Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Animal Hospital

Andy chose this activity out of The Rainy Day Book by Jane Bull.


He painted a medium sized cardboard box yesterday so this morning we made the door out of the cut off flaps of the box opening.


The latch...



Putting his doggie toy in the pet hospital for some special TLC... I've had that dog since I was two :)



He took a bowl and put some scraps of wool yarn for Dog's special food...


:)

Monday, November 22, 2010

Felted Soap project made easy for kids...

Andy really enjoyed this activity.  We're making lots more for Christmas presents. It's so great that Andy can make his own useful presents for his cousins.

Take some pure wool roving (can be purchased at your local yarn store) and a piece of soap and cover the soap with thin layers of roving alternating the direction of laying the fibers until the soap is covered with a few layers (about 3 or 4).  It's fun to use different colours.


Slightly wet it with hot water so the fibers stick a little better to the soap then put it into a plastic bag making a knot near the soap to close the bag (I used a see-through small freezer bag - you could also use a zip lock bag).  Doing this makes it much easier for kids because the fibers shifts a lot in the beginning before it starts felting and the bag helps keep it in place on the soap.

You then let your child rub it vigorously as much as they want.  After doing this for a while I like to shock the fibers to help it felt easier so we took it out the bag and got a glass bowl of hot water.  We then put the soap under a a running tap of cold water and then briefly dipped it in the hot water before placing it back into the bag to rub again.  The sudden cold water wash shocks the fibers into locking tighter together as does the combination of rubbing (agitation), soap and warm water.  Do this procedure a few time (about 3 or 4) until the felt is dense and to your satisfaction.  Wash the 'foam' off with cold water and roll in a towel or some roller towel (kitchen paper towel) to get the excess water out and leave over night to dry.

Our dried soaps... (I like the way Andy arranged his soap to be purple on the top and bottom and green round the sides)


How to use: Wet it when bathing or showering and work up a bit of lather then rub on your skin as you would a cloth or sponge.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Rubber Stamp people

We recently got a great art book out the library. I like to give a book to Andy and ask him to choose which craft he wants to do so this time he chose rubber stamped people.  It was fun and of coarse I joined in to experience the fun with him.

You literally take a rubber (pencil eraser) and cut it into the following shapes...


Then you take strips of paper and a sponge with some black paint on and stamp the body parts in different directions for fun little men.  I just cut the top off of a kitchen sponge and used it for the paint.  The only black paint we had was fabric paint (which I bought for painting the face onto a rag doll for a family members sewing project) which worked perfectly.


He asked me to make stamps for a car so I cut those out too...


With this masterpiece he smudged a stamp to create a ... Spaceship!


We used bits of his art and some imagination to make a birthday card for one of his cousins' up coming 8th birthday...


And we made another card with scrap pieces of scrapbook paper, beads and felt for the sister of the cousin who's turning 8 so she won't feel left out...