One Hook Wonder

The Mailbox From Hell And Other Scary Tales

Ok, it's really just the one tale about the mailbox, but I couldn't resist a good title. 

Short Pants' 4th birthday is Wednesday, and since he loves dressing up so much, I thought I'd make him a felt mail carrier set.  Total honesty moment - I hated every single second I spent sewing that damn mailbox.  Ugh!!!  There were some minor issues with the tutorial I used, plus I just couldn't seem to do anything right.  It's *very* lopsided and ugly in the back - I had to resist the urge to stay up all night sewing another one.  The only thing that stopped me was the thought of doing it all again only to possibly come out with ANOTHER lopsided mailbox. 

However...I took it out again tonight, and once I saw it with the entire set I decided that I didn't hate it quite as much and could, indeed, move on.  Here's the mailbox from hell:

The flag can stay up or go down, and the front closes with a wee magnet.  And look, little felt mail!

 
I used this super-easy tutorial to make the letters and envelopes.  I decided against little tiny velcro'd address labels, etc. because I could very picture either a) them getting lost 15 minutes after Short Pants opens it  *or*  b)  Pita Pocket eating them.   

Because this is the One Hook household, I had to include the obligatory red envelopes:

You have Netflix too, right?

 
I think my favorite part of the set is the mail bag I made:

Very simple, using felt so I could do as little sewing as possible.  I used a piece of copy paper for my pattern and just added a triangle to one side for the flap, which velcroes shut.  The strap is extra long so that it can be worn messenger bag style, and the letters were attached with Steam a Seam.  I can't wait to see Short Pants delivering the "mail"!

 

In Case You Are The Only Person On Earth Who Hasn't Seen An I-Spy Jar

Don't be ashamed.  We all have our crosses to bear.

I put this together for the littles the other day.  Cheap, fun, and easy.  Find an empty plastic container and fill it with trinkets and rice.  Ta-da - a toy!  The lid on ours is glued (remember what happened with the cookie sprinkes?) but I think it would be fun to leave it just screwed on because then you could switch the objects out. 

Here's our jar:

I took a photo of the objects inside and laminated it so they can match them up as the spy them:

 
Alternately, they can bonk each other over the head with the jar.  Fun for all!

Work In Progress Wednesday

Slowly but surely "The Turnip" felt set is coming along.  I did some googling and came up with this book, which is a bit out of my budget right now, so I'm freehanding it.   Short Pants can't wait for me to finish this one:

So what do you think?  Is it ethical to copy from an image like this?  I've heard both sides of it - it's the artist's idea and should be protected/you're a terrible person for copying it or it's the artists' idea but as long as you're making it for personal use it's fine.  Where do you stand?

The Princess And The Pea

Ok.  So what happens when you see a fab Princess and the Pea cloth set sewn by Jonah Lisa over at The Toby Show just a couple of days before your niece's 5th birthday party?

Why, you make your own set, of course!  I was up pretty late the night before the party, but it was well worth it.  All of the fabrics are from my stash, and I had a fun time making the bag in particular because I'd never sewn one like that before.  The Mister made the ladder for me, and I needlefelted the wee pea.  Take a gander:

Here are the very simple-only-have-to-sew-a-straight-line mattresses (I wasn't making 40 like in the original tale!):

Some shots of the muslin-embroidered princess:

Pretty cute freckles, if I do say so myself:

 And finally here's the whole set together:

Beginnings Of A Birthday Surprise

My wonderful neice turned 5 on Tuesday.  Her birthday party is Saturday, and of course she needs something fabulously adorable.  Let's just hope I get it done in time - wish me luck!

It's not the best picture, but I'll do a "big reveal" next week.

2 Things That Saved My Ass

Yesterday was the Day of Hell.  If Pita Pocket wasn't shrieking at ear-piercing levels, then Short Pants was.  Nothing was right, there wasn't enough eggs for breakfast, he took my toy, read me this book for the billionth time so that we can fight over who sits where on your lap, give me a snack so I can throw it on the floor and wail.  It was one of those days when I wanted to shriek at ear-piercing levels, but then I remembered that I'm the mom and I'm supposed to have my shit together (at least some of the time).  This occured to me about 2 seconds before the top of my head actually flew off, by the way.

So I held my head on with both hands and made play-dough.  Pink and green kool-aid scented play-dough.  Lovely, lovely play-dough that kept my boys busy and shriek-free.  I love play-dough and want to marry it now:

 

 

I dug out all of our old cookie cutters, rollers, and play-dough plastic toy crap left over from Bean and Boba's younger days and left the boys to fend for themselves while I stood in the kitchen and just breathed.  LOVE breathing and want to marry it, too:

 

 

Play-dough got us through until lunchtime and then Pita Pocket took his nap (oh thank you thank you thank you he napped).  But then he woke up.  And he was even more grumpy, which made Short Pants grumpy all over again too.  Obviously it was time to pull out the secret weapon -

BEAN BIN:

 

 

 

We *did* have an incident of wild bean throwing, but all in all things stayed pretty calm.  At least calm enough that we all made it through the day with our heads intact:

 

So tell me, what activities do you roll out for your kiddos when things are so bad that you're tempted to hide in the corner with a bottle of wine?

