Knitivity

This is my longest ongoing knitting project and probably my favourite. Every year a few more figures arrive at the stable, and I'm almost there - just two shepherds and an ox to go.

A while back I thought I'd lost the donkey, so knitted another one, only to find the original in my daughter's My Little Pony House… and I'd forgotten how many sheep I'd made - a few have wandered out of shot (need another shepherd) - last year I found some fluffy white and brown yarn in a charity shop and got a bit carried away.

I used 'Knitivity' by Fiona Goble. Such a great book. The patterns are easy to follow and the knitting really isn't tricky. Probably the most time-consuming part is the robes, and you do need lots of different colours, which was never going to be a problem for me with my wool hoarding habit..

It's such a lovely thing to have - every year I forget quite how lovely, until we take the figures out of the box and set them on the hall table. Hopefully they'll be making an appearance for years to come.

I've a few old family Christmas decorations that are very dear to me - and who knows, maybe far into the future some small person will be asking his mum why Great Granny knitted so many sheep..

Sparkly Christmas decorations

You can't do kids Christmas craft without a bit of sparkle. 'Tis the season to embrace your glittery side… your glittery table...and your glittery floor…. and frankly I could do with a sprinkle of Christmas twinkle, because even though my three are practically hyperventilating with excitement, all I can think about at the moment is the mountain of stuff I haven't done.

But I made myself sit down with the youngest to have a go at a few decorations, and these were her favourites. Very simple to do - all you need is a yogurt pot (any size), some tinsel, paper, glitter, glue and thread.

Cut the rim off your pot - cut down about a cm or so from the top and then cut all the way around (don't worry if it doesn't look very even as it'll be hidden under the tinsel), then wrap the tinsel around the ring (a piece with shorter, sparkly bits is best)
Tie a knot when you're finished and cut to neaten off.

For the angel, use a cup about the same size as the yogurt pot to draw a circle on some plain paper, cut it out, snip in half and make a cone shape.

Use the other half of the circle for the arms, making them wider at the ends (see pic)

The angel is very similar to the figures I made for our Nativity scene last year.

If you haven't got coloured paper just colour some in. My daughter chose yellow for the hair - put a pink piece on top of whatever colour you like, draw a head shape and cut out the two circles.

Stick these two pieces together and use it as a guide to draw the hair. Cut out the middle so there's a space for the face and glue on.

I had some gold wrapping paper for the wings, but anything shiny will do - metallic pens, glitter, tin foil even. Fold a small piece and draw half a wing, open up and stick in place.

Now your angel is ready to be glued onto the tinsel.
Finally, tie a loop of thread through the circle.

A Christmas tree also looks good - draw half a tree on a folded piece of paper, cut out and add some glitter.

For baubles, scrunch up little bits of coloured tin foil (great excuse to eat Christmas chocolates!) and the star on top of the tree came from a redundant Rewards Chart…

Or you could try a star, and if you don't have a good stencil, then make one of these Easy Stars and add some glitter.

Bells, or snowmen would work well too, or just anything you fancy!

Mr Crocodile rolls up to the Zoo

Our homemade Zoo is getting pretty busy. This is the fourteenth arrival since the loo roll lion kicked the whole thing off in May. Never imagined back then I'd end up spending so much time thinking about how to make a hoard of animals out of the recycling rubbish...

The crocodile is an egg box/cardboard roll combo - you'll need one of the pointy cone middle bits from an egg box.

Cut it in half, then cut a section of the loo roll middle for the body. Use the egg box piece to measure this if you like, but it doesn't need to be accurate - bigger is better at this stage.

Glue a pointy piece onto one end - don't try and glue it completely flat, concentrate on getting the sides to stick, but leave the top proud of the body. This will be the top part of the croc's head. And don't worry about the extra bits of card sticking out below - these can be snipped away once it's dry.

I think the tail looks better if you cut a curve into the other egg box bit before gluing it under the body - this time you want it to fit snuggly to the cardboard roll , though again don't worry about edges not meeting up at the bottom.
Paper clips help to hold everything in place while it dries.

When it's ready, cut away the hanging down bits so it sits flat, then paint your croc - remember to paint some spare card too.

For the teeth, cut a thin strip of white paper that wraps around most of the head section - use a black pen to draw a zigzag pattern. Snip each end into a gradual point and glue in place.

For the eyes we coloured some paper with a yellow highlighter pen and used a good old hole punch.
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Put one of these on the spare green card and draw around it - so you have a small piece that's curved at the top and flat at the bottom.

Make two, glue on the circles, then you may need to cut more of the bottom edge off, so they don't stick out too much when you push them into slits (made with nail scissors) close to the top of the croc's head.

Cut out feet (do one and use as a template) - fold at an angle (see black lines below) and stick them on underneath so they point forward.

Then just draw on nostrils and some markings......and there you have it!

I've put the croc in the turtle's pool, but he could do with one made from a larger ice cream lid!

For a stealthy. swimming croc, forget the feet and cut more of the sides away...

...or just use a head....

Linking up with Kids Get Crafty

Many more projects like this in my craft books, 'Make Your Own Zoo' and 'Make Your Own Farm Animals'

Mini Halloween figures - Part 2

What to do with a bucketful of pumpkin pieces?
Not so keen on pumpkin pie; soup is fine (especially good with apple), but this year I was thinking something sweet like muffins, and then as if by spooky magic, Emma's recipe for spiced pumpkin muffins popped up on my blog list, so we'll be having a go at that later.

Back to the cardboard pumpkin, (ghost and bat are here) and you'll need to cut two egg cups from your box. Keep them shallow and as even as possible, so you can stick them together. But before getting the glue out, use your fingers and thumbs to press the egg cup bottoms, making them more dome shaped.

Splosh on some orange paint and when dry, use a felt tip for the face. Make a hole in the top, roll a small piece of green paper as tightly as you can for the stalk and push it in.

A little more work for the witch, but hopefully worth it.

You'll need a small cone from the middle of the box. Paint it black, leaving a space for the face.
Having a green egg box was a bonus, but if yours is another colour, just paint the face when the black's dry.

Cut a small triangle from spare egg box card for the witch's nose. Fold this little bit of card in half, make a hole with nail scissors (keep them closed, press down and twist from side to side) in the middle of the face and wedge the pointy nose in.

We stuck on some brown wool for hair, but coloured tissue paper would work well too.
Draw a witchy mouth and eyes with a felt-tip.

The hat is made from two small circles. We had no black paper so just coloured some in.

The smaller circle sits on her head, cut the the larger one in half. Twist and glue it into a cone shape. Use plenty of glue to stick the cone to the bottom of the hat.

Make her broomstick by wrapping and gluing a rectangle of tissue paper (or ordinary paper) around the end of cocktail stick. Snip the paper to make it more broom-like.

Make holes in the witch's body (with the nail scissors) - higher at the front than the back, so her broomstick sits at an angle.

Cut a strip for arms from your black paper, making it wider at both ends for the flared sleeves. then glue in place.

The plan was to come up with a game using these mini figures, but that's going to have to wait..

Happy Halloween!

Linking up with Kids Get Crafty