papier mache penguin

Here it is! the papier mache penguin and banner that has taken up weeks to create. alex made this as her visual aid for her report on penguins. this is a model of a fairy penguin (yes, apparantly that is a real kind of penguin - and yes, they are more blue than black.) we started with a tube balloon: didn't fill it the entire way so that it creates that beak with the empty balloon space. we tied twine around the neck area to create a little shape. then alex covered the balloon with newspaper strips soaked in a half glue/half water mix. she cut out a tail and two feet from a cereal box. i attached the feet and the tail after the first layer of newspaper were dry. the feet are glued to the ends of toothpicks which were stuck into the bottom on the dried newspaper. she added another layer of papier mache around the tail and feet and legs. and then she painted the entire penguin herself. i spray fixed it when it was all dry and done. for the banner, we made the posts with paper straws and glued them to cut out thin cardboard. she designed and decorated the banner. now we will see if it makes it to school without getting damaged or tossed into her school bag!

pillow mattress

i had plans to sew from scratch this cool mattress that accordian folded up so it could be a chair too. well, i decided i did not have time for that, and remembered seeing the pillow mattress idea on pinterest. first, i looked thru all our linens actually thinking that i might have enough old pillow cases and pillows to make this for free. but alas, i could not find any two pillow cases that were the same size and no extra pillows. so i found the cheapest pillow cases i could on amazon - plus i love how these ones zipper, keeping more dirt out and the cheapest pillows i could find. i used 4 pillow cases and pillows to make this mattress and it's more than enough for our tall girl. i prewashed the pillow cases and simply sewed the sides together - being careful to have all the zippers on the same side of the mattress and in the same direction (not that it matters for functioning, but still, why not.) and that's it, it's done. and it's great being able to fold up two of the pillows making it into a pseudo lounge chair as well. and it can get dirty and easily thrown into the washing machine.

bottle cap and stick shakers

we finally finished one of our vacation crafts that we started. the idea for these shakers comes from an ipod app from Disney Family Craft Finder - such a fun app to help you think of new ideas for kids crafting. we found some forked branches on vacation and alex painted them green. i then sawed them off - and actually i still need to sand paper down the ends to make them smoother. my husband put holes in bottles by hammering a nail thru them and then flattening them with a hammer. alex and i strung the bottle caps and pop tabs to the branches with some thin crafting wire. i didn't want any loose wires hanging out and wanted to help secure the wire so i went over that part with some gorilla glue - that wire is not budging now. they turned out pretty well and actually make some pretty good noise - if we had boiled the bottle caps and removed the rubber insides it would have been a stronger noise but we did not go that far and they still make some nice sounds.