Letting the Inner "Gepeto" Out

I picked up "Green Crafts for Children" by Emma Hardy at the Leduc library last week and hardly had it out of the library tote before Ava Grace was grabbing for it with her little hands all itching to do crafts with mama.

Mama was itching too.

The illustrations in this book are large and lovely and would have made me lightheaded as a child for all their loveliness. There is nothing in this book I don't want to try!

Ava Grace got to choose one project to start. We would go and pick out all the necessary supplies and set aside the proper time to follow through beginning to end. She picked the super cool wooden peg dollies.

I had her sit down and draw up a list of all the materials we would need and off we headed on the dreadful icy highways to Micheals for the supplies.

I spoke with the first  15 year old sales associate I saw;
"Hello there! Do happen to have old fashioned wooden clothespins with a wooden ball on top and the pin divides almost like legs??"

(Such blankness of expression I have rarely seen.)

"ummmmmmm........clothespins??? Wooden ball? that might be in sewing... aisle 23 maybe?"

"Sure okay! I'll go check, thanks so much!"

So I went to aisle 23 and did NOT find old fashioned wooden clothespins. (no surprise there) but I did find an embroidery hoop, blunt tapestry needles and oodles of gorgeous buttons and embroidery thread. (for later projects...hehehehe)

BUT after showing considerable constraint... I sought out another employee and tried to rephrase my request.

" Hello, excuse me? Do you carry wooden clothes pins for crafting? Sometimes people use them to make little dolls?"

"hmmmm...... anything with wood will be in aisle 10, 11, 12 or 13."

"Okay thanks... I guess I'll go check it out then!"

So I checked out all four aisles and found some lovely wooden toys, Dollhouses, kits for birdhouses and toy barns, and wooden eggs for my tin basket that has been sitting empty for so long now and really needs wooden eggs....

BUT I showed considerably MORE restraint and decided to at least go find a decent pair of scissors for my kid so she can learn how to cut things (I could actually write a whole rant post on how much I despise useless safety scissors that won't cut a dang thing)

While in the SCISSOR aisle (which is like aisle7 by the way) I found....
OLD FASHIONED WOODEN CRAFT PINS.( labeled as such). Thirty of them in a bag for 5.00.

Micheals you totally redeemed yourself.

But on with the crafting....

Following Ms. Hardy's directions, Ava Grace and I snipped bits of fabric, hot glued (Ava watched over my shoulder) and wound embroidery thread ( I chose it over yarn cause I liked the look better) around the little pegs until...
guess what?
They turned into little people.
Cute little wooden people that we were both ridiculously tickled with.

For the hair I used the gold fringe of an old ripped scarf. I tied it in a loose knot, tucked in the frayed ends and hot glued it to "Rapunzel's" head.

Rapunzel letting her hair down...crazy party animal that girl....

5 cent fabric scraps we scored back in the summer.... just waiting to be turned into dolly dresses wouldn't you say?

To attach the skirt, I once again diverged from the book's instructions and cut a strip of fabric aprox 3 inches by 8 inches and then gathered it as I hot glued it.

 Ava insisted she needed something shiny and "satiny" being a royalty and all, so we used this ribbon scrap instead of yarn.

 Dolly #2 got no golden hair. Nor did she get a "satiny" something. So I named her Ethel and she is Rapunzel's faithful maid and confident.... I have a special place for her in my heart already.

So I gave her this pretty bow.

 Ethel looks content with her life nevertheless and has a lovely smile courtesy of Ava's artistic skills.

And now my personal favorite; "Gerald the Prince of Hunkdom". He has the most fabulous wavy blonde with sideburns (like a t.v. news anchor)  This picture is when his pants were still in progress.  I wanted to leave him like this so he could be a lifeguard surfer dude from the Beach Boys era but Kevin told me I was getting too involved in the creative process and Ava Grace gave me a look that I couldn't disobey and so forward went the pants....

 Eventually the winding of small bits of blue thread grew tiresome and his pants became knee britches and he has a pair of swashbuckling boots (like all good princes should have I say.) and he has a billowing blue blouse and red sash for hiding his sword. And he still looks like he could hit a disco club if he needed to, so I'm happy. 

Now I'm thinking these were waaaay too much fun to make, so everyone will probably be getting little wooden figures of some sort in the next year. Nativity scenes for christmas anyone? Angel Christmas ornaments? Farmers for barnyard playsets? Toy soldiers? A family for a dollhouse?

You name it, I can make it. And I'll even throw in the names and backstories  just for kicks.

cheers.