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DIY Shopkins

Tonight Oscar and I were playing a rousing game of Shopkins (as you do when you have a five year old). And it reminded me I never posted about a lot of things. Including the fimo "shopkins" we made as a Christmas present for his cousin.

The idea of making Shopkins out of fimo was inspired by Angry Chicken and informed by an article in Highlights Magazine. (tangent: my mom got Biscuit, our little reader, Highlights when she was four or five and she could not have cared less. Oscar on the other hand doesn't read much but LOVES it and regularly asks to look at back issues as a bedtime story. So of course he remembered seeing the project of making vegetables out of fimo and we used that as a guide. Use an old toothbrush to texture citrus peel. That was the main lesson).

So we made fruits and what nots based on what we had about the house. Persimmons were hot. And lemons. I made the ones photographed on blue and Oscar's are on white. Mine are now at the cousin's house, Oscar wanted to keep his which was good since I realized I didn't have any photos of them. The lumpy one is a surprisingly accurate rendition of a moldy lemon. And of course there is a poop emoji. I would classify this as one of my more successful crafting with kids episodes.

Merrymaking

We are (still) in the thick of the making around here. Today the kids were with their cousins at their grandparents' house and Mr. H and I had a full day in the shop finishing up Biscuit's big gift.

The kids are also getting into the fun including (surprisingly) Oscar who has been asking to make ornaments. There is nothing more irresistible to me than a little boy asking to make a "cardboard airplane" or a "house ornament." He wasn't super into my straw himmeli ornaments but he painted Santas like a champ. I seriously love handmade ornaments and can't wait to add these to the collection.

(so other kids can get in on the making)

If it's ever light out and not so gray I'll have to take photos of all the finished products. But, for now, the making was the fun.

::
In related holiday news, we had a party that included a short trumpet concert. It was great to see so many friends and family together for the holiday.

And the Elf on the Shelf is doing well this year now that "Santa's Helper" is in charge and mom and dad are off the hook. Plus he got some adorable costumes from Grandma.

Hooray for the holidays.

 

Coloring book upholstery

I am doing a very slow, very minor refresh of our living room/dining room area. (see also: new print). The chairs were looking pretty terrible. Turns out navy blue linen shows every.single.spill. BTW Mr. H made these chairs. I believe they were an anniversary gift to me. Maybe around year 5? Anyway, it is very cool that he made these chairs. And they are easy to reupholster.

Given how much fabric I own, I promised myself I wouldn't buy anything for this project and promptly ruined two yards of perfect, neutral canvas with some rubbing experiments. (Maybe not ruined but I didn't get what I wanted for the chairs.)

Back to the craft shack to search for other heavyweight material. And I found the coloring book fabric I bought at Ikea ages ago! Apparently this is what I was saving it for. Oscar is finally, sort of capable of coloring in the lines and the rest of us are good at coloring so we went for it. Of course at first Oscar wanted no part of the coloring but Biscuit and I were having fun so he caved and had fun too. Now he only wants to sit on the chair that has the airplane and rocket he colored. (shown in below photo but pushed under the table)

Let me tell you, I sure regretted that I had cut out a corner of the fabric because that made me a bit short on yardage. So I pieced in a scrap (not my best work) and called it good.

These will be ruined in no time but we can always color over the spots. And in the meantime, I totally love them.

Bubble thank yous

I got a pack of plain, cheap thank you cards at Michaels and Oscar and I did bubble painting. He loves to blow bubbles in his milk so he was a natural.

A little water, a bunch of acrylic paint and a dash of soap.

Do you enjoy that my painting mug is from the 2005 Bush Inauguration? I bought it ironically. Now I can't recall why.

Anyway, blow bubbles, press paper on top. Not necessarily at the same time.

Lay flat to dry. Then press between books to flatten.

We used some glitter paint. I wouldn't do that again but it was a super fun project.

Plastic plates

Despite the fact it's more than a week past Christmas I do still want to post about the gifts we made this year. Because I had fun making a few things and Mr. H made a few very impressive things.

First up, plates! For the first time in recorded history I was on the ball and had the kids do these way back in early November so I didn't have to stress or pay for rush shipping. We ordered from MakIt. I've bought their plates before and they hold up great through regular use and dishwashering.

I limited the color palate and the kids and growns ups traded off adding to the mandala designs.

After a few mandalas the kids freestyled and Oscar, contrary to his usual style, drew several plates!

Of course I didn't manage to photograph all of them before we gave them away but you get the idea. We gave them to family members with the thought they'd be used for camping. But ours are in everyday use.

 

Directorial debut--Bunny Goes to Space

Last week I had a day alone with the kiddos and Biscuit decided to make a movie "Bunny Goes to Space" It's about Oscar's stuffed rabbit traveling to Jupiter. 

I finally figured out how to piece together the Instagram videos but it cropped the images a bit. To see the full frame, check out my IG feed (@mdhaworth). Otherwise, here you go!