Fairy Tale Felt Sets

So I finally have a bit of crafting to share.  And no, of course it's not my Totally Selfish Crafting that I swore was going to be complete before I did anything else.  But it is something that was simple and that I enjoyed doing. 

We (ok, really me and The Mister just goes along with it) have been trying to add a bit more Waldorf to our days lately.  Storytelling (versus reading from a book) is important in the Waldorf philosophy, but I find that I don't do much of it - even though Short Pants LOVES it.  So, I decided to put up a felt board in the littles' room to help me remember to tell stories more often.  It's about 2 x 2 and just hangs on the wall.  I got my initial inspiration from Jonah Lisa over at The Toby Show.  Jonah Lisa (if you're reading) I totally copied your pigs and your wolf, as you are the penultimate pig and wolf felt maker, and I knew that if I just tried to wing it I would end up with pig aliens or something. 

Here's the 3 Little Pigs set:

 

It was very easy - I just glued the felt together when needed and used colored sharpies for the details.  Next up is the Three Billy Goats Gruff set, which I'm proud to say I actually winged and it came out cute:

 

I also did a Little Red Riding Hood set:

 

Here's a close-up of Red in all her sharpie glory:

 

Short Pants loves these sets to death.  He often begs me to tell the same story multiple times in a row, and it's been so much fun to listen outside his door as he tells the story to himself.  Pita Pocket just tries to rip all the pieces down, so we usually do this when he's asleep!  I'm planning to make several more, with the story of The Giant Turnip being next.  This is one of Short Pants's favorites, though he can't seem to understand why it takes so much time and effort to get that turnip out.  Just yesterday he asked me, "Why didn't they just use a supporting jack?"

Simple Toys For Smallish Boys

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that we follow the Waldorf philosophy regarding toys.  Most of our toys are wood or cloth, and none of them take batteries.  Whenever I feel myself browsing online toy shops a bit too much and falling into the "gotta have it" mode, I return to a wonderful book called Toymaking with Children.  It is such a great reminder that children really only need a few toys to create satisfying, enriching play - and that those toys can often be incredibly simple.  

Last year I made Short Pants a few of the crocheted cords from the book, and recently he's been asking for more.  Finally I got the chance to sit down and make a few, and my boy was thrilled.  They're incredibly simple, but I have to say that they're one of the most played with toys in our home.  For open-ended play value, I'd rate these cords right up there with play silks:

    

Short Pants uses them for snakes, fire hoses, leashes, and just lately he's been directing me to tie specific ones together so that he can create traps and pulleys.  Here's what our living room might look like on a typical afternoon:

 

He'd been wanting me to rig up a harness using them so that he could pretend to be a cow or horse, and it just happened that I saw an easy crocheted harness pattern advertised in "Living Crafts" magazine.  The pattern wasn't up yet on their site, but they were kind enough to send it to me via e-mail:

 

As you can see, Pita Pocket is a rather lazy horse:

 

This last toy I actually made to use during our Montessori lessons; it's a simple memory game.  I just used pre-cut wooden disks from the craft store and drew on them with sharpies.  Short Pants LOVED this game; I think we played it ten times in a row!  I promised that I would make some more soon:

 

As the yarn was from my stash, I think I only spent about $6 for the wooden disks.  So there you go - 3 great, open-ended toys for $6 - you can't beat that!

Hippity Hoppity

I'll make this rather short as I'm currently in a sulk over my carrot cake falling apart as I took it out of the pan.  Still plenty edible, just not nearly as attractive.  I got the bunnies for Pita Pocket and Short Pants done just in time.  Short Pants's bunny only got his tail last night!  Sorry for the badly lit pics; they were done last night.

Here's Pita's bunny.  I dubbed him "Chubbs" because for some reason he came out err...fluffier...than the other bunnies:

 

Short Pants named his bunny "Rascal."  Notice the super-special fire truck ears:

 

And here's the whole bunny family posing for a shot.  I'm really happy with how these came out, but fascinated that though I made each one of them, their faces look completely different.  I honestly don't know which one is my favorite:

  

We've had the usual lovely Easter hoopla 'round here yesterday and this morning.  The kiddos are all hopped up on sugar and enjoying the day:

 

Yes, his eggs say, "I Rock":

 

 

Happy Easter, everyone!

Minky Is The Devil

It slips and it slides.  It's difficult to pin 2 pieces of it together accurately.  It sheds all over the place once it's cut.  It's very difficult to embroider on. 

But it does make a nice soft bunny:

 

Introducing Bunny #1, who will make her way into Bean's Easter basket next month:

 

I had originally picked a different bunny pattern, but once I received it and looked it over, I realized that I'd rather eat a fire ant (slowly, and with relish) than sew up three of those suckers.  Luckily I came across the free pattern for this bunny here on Craftster.   I love how sweet and innocent she looks - like she's ready for lots and lots of hugs. 

The only thing I'm torn on is the face.  To me her face looks kind of bland; I'm thinking that I might need to go over the bottom of her mouth some more.  She's got a tiny smile under there - you just can't see it that easily.  Thoughts?