Mop Horse

In my last post I mentioned the mop from the pirate party and what it has become. Well here it is and this is how I made it.

Take the string and divide it into thirds. The bottom third will be the nose, a small section will be the ears and the rest will be the mane.

Tuck the bottom third under and secure with rubberbands. Twist the ears and secure the base with more rubberbands. Leave the remaining string hanging for the mane. It will look like this...

The last few steps are just as easy. Using your glue gun take some ribbon to cover the rubberbands. My ribbon was too wide so I just used one strip to cover the bottom ribbon. I used my googly eyes to cover the top rubberband. I just glued the "bridle" directly to the handle. Here is the end result. Isn't it cute? It looks like she's looking directly at the camera.

The handle is too long so I need to cut it down a little, but other than that this was a super quick and easy project. It took about 20 minutes from start to finish. Now I just need to make a felt cowboy hat! But that is not going to happen anytime soon :-)

I hope you make this little horse friend. It's a nice thing to do with an otherwise useless product (this is a dollar store mop and has very little "umph" to it).

Apple

Paper Chain

So my little one has been asking me lately when are we going Trick or Treat. The concept of a week and a half is a little hard to understand for a little one so the best way to teach this (in my opinion) is a paper chain. So since it is October, I decided to use autumnal colors. This paper chain is going a little beyond Halloween because my mom is coming to visit soon so this will also show when "Grammy" is going to be here.

This really is a simple project and I'm sure most of us remember doing it at least once in elementary school.

Take your construction paper, and cut it into 2" strips.

Have your little one color on the strips or embellish however you want. I decided to add little pictures to help make it all a little easier to understand.

Make your first link into a circle and glue together. Then just start linking them together and glue as you go along.

Hang and enjoy!

We will be ripping off a link as each day passes to show that the big day is almost here.

Notice the mop in the picture? That is the mop from the pirate party. I am tired of seeing it all over the house so I decided to make something out of it. Keep your eye out for what it has become :-)

Apple

Carseat Cover/Canopy

I have finally made the carseat canopy that I mentioned quite some time ago. I'm actually making a few, but this is the first one and I wanted to get it on here. I used the tutorial found here, but I did my straps a little differently and measured my placement of the straps wrong. On my next cover, I'll be sure to measure properly :-) I measured my straps 18" down and 10" in.

To make my straps, I didn't want to use velcro so I just figured I would tie my straps to the carseat. My straps are approximately 1 1/2"x25". Here's how I did it:

 

 I started off with two pieces of fabric that are 5"x25".

Fold fabric in half lengthwise and press.

Unfold what you just did and fold fabric into fourths, press.

Take the top corner of each piece and fold it toward the center line and press. It should look like you are making a paper airplane. Do this to both ends.

Fold the entire strap in half again and press. This is what is should look like:

Stitch around the open ends of the straps and you're done. Sorry if this sounds a little complicated. It really isn't, I just couldn't figure out a better way to explain it.

Measure your straps to the proper placement on the cover and stitch in place.

And you're done! Here's what it will look like in the end:



I used minky fabric for the interior. It's nice and snuggly and could be used as a blanket also.

Apple

Pirate Party

Well the party was a success! Everyone had so much fun! There were a few last minute projects to do. The night before the party I remembered that I didn't make the maps...oops! Here are pictures and I will explain as I go along.


Treasure Maps:

Get a piece of card stock, tear the edges, and crumple into the tightest ball you can get. Flatten out as much as possible. 

I had to make five: 

Soak the paper in coffee or tea for about 5 minutes.  

Take out of the coffee very carefully and lay on cooling rack. Dab excess liquid with a towel. Use blow dryer to dry. 

Burn edges.

Draw your map. After I took this picture, my husband drew a compass on the  map in the upper right hand corner. Each X on the map matched the child's hat color.

Here are a couple of the clues that I printed out and laminated because it was kind of damp outside. I love this font. It looks piratey.

Remember I said that each child was going to have their own X? Well I laminated those too.  

Here are the maps rolled up and tied with ribbon. 

Here is the bird that the kids had to find. I laminated it too and attached it to the side of the shed.  

Here are the treasure chests that the kids had to find. I put them in plastic bags since they were going to be in the straw and there was candy inside, I didn't want any bugs possibly getting in there. I think they actually look nice in the bags. They look like gifts to me.  

My husband painted the portholes. He did an awesome job! 

He also painted the crocodile. Again, awesome job! He found this image online and printed it out. We have a little projector and he just projected the image onto the posterboard and voila! Easy crocodile. 

Here is a fishing net we hung up. We also glued sea shells onto the net. It turned out really cool! 

Here are the  portholes up on the wall:

Here is the "mean" old croc. We cut a hole out of the mouth and that is obviously where the kiddos had to throw the beanbags. I didn't make the toss board. We had one in the shed. But if you want to make one out of cardboard just click here.

Here is the cake that one of the mama's made. It turned out really cute! 

Finally, I just took some crepe paper and hung it in strips from the ceiling. The kids also thought this was cool.  

So thats it! The kids had so much fun finding the next clue and getting their costume along the way. When they got to the front yard and found their treasure chests, the took them, handed them to the parents and had fun playing in the straw. They played in that for a long time with no interest whatsoever in their treasure. When we came back inside, they opened the chests and were excited with all of the goodies inside. Then we all ate cake and everyone went home. It was a nice time!

I hope I was able to give you a lot of good ideas if you want to throw a pirate party of your own!

Apple