May 21st 2015 - Finished Story Sack

May 21st 2015 - Finished Story Sack

Yesterday I should have been at the last session of the family learning at the  school where we were meant to be finishing our story sacks and talking about them with the group.  But due to lil man being in hospital I wasn't there, but my story sack is now finished.

Pirates Love Underpants Story Sack was made by me, if you follow my blog you will have seen bits over the past 5weeks that I was making to go in it.  Here is a picture of the finished thing with everything and I will add pics and descriptions of other bits below.

First off was the sack, we were given plain canvas sacks and told we could decorate them how we liked.  A lot of the people in the group did them to the book they were putting in it, I decided to do it as a general sack so we could change the contents.  More info on my sack can be found here and here

My main story book for the sack was of the "pirates love underpants", my son already had dinosaurs and aliens and likes them and he likes pirates so this seemed a good choice.  As part of a story sack we were told that the sack has to have a "fiction/fact" book, so I bought the 100 facts on pirates shown above, this was much bigger than I thought it was going to be.

I  made a little "work book" linked to the story and laminated the pages so that they can be used again and again.  I have included white board pens and hi-lighter pens that rub off and a board rubber in a pencil case.

My son  asked if we could have a monkey like in the book, and brought me his toy one from upstairs.  This was ok but the monkey in the book had pants on, I asked my friend to make me a pair of knitted pants for him.  Her first attempt didn't work and we ended up with a monkey "mooning" us, which was quite funny.

My friend had them back (after I embarrssed her on facebook with the "mooning monkey") and re-made them so they fit him better.  I was very grateful as I can't knit. They did look good once done.  I added a gold earing to his right ear, and made him a banana to go in his hand.  (Banana instructions are here.)

I made a Pirate and a Parrot hand puppet to go in it.  The parrot was a "wash mit/flannel" bought off ebay, but was green.  The parrot in the book was red, so I glued red feathers all over its back and wings and made it a tail.  I also made it a pair of underpants like in the book.  My boys didn't know about the parrot as I didn't make a post or tell them I had bought it.

I made a Golden Pants Trophy  like the pirates are hunting for in the book.  My boys thought it was really good.

I bought the dvd "So you want to be a Pirate" and added it to the bag, it's only 18minutes long but tells you things you need to do to be a pirate etc.  I didn't realise it was so short I thought it was a proper film.

I bought a travel version of the traditional game pop up pirate and I made a set of  matching pairs underpants cards.  When they were printed you could see the pants through the paper so I made a sheet the same size as the cards using the cover of the book, cut them out and put on the back of pictures of pants and then laminated and cut out.  Now you can't see which pants are which.  I printed out a mini instruction card and placed them all in a small drawstring bag.

Last week at the family learning I was given a small wooden treasure chest which I decorated and added gems and coins to.  This was also meant to be a suprise for the bag, but I forgot to put it up before the boys came home from school so they saw it.

Lastly I added a (brand new) pair of boxer shorts (Aldi had packs of 3 reduced to £1.49 and they are next size up for my eldest son but now only has 2 pairs) and an eye patch so that my son(s) can dress as a pirate in underpants when we read and re-tell the story with the props.

Here's my lil man as a pirate in underpants with the parrot puppet.

I really enjoyed this course at the school it has been good fun and my kids like their story sack.  Hopefully I will be able to make a different one (or 2) so that we can change them round from time to time.  They want to put it in the car.

May 15th 2015 - Making a banana

May 15th 2015 - making a banana

In my story sack for family learning I have a monkey.  In the book the monkey is eating a banana, so my son said that his monkey needs 1, so I found an idea to make a banana.  The 1 I found is made from felt, of which I don't have have the right colours, so I decided to make 1 from fabric.

I pinned yellow and white material together and cut out a sort of banana shape, I am stitching the 2 pieces of material together to make both the inside and outside of banana skin.  I have also made a white dome from 3 pieces of material to be the actual banana.  I am going to stuff it and stitch it all together.

May 11th 2015 - Making underpants (for a parrot)

May 11th 2015 - Making underpants (for a parrot)

Yes you read that right I am making underpants for a parrot!  Not a real one but a hand puppet, well it was bought as a wash mitt/flannel, but wont be by the time I have finished with it.  This is linked to the story sack I am making at family learning at the school.  The book Pirates love underpants has a parrot in it as well as the monkey.

My kids don't know about the parrot puppet, they have seen most bits that are going in the story sack but I have kept the parrot from them as well as few other bits.  I used this underpant template as the basic idea to make them, but the parrot in the book has shorts as underpants so I had to alter the shape to make them work.

I have sat and stitched the underpants and then stitched them to the puppet.  I plan to add feather to it at the school on wednesday to make it look better.

