Braided Tail, Mouse (or Vole) Bookmark Craft

A shy little mole 

lived in a hole 

and was lonesome by night and by day 

'til a spry little vole 

tumbled into the hole

and said, "Oh, how nice.  May I stay?"

-excerpt from "The Courtship of the Mole and the Vole" from Thunderboom! Poems for Everyone by Charlotte Pomerantz.

When we moved to our rental house, last summer, we had to rescue a baby bunny from the girls' window well.

 We thought at first it was a snowshoe hare, but realized later it (and the hundreds of others around town) was a mountain cottontail.

 We have one that visits the yard of our new house regularly, too.  So, when the girls heard a scratching at their window this time, they were expecting a bunny - but were surprised by a mouse, at least we thought it was mouse (the same mouse - I'm hoping, that I spotted in the garden, and the one that skittered across the phone guy's shoe, while he was hooking up our Internet).  Only, on closer inspection, I'd have to say our little visitor (relocated by the Man of the House to a nearby field) was not a mouse...

...but a vole (with a rounded nose, and in-set ears).  Which of course, has led us on a day of searching out books from our boxes with a sentence or two about the little guys, and crafting a quick bookmark to keep our place in each book, as we look for more.

I think these might be cute bookmarks for when we reread Mouse and the Motorcycle (which naturally, we'll have to now).

I've seen mouse bookmarks with long tails for the bookmark part, and I've seen mouse crafts made out of hearts before.  Our bookmarks are just a combination of the two.

We cut medium to smallish sized hearts out of flattened cereal boxes, using the crease that was already in the box, as the center of our hearts.

Since we were making voles, and not mice, we rounded the tip of the heart/nose of the vole.

 Then, we folded the crease backwards...

...glued the printed sides closed...

...and drew on little beady eyes, inset ears, and twitchy noses (some of us opted for whiskers, too).

All that was left then, was to poke a hole at the back...

..to thread through...

 ...two long pieces of yarn...

...which could be divided into three...

 ...to be braided and tied off...

...into a long tail; a tail that is too long for a vole...

 ...but just right for a bookmark.

And, I'm happy to say one fact we learned about voles today, is that they don't usually like to live in houses. 

Phew!

A Kimono Costume from a Plastic Tablecloth

The teens had an Asian themed "How to Host a Murder Party" to go to for the last night of youth group.  Their leader encouraged them to come in costume, if at all possible.  T (age 17) found a cap at the party supply store, and was good to go...

...but the only other Asian themed items we could find in the store, besides paper fans, were napkins, and plastic tablecloths.

Since there was nothing else, we grabbed a couple of the fans, and two of the tablecloths, and headed home to see what we could do with them.  They were rectangular, and white in the middle, with red and gold strips running down each side.

We folded them in half, short sides together, as shown.

Then, we cut a round neck hold in the center of the folded part, so they could slip on over the girls' heads.

Starting at the short ends, we cut the strips away from the white center...

...stopping about four inches from the girls' arm pits.

If we'd had an extra tablecloth, we probably would have left the arm streamers really long, but we needed some of the red for belts, bows, and trim, so we shortened the arms by about half.

We stapled the bottom...

...and inside edges of the arm streamers closed.

G taped some of the red stripping onto the bottom edges of the white, for trim.  A left hers plain.

We taped together some of the pieces to make belts, folding in the raw edges...

...and stapling, rather than tying them, at the back (that made them a one time wear, but that was all we needed).

We added a little piece of tape to the front to hold the belt in place...

...and stapled bows (pieces pinched and stapled in the middle) to the back for a finishing touch to the robes.

They weren't authentic by any stretch of the imagination, but with fans in hand, and chopsticks in hair, they didn't look too bad...

...for a couple of plastic tablecloths.

Spring Robin Egg Carton Candy Box

C (age 8) wanted a "new" craft to celebrate spotting of our first robins of spring.  Since I already had empty egg carton cut apart for making simple little nests (I haven't decided yet if they're going to be part of a spring centerpiece on the table, or if I'll set them around the house in odd little spots, to see how long it takes the children to notice them - but they're making terribly happy in a springy kind of way)...

...I decided the simplest thing to do would be to use some of the left-overs, and modify Paper, Plate, and Plane's Easter egg carton chicks into robins. 

I wasn't sure exactly how it was going to come together, so I pre-cut construction paper beaks, and wings in a couple of different sizes for C to choose from.  She colored the extra egg carton cups, one for the bottom of her robin, colored brown, except for an orange circle on the front...

...and the other one, for the head, colored completely brown.  She taped them together, with one piece of clear tape, on the side opposite the orange circle...

...glued the beak (two yellow triangles with the flat sides folded out)...

...and some googly eyes to the head...

...and wings to the top edge of the bottom, as shown...

...then filled it up with candy for a finishing touch...

...to which the teens remarked, "Ew!  Your putting eggs inside the robin?  That's a little too homesch-eeew-l."  Teens are a lot of of fun, but enjoy early, and mid childhood while it lasts.

Trust me, it's great to have an eight year old.

Summer Fun 2014 - Building with Craft Sticks, Stones, and Play-dough

The third activity suggestion on the children's science themed library reading program list - find a variety of rocks to observe and describe - left us with half a bucket of stones sitting on the back patio.

I decided it was probably a good idea to find a constructive project for them, before they ended up scattered across the yard for the Man of the House to find with the mower.

So, inspired by a blocks and play dough post from Learn with Play at Home, I mixed up a triple batch of play-dough in the microwave for the children to use with the rocks, and some craft sticks (we have a whole box of bent and twisted seconds, not good for much else)...

...to build into arches...

...and walls...

...and houses...

...or arches connected to houses, and walls...

...as part of a fortified town play set, compete with play-dough dressed, rock inhabitants.

We live in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, where rocks are abundant, and free for the finding.  If you live in a less rock-filled terrain, I'm sure a bag of landscaping rocks from the garden supply store would fit the bill, and be totally worth it, too.  My younger girls (ages 8 and 9) played with their stone and stick construction for the entire afternoon, and well into the evening, only stopping to eat dinner, and ask for another batch of play-dough before heading back out the door.

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