(the audio is terrible so in case you can't understand his lines they are: "I'm floating, bunny" and, "oh look, noodles!")

 

And Jupiter isn't the only place bunny has visited lately. S/he also came along on our road trip.

Crafting for camp

Biscuit leaves in the morning for Girl Scout Camp. She is very nervous. To finish off her packing list and give her a few treats, I did some late night sewing.

First we did some fabric painting this afternoon. She painted a bandana for herself and I just hemmed it.

The final result confirms that she may be nervous but doesn't seem to lack for self confidence. :)

As a surprise we got her a (very cheap but hopefully functional) digital camera. It's crazy but it's almost cheaper than buying her a disposable camera and processing the film. I whipped up a slightly-too-large fabric case with some of the fabric I painted.

And, finally, a little something to hopefully calm her nerves at nighttime. A tiny pillow made of fabric leftover from a (really ugly) dress I made when she was about three. I filled it with batting and lavender and rosemary plucked from our front yard. It actually smells amazing. The rosemary isn't dried so it may mold but probably not before Thursday when she comes home.

Fingers crossed she loves camp!

 

That's a wrap

A few hours ago I wrapped, and then gave, the last of our Christmas gifts. Wrapping this year was extra fun--I used all white paper (mostly a cheap roll of drawing paper from Ikea) two skeins of fancy "yarn" from Walmart and all the natural materials I could gather on a walk: eucalyptus, mistletoe, leaves, lavender, pine, cedar, magnolia cones etc. We painted some leaves with metallic paint but mostly let nature be its awesome self. Most of the sticks and leaves were simply glued to the paper. I also used up a few fake poinsettias and some sequins I had lying about.

raw materials

Of course when the kids get involved, all bets are off for fancy wrapping. But it's still cute.

But the little kid did contribute awesomely by painting the animal shapes Mr. H cut out for ornaments. He insisted on the orange and who was I to argue? At least it was appropriate for the tiger.

 

Cardboard arcade

I don't watch many youtube videos but at Biscuit's request, I finally watched Caine's Arcade. The art teacher at her school decided that the students should bring Caine's Arcade to life here in Sacramento. She set up the time and invited the kids to make a game or just come and play. I was so incredibly impressed with how many kids created games of recycled materials and how much fun everyone had playing ($2 fun pass got you 500 plays ;)

Biscuit created a skee ball game and a ball in a cup game.

Her friend helped run the booth until they both went to play games and us parents held down the fort.

Some of the games were so incredibly creative. I think my favorite was "whack a monster"

The kid in the box was wearing sock puppets and randomly punched up through the holes while the girl tried to whack with the blow up hammer. So funny.

The big hit of the carnival was the "racing" game. A cardboard box "car" on top of a skateboard thing. One kid sat in the box and another pushed.

The target shooting game with a nerf gun was another fun one and really well made.

I didn't get a shot of the overall action but more than 100 kids showed up and probably 25 games. Oscar spent most of the time eating a lollipop (POP!) and playing hide and seek in the tardis.

 

Gelatin prints

I checked out the book Create Your Own Hand-Printed Cloth by Rayna Gillman from the library and it was chock full of inspiration. Even though I had to return the book over a week ago, only today did I find time to try gelatin prints. Such a fun activity to do with the kids (mostly Oscar, Biscuit got bored after 1 or 2 prints)

The gelatin was made from a memory of the book recipe--I did four packets of unflavored gelatin in 1 cup hot water, dissolved, then added 1 cup cold water. In a 9 inch pan in the fridge for a few hours then set in hot water to loosen and flipped onto a foil lined cookie sheet. It was about 1/2 inch thick and seemed to work.

We painted with acrylics mixed with textile medium (probably needed more medium but kids weren't patient). Three sets of hands smearing on paint (everything I do lately is blue and yellow and thus green. I need to branch out). Anyway, smeared on the paint and then removed some by smacking with plants, placing leaves, drawing with the handle of a paintbrush etc.

Then we "pat, pat, patted" the fabric (linen from an old shirt of mine that I cut apart) onto the gelatin. Oscar loved the pat, pat, pat and peeling back the fabric to reveal the print. He would say, "whoa!" in such an excited voice. Sometimes we printed again without repainting. Sometimes we slapped on more paint. When we ran out of shirt fabric we printed on sketch pad paper.

All in all a very satisfying project.

I've been thinking lately about abstract art. It looks so easy and brainless but is SO hard to actually make it look good. It's very deceptive. But if you have a two year old in your life all you have to do is STOP them before you get a mush of colors and you're pretty much guaranteed something truly abstract. And possibly cool.

I don't have any particular plan for these squares of fabric. They could lend themselves to a cool quilt but the paint is a bit thick in places. I'll iron and wash and see if they're flexible enough. And even if they just end up in a pile, it was totally fun to make them tonight on the lawn.