Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Gruffalo DIY: Wooden spoon Gruffalo puppets

Gruffalo wooden spoon puppets
One of our favorite books is Julia Donaldson's Gruffalo. Apart from the humor and the cool rhymes and rhthymn of the text , I find the illustrations of Axel Scheffler particularly  attractive. It is also a great story to act out with funny voices.
So last week I bought some wooden cooking utensils (a pack containing a spatula, a spoon and two less useful items a fork and a spoon with two holes in it) and decided to make some puppets out of them based on the Gruffalo characters.
The spoon and spatula were easy to work with, and I used wood putty to fill in the holes of the other items.

I added bits of detail to the handle of the utensils
I used acrylic paint and a matt finish on the spoons. I used thin cardboard (formerly a box for chocolates) for the ears and horns of the Gruffalo and put paint and finish on them to make them harder.

These will come in handy when we start reading The Gruffalo to the little one, and they will give my older son an opportunity to participate in the event! :)

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

More hair clips

I made these hair clips as a birthday present for our neighbors' granddaughter.

Felt matrioshka hair clip: I used two layers of felt for the body,embroidered the face, sewed the fair on the face and then sewed the face onto body with transparent thread. The flower was made of a glass and a flitter bead.

Organza hair clip: I cut flower shapes from organza and melted the edges over a candle and decorated the middle with beads of the same color.

Felt heart with ribbon hair clip: I melted the ends of the ribbon to prevent fringing

Felt watemelon hair clip: I stitched the two layers of watermelon together with the seeds. This was especially fun to make given it is watermelon season!!!