Looking Up

Julio kept asking to be lifted up to ring the bells that are hanging from the ceiling in our living room, a situation that quickly became frustrating for one or both of us.  I attached a long piece of yarn to the bells so that he could ring them from the floor.  I like to supervise him when he's playing with it, so I keep the yarn bundled up under the bells when it is not in use.

Babies as young as six months enjoy laying under the bells and ringing them, as do our older kids.

Superhero Paperdolls

Ruben led me into this project gradually.  For weeks, he'd been asking me (or Joe, or Diego, or anyone willing) to draw superheroes for him.  Then he wanted them cut out.  Then he wanted accessories.  Then he wanted the arms or legs in different positions.  They would get torn.  He would cry.  Something had to be done.

Here's the design that I came up with (there is a printable version for you at the end of the post):

Print the template on light cardboard or print on regular paper and glue it to cardstock or light cardboard.  (The cardboard we used was about the thickness of a cereal box.)  Get out the art supplies and turn it into your child's fantasy super-hero!  Older kids can color, collage and add details to the figure.  Younger kids can dictate what they want.  Remember to use only flat collage materials if you plan to laminate.

You can have them laminated, or you can carefully coat both sides with clear packing tape, then trim off the excess.  (Try it on a test piece first if it is your first time doing this!)

Make sure the thumbs are facing the right way.  Poke the brads through the laminated holes and fold them over on the back to tuck in the sharp ends.  Use a hard surface to press them flat.

If your kids can draw their own outlines for their superheroes, I think these will turn out even better!  I am hoping we can try that next.

Click on the picture below to get a printable version:

 

** added 5/6/12**  click here for some other fun ideas for your superhero paperdolls!

Night-Blooming Cereus

Last night:

and this morning:

Welcome to Our Dollhouse (part 2) & Cereus

I made these pipe-cleaner people as temporary inhabitants of our dollhouse, thinking I'd eventually find the perfect dolls.  I looked everywhere for some little characters that would be neutral or general enough in their expression, gender and physical traits that the kids could assign any personalities and moods they wanted to them.  I was looking for dolls that would be easily posable, preferably not plastic, durable, fun to touch, and not expensive.

Almost four years later, these pipe cleaner people are still played with nearly every day.  They turned out to have all of the traits I was looking for, and have been used in many wonderfully different ways and scenarios by my kids and their friends.  Often, kids who visit us will pick out a small one and say, "This is me."

And now for something completely different:

Once or twice a year, I move this gangly, strange plant inside from its usual favorite location out back by the dryer vent.  I got it as a bridal gift from a dear friend who was once my preschool teacher.  She told me that even though it wasn't much to look at yet, it was a Night-Blooming Cereus, a cutting from her own plant, and that after a couple of years it would flower for me and I would understand why she gave it to me.

It blooms late at night, for one night only, and the enormous flower is a stunning and deliciously fragrant spectacle.  By the following morning, it is limp and closed.

Tonight's the night.

If I can stay up late enough, I'll have some pictures of the flower for you tomorrow.

Welcome to Our Dollhouse (part 1)

Home, sweet home.  It's cluttered and dusty, and torn apart daily by a one-year-old baby, but it's all paid off, and we love it.

Here I am kicking back in one of my favorite rooms:

For a nice addition to your toy house, take a picture of some artwork that is on the wall in your real house.  Then print it out, but reduce the size so that it prints at about one or two inches high.  Frame it and hang it!

We used wooden coffee stirrers that I cut with a sharp knife.  My son colored them brown and glued them directly onto the picture.


Some other ideas are:

Have your child draw or paint the artwork, then photograph it and reduce the size.

"Laminate" it with clear packing tape before framing, so it looks like it's behind glass.

Make miniatures of your favorite books by photographing the covers and folding them around several tiny sheets of paper.

Print out a tiny version of your favorite family portrait.

Use silver paint or pens or glitter glue on the frames.

Take a "family portrait" of the dolls and frame that.

If you don't have a printer, use a beautiful postage stamp!


  (The picture shown above is a print that I love of a beautiful papercut by Elsita.  She sells them here.)

Collect 'em all!

I'll admit that I am not a big fan of marketing aimed at children, and even less so of the little ads that are hidden inside of almost all toy packaging.  The worst thing about them?  They work.

So, what can you do if one of these ads happens to fall into the hands of a young child who can't stop thinking about those toys?  You can say, "Okay, let's make the pictures into toys!"

The art director waiting for the stylist to finish his final touches:

This idea was inspired by Joel's excellent paper city, a metropolis where all 16 of our action figures now reside...

Vocabulary Lessons

Thanks to a long-lived obsession with "Tintin," my nearly-six-year-old has added many new words to his imaginative play.  Great words.  Like "opium," and "chloroform."

Yesterday, he called me a hoodlum.  Today he said that the public toilet had "an unbearable stench."  (I credit William Steig with that one.)  My boy has always been a fan of outrageous exclamations.  I can't wait to introduce him to this little sweetheart:

                                                                                  (he's Mr. O'Malley from Barnaby by Crockett Johnson)

According to the Crockett Johnson homepage:

Pronounce it "Kush lah m' kree" That's "Kush" as in "push," "lah" like the "la" in "umbrella," and "m' kree" as if it were written "McKree" or "Muh Kree," in which "Kree" rhymes with "tree." The primary accent falls on the first syllable ("Kush"), and the secondary accent falls on the last syllable ("Kree").