clothes pin butterfly

Smootch originally saw this idea on a video of crafty projects for kids and was completely enamored with it. Being sparkly, beady, and able to pinch, it's a very enticing project for a four year old. She had me digging out the beads I had been saving from her school projects for a year out just before bedtime last night (I actually do understand last minute inspirations, and how important it is to go with it and damn the toothbrushing.) Smootch has given me permission to share her project with everyone here.


To make a clothes pin butterfly, round yourself up some pipe cleaners, acrylic paint and brushes, beads with large enough holes for the pipecleaners, and sturdy glue (white or hot). Oh, and a clothes pin!


First up, paint your clothes pin in an acceptable butterfly colour.

While the paint is drying, load up two pipecleaners with beads, leaving an inch clear on each of the ends.

Twist the beaded pipecleaner into a figure 8 with the ends coming off the side in the middle. Twist the ends together to secure.

Cut a smaller length of pipecleaner for antenne. Finish the ends with a couple of beads.

Gather all of your butterfly elements and glue. Attach the antenne at mid point with a small pool in the dip on one side of the clothes pin mouth. If you want your clothes pin to open still, I suggest proping the mouth open with a bead until the glue is dry.


The wings are applied by globbing some glue inside of the spring and tucking in the twisted ends(you may need to trim the pipecleaner a bit).

Smootch's butterfly actually spent the night drying on the top of the refrigerator. Here it is the next day:

If you decide that your butterfly is still a bit too plain, as Smootch did, add some more paint to the clothes pin.

And then you have yourself one sparkly, pretty, pinchy butterfly ;)

soft block and game

This week I was all excited to share with your my serger cheat book I had made to help me remember all the different settings and stitches. The cheat book is something I've made, personalized to my serger, and I even have examples of the stitches made up and stapled to the pages.

But I lost it.

The book is somewhere in my sewing room, which is mostly packed up and all the way disorganized while we prepare for a move. When (if!) I find it, I shall share. Promise.

In the meanwhile, I have a small project to keep you and your wee ones moving and entertained. This morning I playing with the kids (ages 1, 2, 3, and 4) with something that has recently surfaced from my sewing room. I had started out making cloth blocks for my 2 year old dayhome kid, way back at the winter solistice. After making one I decided that it wasn't working well, stashed the unlovable block under a pile of fabric, and made something else instead.

Cleaning out the sewing room not too long ago, I rediscovered the block and thought that while it may be ugly, it would probably making a good soft throwing toy for my baby boy. And I brought it upstairs.

The kids love the block. It gets thrown, stepped on, hidden, found, and hidden again. So many impromptu games have been created for this block, where every side is a different colour and it is still square enough to have one colour land face up. Let me share our favorite game with you.

But first, you need a block!

Cut 6 squares of fabric, all of different colours and/or patterns, about 6" x 6". I suggest using corduroy, linen, or a tougher fabric that can stand up a bit of abuse.

Sew together the squares, right sides together, into a cube shape. Leave the last seam partly open, with an opening large enough to turn the cube right side out and stuff semi-firm with fibre fill. After stuffing, slip stitch the opening closed.

Now, the fun bit: find some kids (you don't need as many as I happen to have hanging around my house). Have the kids all gather in a large space with enough room around each child for arm flailing and leg wiggling. Have one of the children throw the block up in the air. When the block lands, take note of the colour on the up facing side and ascribe an action to corespond to that colour.

For example,

Blue side = spin around 3 times

Red side = hop from foot to foot

White side = drop to the ground and steamroller!

Make up a new action for every toss of the block (as long as your imagination holds out) or try to remember the action for each colour. Children love to try out all their silly moves and each having a chance to throw the block. You can even have the children make up the moves themselves.

This game is excellent for rainy days when everyone needs to do some movement play but are bored to tears of the hokey hokey pokey and ring around the rosey.

More soft block games:

Hot potato

Dodge ball (with preschoolers or older)

I wish... (the block is tossed from child to child, and as the child catches the block they make a wish - an excellent game to gain some insight into the minds of children)

If you have a game idea too, please share!

owl always be ad free (except when I'm not)

Advertising is a looming issue for me and my family. Nevermind how we've all been driven bonkers by just the sheer amount of buy buy buy info coming at us. (I just want to rest my eyes on something blank sometimes, but in my city, unless you want to crank your head straight up to the sky, that is not possible.) When you have kids, you notice how many ads are directed towards children, and it can make you feel a bit irritated (or wild eyed pissed off) at how they encourage children to desire unhealthy foods, or bug their parents, or feel inadequate one way or another. Urban areas are definitely ground zero for ads, but if you've taken a country drive lately (or travelled between two cities) you might notice that someone's been running around putting up billboards in farmer's fields every quarter kilometer or so along the busier highways. And hay is now stored in plastic wrap with beer ads on it.

