Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Peanut Bear Ornaments


One of the most intriguing, and perhaps bazaar books so far, in our Christmas countdown list, of picture books with recipe or crafts included, has been Joan Steiner's Look-Alikes Christmas.

The cover claims, "The more you look, the more you see!" And, with over a thousand hidden objects to locate in nine, two-page, picture spreads, I'd have to agree. There is a lot to look at.

In fact, it was difficult to pull the children away from the hunt, long enough to do one of the three projects from the the back of the book.

Once we started, we quickly realized how much true, artistic talent, Steiner demonstrated in her books. It's not just a matter of picking the right pieces...


...there's a real finesse needed to put them together in a way that both pleases, and fools the eye.


Even though we followed Steiner's instructions as closely as possible, with the exception of using tacky glue in place of hot glue...


...making our ornaments a good deal more fragile, but the building process friendlier to little hands...


...our "bears" ended up...


...looking more...


...like strange, muscle bound, cats.



Our hats our off to Steiner, who could make peanuts look like shoes, or siding, or even bears - and not just any old bears, but really cute Christmas bears, at that. It's not as easy as she made it look.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

7 comments:

Phyllis said...

LOL...I think they are cute!

Christy Killoran said...

Wow, I bet that is really difficult! I can't even imagine trying to make peanuts look like anything. They do look like cats, but they are still cute!

Ticia said...

I saw bears, and I thought they were adorable.

I agree it does take amazing skill!

Kylie said...

LOl well I love them, great work!

OurWanderingAdventures said...

What a fun ornament!!

Brimful Curiosities said...

Kudos to the author for coming up with a most usual use for peanuts. Too bad you titled your post. :) It would have been interesting to see how people would have identified the ornaments.

Debbie said...

These are so cute!