I think my kids are safe in the knowledge that I wont be starting to make their underpants as it's not that easy!!! LOL!

May 3rd 2015 - Iron on transfer

May 3rd 2015 - Iron on transfer

As part of my family learning and the making of a story sack we had to design the sack as well.  Most of the group used fabric pens and drew their design on or used bits of material or a printed a picture laminated and glued on but were linked to the book they have chosen.  I decided that I wanted my story sack to be universal and able to be used for any books.

I asked my friend who did me some iron on transfers the other Christmas if she still had any and if she would do me one to go my sack.  She agreed and posted it to me, thanks Col!  It didn't arrive until after I had been to the school last Wednesday, not that I know HOW I would have ironed it on at the school anyway. Lol!

Then when I went to iron it on the other day I hunted the house high and low and couldn't find the iron!  Me and hubby remembered that it went in the bin after it burnt/melted my sons shirt and we hadn't replaced it.  (I don't iron very often and when I do it's usually shirts for going out.)  So I had to wait until yesterday to go to town and buy a new iron.

The quote that is going on it is from Dr Seuss.  Here is the pic with it printed in reverse (so that it's the right way once ironed).

The next pic show it turned over and the "printed bit" is now facing the sack ready to be ironed in place.

Here I am ironing the image into place on the sack.

Here is the sack with the ironed quote in place.   

My story sack is almost complete now.  I just need to finish fixing the quotes into the felt book which I am going to stitch onto the front of the sack under the Dr Seuss quote. 

Most of the contents of the story sack are complete as well.  I have the book - Pirates love underpants, a Golden pants trophy that I made, a monkey in underpants that just needs a banana making, a pop up pirate game (bought) and a few other bits.  I'm not saying all as I want some of them to be a surprise for my children.

May 2nd 2015 - Royal Baby and pirate hand hand puppet

May 2nd 2015 - Royal baby and pirate hand puppet

CONGRATULATIONS

I send my congratulations to Kate & William (and all their family) on the arrival of their baby daughter today, the new Princess.  I hope that all is well with Mum and baby.


Pirate Hand Puppet

As part of my story sack with the family learning we were told we had to make a puppet to go in the sack.  We were all given a plain white hand puppet like this:

which we could decorate how we liked as long as linked to our book.  Well as my book is about pirates in underpants I decided I would make the puppet as a pirate in underpants.  This was all well and good saying so but not as easy in practise.  I could have drawn the design in fabric pens but me being me this wasn't going to look good enough!  So I got material out of the cupboard and started cutting and stitching.

Here is the start of the pirate with his top on:

From here I made a bandana for his head and gave him some hair (flash hit the face part making him look yellow):

I then added denim from an old pair of jeans to make his trousers - this are at the side of where the pants are visible in 1st pic.  I didn't get a pic of this stage.  From here I made a pair of pants from grey skull material and stitched them over the top of his "jeans" so they look like pants are over top of them. 

I think he's pretty good and i'm really pleased with him so far.  Obviously he's not quite finished as still need to add his face and his eye patch.  Only thing i'm not happy with is his hands - they were a very pale peach pen but they have come out quite orange but nothing I can do about it sadly.

April 25th 2015 - Making a felt book

April 25th 2015 - Making a felt book

For the front of my story sack I want a small fabric book, I thought felt would be the best bet.  So I started to look for a simple design that I could use.  I couldn't find one.  Then I came across this Needle holder book and it was just what I was looking for.

So I set about making it, mine will have 10 pages in total which I plan to add "reading/book" quotes to each page.  My initial idea was to stitch them on the felt, then I realised that the sewing would go through and I couldn't use the reverse side of the page.  I tried fabric pens and fabric paint but they looked really big on the felt and not very nice.  My last idea and what I am going with was stitching the quotes onto another piece of material and fixing that to the book pages.  Whether I fix with glue or sewing i'm not quite sure.

I am going to write the quotes in pencil on the extra piece of material and then stitch over them, so that they stand out.

The middle of the book where I have sewed them together

1 of the purple and green pages inside

The book folded

April 22nd 2015 - Family Learning Story sacks

April 22nd 2015 - Family Learning Story sacks

Family Learning at the school has started a new course today - Story sacks.  This envolves us parents making a story sack based on a book.

We sat and discussed ideas that we could put in 1 based on a story about night pirates and included things like a pirate hat and eye patch, treasure chest and treasure, story book, fact book, map, material for the sea, moon and stars, a boat or ship, pirate puppets/finger puppets, pirate toys etc.

By next wednesday we need to have a story book and some ideas of what we are going to include in it.  Having 2 children at the school that did the last course with me I have got to decide if i'm making 1 between them (but as different ages this could be hard), or if i'm going to make 2 which means that they may not be as good as just 1.

I think this course could turn out to be really good.