It's frightening, this take over of the rural, but it's hard to actually blame a farmer for this. Advertising is lucurative. And here is my confession time. A little while back I dipped my toe into the possibility of putting advertising on this blog. The promise of a bit of children feeding cash was attractive, especially since it requires me to only keep doing what I already do. But, when the invitation to send in my fiancials to get the whole ads on Just Tutes going, I thought again and decided that is just not the direction I want to take. (You will point out to me at this point that I actually do have an ad on the sidebar for my etsy. But you're going to have just accept that one, because it's not really advertising, but important information that you all should know about ;))

About the same time that I was deciding that, no thanks, no ads on my blog I kept noticing the little ad-free blog owl on other people's sites.



I always love to see the owl. It says, 'yes, I could have ads, I'm miss popular blog, but I choose not to. So there.' Good stuff! Plus owls are cool, yes? So, I did a quick sketch of a little owl that I wanted to make into a stencil or something for a tee and make it all into a 'ad-free bod', all in honor of the ad-free blog owl and my decision to not accept advertising.

Then life happened, and I got distracted, and some more stuff happened, but now, months later, I finally got around to doing something with my little owl. My son is now sporting a owl applique on his new pair of trousers, made from my old trousers.

And now I have a nifty scanner, so I can share the applique pattern with you too (freecycle rocks!)

Instructions for applique:

Using a sheet of iron-on bond paper, trace out the various elements of the applique on the non-glue side.

Following the manufactures instructions, iron the bond paper to the wrong side of fabric. Cut out the traced shapes.

Peel off the paper backing of the bond paper and arrange the various elements of the applique on the material to be appliqued. Once it all looks good, iron the applique in place (check manufactures instructions).

If you are applying the applique to thin material, place a used dryer (static) sheet on the back side of the fabric you are appliquing on. This will give it a bit more strength and prevent stretching or awkwardness in the stitching. After the applique is done you can snip off the edges of the dryer sheet to neaten it up.

Load up either complimentry thread to the material you are appliquing or choose a single colour for the whole applique. Set your machine to a satin stitch (a tight zig zag stitch). Follow the edges of the applique elements with the satin stitch to secure the applique to the fabric and outline the design.

Apply appliqued garment to child. Then say to the child:

"knock knock"
'who's there?'
"Owl."
'Owl who?'
"Owl always love you!"

play microphone

Here's a little idea for what to do with empty serger spools. Music is king in my house and my daughter was forever stealing my black flashlight to sing into, until dh, aka The Man, came up with a something more appealing (and shiny.)

Materials needed:

black yarn or string

tinfoil

a cone shaped serger thread spool

glue

a ring small enough to fit in the large opening of the spool, but larger than the small opening

Tie a length of string to the ring to form the cord from the microphone. Drop the ring, string first, down into the large opening of the thread spool. The ring should wedge so that the mic cord hangs down from the small opening.

Make a ball of tin foil slightly larger in diameter than the large opening on the spool. Place the ball again the large opening, and cover the ball with a large enough sheet of tin foil to cover the ball and wrap around the sides of the spool a bit.

Starting just below the tinfoil ball, apply small amounts of glue to secure the string as you wrap it around the spool in rows, working your way down to the base.

Let glue dry. Give spool mic to child and play her favorite song.

I managed to capture on camera one of my favorite expressions Smootch makes when she sings. The pic above is Smootch singing the line, "someone call the girl police and file a report," from her favorite song (this week). (A line that suites her on so many levels.)

Here's the fun part for us biggies. I have just released another pattern zine that I am just dying to send out in the world. Now, you all know this pattern, given that it's actually a free tutorial on this site, but I have had enough requests for the specific bodice pieces I use and a number of people in the hard world have also asked for pattern and instructions. I like to be accomodating, so there y'all go.

I would love to give away a copy of the tiered patchwork twirler pattern zine. Here is how to play: enter by leaving a comment on this post about what your wee one's (or a wee one close to you) favorite song is. I will draw a random comment on friday night (april 3) my time (west mountain time), after the kids go to bed (I know how you all love how vague this is, but thus is my life).

AND, I will make an additional draw for another copy of the tiered patchwork twirler pattern zine from all the people who can tell me what song and artist the lyric I quoted above

by emailing me: vegbee[at]littleprintdesigns.com with the subject line: call the girl police.

Good luck! Talk again on friday!

**********************************************************************

I popped over to random.org and drew up Caroline for the comment draw and Jody for the Call the Girl Police draw. Which is from 'Little Plastic Castles' by the indomitable Ani Difranco.

(Warning, serious Smootch tangent ahead: When Smootch was a fresh little infant I used to sing her 'Both Hands' over and over because it was the only song lyrics I could recall from my fuzzy new parent brain. Ani is her second favorite artist of all time, Bob Marley is her first. Joan Jett her third. If you are wondering if maybe perhaps she lacks exposure to children's music, that is not true. She's polly woddled with the best and baby beluga'd until she grew faint, but she prefers 'mama's music.' I asked her today why she always chooses mama music when I ask for requests and she said it's because kids music is boring. Spoken like a true 4 year old going on 13.)

Congratulations to both winners and thank you all for playing. I do love these giveaways, and I especially loved reading the amazing diversity of music your wee ones are listening to. Thanks all for sharing!