Matchbox Monday 3: The Tiny Travelling Doll's House

Over the years, this has been one of my all-time favourites. This version is great for taking on holidays, especially when the car is choc-a-block full. Firstly, it doesn't take up the whole back seat. Secondly, when you are little it's nice to take a bit of your own familiar world with you on holidays. Finally, and this is really important, it's made to wear around your neck, which (hopefully) means that it won't get lost...which means, with a little luck, you probably won't have to spend several hours of your long-awaited holiday looking everywhere for it.





For this project I've used a 5cm x 3.5cm x 1.5cm matchbox. In Australia this is your regular matchbox size. I know the sizes can be different in different countries, so I hope you can get something more or less the same. As you can see from the photos it's all pretty straight forward. The roof is made from a piece of cardboard folded in half and then covered with felt. A piece of coloured cardboard will usually look better than plain white as you can see at least part of the inside of the roof in the finished house. I've scalloped the roof edge because little details like that give a nice effect (especially when you're working on a small scale). I like collecting tiny coloured buttons, as you can see, and have used some for the flowers and door-handle. In classes I let the girls chose a ribbon for the necklace. Here I just used imitation leather.



The little fairy doll is made with coloured wire (I love using coloured wire). I've used 2 wooden beads, one for the head and one for the body, and an artificial flower petal for the dress.



For her bed I've made a little pillow, a small quilt and just cut a piece of knitted material for her blanket.





Hope you enjoy making this. When the kids make it by themselves there's going to be less fine detail than if you help them, but either way it can look great, and it's always a lot of fun.

P.S. I've been having a bit of trouble with my hot glue gun sticks. My old supply has run out, and the new sticks are very stringy. Does anybody know a good brand of hot glue gun sticks?

Lost and Found Update: Friends 4 Ever

It's Monday I know. I should be posting about matchboxes but somehow I never quite get Matchbox Monday ready until Tuesday. Maybe next time. Still, I couldn't help myself. I just had to post this other exciting news. The little bunny has a name. And although I did give her all the names suggested it seems that my daughter Yiscah and her friend Pigleto decided that her name was in fact Minty, and that there was really nothing to think about. And it would seem that Minty agrees. At the same time, Minty has found herself a new best friend. So Minty just wants to say thanks to Rosey's daughters at icantsew for the great name.



Pigleto and Minty: Friends 4 Ever (and although you can't hear it, they're saying "Yay!").

So it really is a story with a happy ending...except Yiscah (did I mention she's 20) is complaining now that the two of them are chatting all night so she can't get to sleep.

P.S. Yiscah will probably want me to edit this post when she reads it.

Lost and Found

I'm not a fast swimmer. And when I'm swimming in the sea I'm even slower. This is a good thing because there's so much going on in the water: lots of groups of baby fish swimming together, strange black frilly fish hanging around, translucent jelly fish floating about, even some baby sting rays lying on the bottom...and then there's all those shells. When there are a lot of shells, then I really slow down. I don't want to miss anything. My laps across the beach are interrupted every now and then while I dive down to check out something that seems interesting.

That's what happened yesterday. At the end of my last lap I noticed something swaying on the seabed. At first, I thought it was a really strange jelly fish, (and there are some really odd looking fish down there), but as I got closer I saw that it was a little toy bunny. Seems he'd been holding his breath for a very long time. So I rescued the little fellow and offered him a new home. I was very excited. I took pictures to record the event. Actually, I didn't have my camera with me at the beach. I didn't want to go back later that day, so I just took a few handfuls of sand, collected some seaweed, leaves, driftwood, whatever was around, took them all home, and recreated the beach on the front drive.

On the day of his rescue:



And settled into his new home:



One last thing: it seems that the furry little fellow has amnesia, so if anyone 'out there' has kids who are good at thinking up names, he's all ears.

Matchbox Monday 2: Game-to-Go or Trouble in a Very Little Box

It's quite a challenge to get a new project up on the blog every Monday for a month. The truth is that it's not really Monday here in Australia. Actually it's Tuesday morning, but I imagine that it is still Monday somewhere, so it's not really cheating. Well, sort of not. And in any case, "Matchbox Tuesday" just doesn't sound the same as "Matchbox Monday".

For this project I use a larger size matchbox: 12cm x 7cm x 4cm. If you live in Australia, Coles sells Redheads Handy Pack in this size. For a little box this larger size is great. The game I've made here is a version of 'Trouble'. But the same idea will work for any game with a simple board and pieces that your kids might like. Instead of making the game board from a hard material like cardboard, you use cloth. I've chosen a 45 cm square of calico because it has a bit more weight than a lot of cottons. I also like the raw look with frayed edges and calico is fairly easy to draw and/or paint on and folds up well into a small space. To draw the board design, a permanent marker and ordinary acrylic paint work well. To cover the box I've used a good quality wool viscose blend felt, mainly because I like the feel of this felt, ( I find acrylic felts rough and a bit unpleasant to the touch).

