shot.

On another front, I made a 'standard' Pascale coin purse out of lined curtain fabric with a 4 year old on the weekend, and it was definitely an achievable project for someone of that age with a little assistance.  I broke my hole punch trying to make holes in the fabric though, and found that cutting slits with scissors was a much better option!

Project 52: Find a festival & see a movie

Daniel's Amazing Banana Muffins

This week its been the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.  The Man and I don't get out much, so I did some hunting for a boy-friendly activity at the festival, and came up trumps with the Big Feed and Recipe Swap at Artplay last Sunday.  Not sure if I'm the only person in Melbourne who hadn't actually been to Birrung Marr, but now I have.  We had an indoor picnic, provided recipes and did illustrations for a recipe book they're going to put together, the kids went 'fishing' for apples, did painting, watched and chatted to a juggling 'chef', .... two hours of fun for $10 a head.  I'd recommend it if you're free next time it comes around.  The pic's are our contributions to the illustration of the recipe book.

Joel's Best Ever Chocolate Cake

And having said that we don't get out much, I can contradict myself and say that last night we went to the movies (2nd time in 6 months - has to be a record!) and saw the Kings Speech.  I guess it goes without saying that it was fantastic!  Even better was that we'd been given Gold Class tickets as a birthday present, so we could not only relax in style, but eat dinner too (normally a date is either dinner or a movie, but not both 'cos we are too tired to stay out late enough for that!!).

Check out my 'Project 52' page for more of what I've been up to this year.

Make your own banners

I've been getting almost-daily emails from Vistaprint since getting some business cards printed, and one of the items that they've tried to give me at "100% off" over the last couple of months is a printed banner.  It got me thinking, and I was nearly going to sign up and buy one to cheer on the Man during his bike ride over Australia Day weekend, but I thought about the fact that it was going to be manufactured in Europe then shipped across, would cost me however much in postage, etc. and I had a better idea - enlist the Schoolboy to help me make one while the Man was out training.  Here's the finished product:

I had a strip of calico lying around, onto which I traced letters with a laundry marker.  I then got him to paint it with poster paint and wa-la a banner we're all proud of and that impressed dad a heap more on the day than a bought one would have.  I'm thinking that this's a project which will be repeated for a 'happy birthday' banner / 'happy fathers' day' banner etc. down the track some time, or maybe to put letters onto some bunting.

Oh, and how did we distract the Kinderboy during the painting (his efforts being unlikely to make the sign readable from a distance?) - I got him to paint his own masterpiece onto a scrap of the calico using the light colours that I wanted the Schoolboy to avoid on the banner.  Smiles all round (including from this control freak of a mum)

Super sock softies (or a quick last-minute present)

The sock monkeys started it!  Nanna gave my boys a sock monkey each for Easter a couple of years ago, and along with them gave our household a new appreciation of the potential of socks.  Not long afterwards I discovered some great step-by-step instructions at web goddess, and made a couple of monkeys as first birthday gifts.  My monkeys were significantly chunkier than Bruce (right) and Monty (left), due to the stretchiness of the socks.  Then came Charlie the spider (a male version of the famous Charlotte?) by special request of the then-kinderboy.  Yesterday we added Violet and Fleur to the mix, but only temporarily.  The schoolboy decided that he'd like to make presents for his cousins for Christmas, and these were inspired by an old Family Circle toy book I've had since I was a girl. The boys helped choose the design, the socks, stuffed them and chose the facial features and clothing.  Bigger kids (or grownups with limited sewing) could do the whole lot without too much of a drama.  We finished them off easily in an afternoon, and only needed a trip to the supermarket for the socks.

A present a 3 year old can make (with a little help)

The young one and I were home alone this morning, so we took the opportunity to make his big brother a Christmas present (I had the stuff last week but was missing the insight required to realise that it needed to be made before school finished).  Our big boy can't survive for more than an hour or two without doing a drawing or some writing of some kind, but his pencil case has gone AWOL, and as a consequence I'm constantly picking up his dwindling supply of pencils.  I thought that this project would give his little brother the opportunity to give and not just receive this Christmas, and save me from constant requests to help our schoolboy find his pencils.

Here's what we did:

1. I got Dan to choose some material from my quilting stash, then I cut it about an inch taller and wider than we needed for it to go all the way around this mdf container (cheap to buy from Bunnings and elsewhere).  The selvedge of the fabric was presentable, so I made it one of the short ends of my rectangle.
2. We then painted the sides one at a time with a mix of half water half pva (I would have used straight pva, but discovered at the last minute that I didn't have much left!)
3. After each side had been painted I laid the fabric over it, starting with the cut end on the edge of the first side.  I smoothed the fabric over, got him to paint the next side, etc. until all the sides were done.  I think he was impressed that he got to paint the material on the first side so that I could stick down the overlapping piece.
4. I then trimmed the fabric overlapping the top and bottom at the corners to help me fold them flat, then got him to help me paint the flaps of material with pva (again, one at a time to minimise mess), then folded them over the top and into the container.  
5. Finally, we sat the box upside down on a bottle, folded and glued the overlapping bits onto the bottom of the container, and gave the whole lot a coat of glue mix all over.

When the glue dries (it's hiding in the study wardrobe for now) I'm going to paint it with several coats of clear sealer to protect it. 

Kid-friendly Christmas garlands

Thought I'd share with you our family Christmas version of the paper garlands at art as life: what is to be is up to me.  My ideal was all white stars, but the boys were insistent about using their new Christmas stamp (I got both the stars and the stamp from Riot).  Result was so effective that the neighbour across the road came to see if we had new fairy lights!  Maybe one day I'll get my simple version, but in the meantime this's a very kid-friendly craft idea for Christmas. If you'd like another Christmas alternative / a 'how to', check out the snowflake version at maya-made.