Paper Hobby Horse

In the course of playing dress ups during the week we uncovered a major failing of the dress-up box - there are no horse costumes. Since it has been hot and humid this week, I didn't feel like bringing out the sewing machine to whip up an amazing horse costume (I'm not even sure I could make one without a pattern, anyway!). I remembered my fabulous friend Irene making these paper hobby horses a year or two ago, so I thought I would give it a go.

First I drew a horse head (not one of my better skills!).

Next James cut out two heads and started sticking clumps of wool to the inside for the mane.

Then he glued the two heads together. This was a slight problem because he glued ALL of the heads together. He went back and pulled apart the neck so we could slide the cardboard roll into the head.

Now we have a complete hobby horse to ride around the house and pretend we are galloping off to rescue distressed damsels and compete in horse races around the garden.

Tube Man

James asked me to draw a shirt on his tube man. I like the personality of this little man - he now keeps me company in the kitchen while I am cooking

Cardboard Roll Advent Calendar

I love counting down to Christmas, and now I have children it makes it even more exciting. I am not so keen on chocolate filled calendars since it really doesn't have all that much to do with the  meaning of Christmas - not that I need an excuse to make our own advent calendar. 

We cut 24 cardboard rolls to the same size and painted them green. Then we set them out in the shape of a Christmas tree and glued them together. I found that we needed to hold them together with pegs until the glue dried. When the glue was completely set we removed the pegs and glued the cardboard tree to a big piece of stiff card. The children used stencils to paint the word 'Advent' onto the cardboard backing. On standing back to admire our tree, we were dismayed to realise that the tree looked maroon, not green. We poked green tissue paper into each little hole and solved that problem.

Now the hard part is done, all that is left is to work out what we are going to put in each hole. I think we will write a nice thing we can do for someone else for each day and put it in the little holes.

3...2...1...Blast Off! The Adventures of the Cardboard Rocket

Today we are having a day exploring outer space. James wants to pretend he is an astronaut exploring new planets, finding aliens and collecting samples (this means lots of sand and rocks in his pockets as astronauts don't carry bags!). We have covered the couches with blankets to pretend they are planets. There is a big cushion on the floor as a moon. We have conscripted the soft toys to play the part of aliens. The only thing missing is a rocket to travel between these interesting places.

A quick rummage through the craft cupboard unearthed these boxes, a few pieces of cardboard and some wool. I am sure this will make an adequate rocket.

Since rockets have a pointy tip and wings, we started with cutting out two large triangles and one small one. We used masking tape to attach the smaller shoe box to the long box. Then we attached the wings and nose to the rocket. The small shoe box is perfect for the cabin of the rocket since the plastic lid opens easily. This means the astronauts can get out of the rocket to explore each planet.

James found some material and ribbon scraps to make the flames coming out of the engines.

Our two little men are made from a cardboard tube cut in half. The orange hair is a small ball of wool pushed inside the tube. The brown hair is a small pompom pushed inside the second tube. It turns out that the brown haired tubeman is afraid of heights and we drew his eyes open. Poor man. At least rockets are fast and he won't be in the air for long!

Grasshoppers

Grasshoppers.

Until today it had never occurred to me to wonder how they jump. We were making cardboard roll grasshoppers when one of my boys asked me how grasshoppers managed to jump with their legs on backwards. Hmmm, the only way to work it out was to try it ourselves. We tried lying down and jumping backwards. We tried using our legs to launch ourselves across the slippery floor.

Nope. 

It doesn't work for humans. It must be the little miracle that makes grasshoppers so very different to us.

After we had been trying this for while Paul found a video clip showing how grasshoppers jump and how the rear legs are designed to give extra power to their jump. Next time I'll be saving myself a lot of effort and sending the kids to ask Dad what the answer is.

Our grasshoppers were painted green. While we waited for the paint to dry we cut out two  big legs (the reason we ended up trying to jump horizontally) and 4 little legs. We did have to consult our 'How to Draw Insects' book for the correct shape of the legs...and then decided it was too tricky so made some carefully rounded legs for the small ones. The large legs were triangles with feet. 

The antennae was one pipe cleaner with curly tips. The wings were some scrap materials cut into wing shapes and glued on. 

I have to confess that after the children left the grasshoppers to dry I did sneak some strong glue to hold on the wings as I didn't think that the kids glue would hold it for much longer than it took to dry. I hope the kids didn't notice!