I've made the bodies of the game pieces from 15 mm coloured wooden square beads with a 10 mm raw wood round bead for the head. For the hair I've used coloured wire: I got the red curls by winding the wire around a very thin knitting needle, and the aqua blue crinkles by using small flat pliers. The wiggly eyes were stuck on with a glue gun, ( hot glue dries very quickly and prevents the pieces you're sticking on from sliding out of position). The box can be decorated with whatever you want. I prefer to go with "less is more", but most of the kids in my classes believe that "more is best".

My box:



The pieces ready to play:



The game board:



Packed up and ready to go



There's a lot of room in this sort of project to adjust the idea and make it your own. Whatever you do, kids seem to love these little packages that they can carry around with them like a hidden treasure or like something magical that they can unfold and fold up whenever they want.

If you have any questions, just ask. Have fun, Trixi.

Matchbox Monday: "There are more strange bugs in the garden mum"

When I started teaching craft I liked using things that could be found around the house: shoe boxes, cardboard rolls, wooden spoons, plastic teaspoons, and my all time favourite, matchboxes. Unfortunately, matchboxes aren't used much anymore, but they're still easy to get hold of and come in a great range of sizes. Yay! So that makes matchboxes just about perfect to make into treasure houses, mini-games, mini-puppet theatres etc etc etc.

I thought I'd make this month a month of 'Matchbox Mondays' and show some of the activities I've done using matchboxes. First up are matchbox bugs. Cute little fellows but you've got to watch 'em. Last time I checked these guys tummies they were full of pipe cleaner worms. Now that's not a problem, as pipe cleaner worms are a healthy and nutritious addition in any matchbox bugs diet. The problem was what else these guys were eating. Be warned. And watch your buttons.

The morning get-together:



And posing for photos:



Suitable matchbox bug snacks:



Unsuitable matchbox bug snacks:




Remember, if they're not feeling well, check their stomach contents before ringing the vet.

P.S: I've discovered that the majority of people visiting blogs don't like to leave comments, but feedback is always interesting, so if you have a comment, I'd love to hear it.

Little girls can never have too many bags

Little girls, just like their mums, can never have too many bags. Over the years I've designed a lot of different bags for the girls who come to my classes. Mostly, I've chosen to use felt because it has certain advantages: it doesn't fray when cut and has a good thickness that makes it easy for the kids to hold while they're sewing. The main disadvantage with the wool-acrylic blend felts that I use in classes is the colour range. It can be a bit limited. Still, the girls love them. It seems with a class-full of girls you can't go wrong with pinks and purples. Here are some simple bags I've made with my girls:








If you really want beautifully nuanced colours you can try to hand-dye your own wool felt. Or if you have a Rudolf Steiner shop in your city you can buy hand-dyed wool felts (but they're not cheap) in the most amazing colours. Here are some that I bought at the Rudolf Steiner shop in Sydney.




And I made this little fellow for myself. His mouth is actually a pocket, and I hang him off my bag.



And every now and then I make him some friends.

There are Strange Bugs in the garden Mum.

Here's a supereasy superfun activity for the kids on a rainy day (on any day really). You can make a whole family and add ribbons, flowers, bow ties, whatever, to give them different personalities. You should know these little fellows love to sit and watch while you work at the computer and can be used as 'Guard Bugs' to watch over belongings while you're away. These ones are relaxing in my garden:





Here's how you make them.


MATERIALS

50cm of 24 gauge wire
16 x 16mm doughnut beads
17 pony beads
20 small assorted coloured beads for tail and antennas
one 20mm wooden bead for head
2 wiggly eyes
Hot-glue gun

INSTRUCTIONS

Bend wire in half and thread a single small colored bead onto one of the wire ends as in photo below.




Holding the 2 ends of the wire together, thread more small colored beads over both wires to form the tail as in photo below.




Next thread a pony bead followed by a doughnut bead over both wires and continue threading this pattern to form the bug's body.

Thread on the wooden bead to make the bug's head and separate the ends of the wire to form the antennas.

Hold the bug's head and carefully fill the hole in the centre of the wooden bead with hot glue.

Wait for glue to set and then thread more small colored beads onto each antenna.

End each antenna by winding the end of the wire between the last and second last bead.

To complete glue on wiggly eyes.


Well, there you go... my first blog tutorial. Hope you like it. If you've got any questions or something is not clear, let me know. If you can't find doughnut beads, you can use tri-beads instead, or even any large coloured bead. Experiment! Let me know how you go.