a wooly bird for spring

little miss with her wool robin

So with the whole trying to have more rhythm thing, which I will write about later, Wednesday has become craft with kiddies day. It's nice to have one day where this is what we try to accomplish, not having the pressure to do it every day, you know? Because you know I could go crazy (would go) with the kiddies crafts.

In any case. Last week we made these adorable stuffed birds. I saw a few on pinterest that I liked but none of them had real instructions so I kinda...winged it...(ha ha ha! I had to, sorry.)

They were surprisingly easy.

I used bits of scrap sweater (always keep the scraps!) and made a bluebird and a robin. Then we found in some old bag some raffia (I think that is what that straw-ish stuff is called, right?) and made nests. Yesterday we rolled out bits of wool into eggs, with a wet felting technique.

Anyway. Here is how we did it, if you want to too.

the pieces. getting the right shapes was the trickiest
part of this project. the red is for his breast.
the two big pieces are his side. the piece on the top is the
top of his body. and the other pieces are his wings.
and a little bit of orange for a beak.

the sides and the top sewn together (just by hand) do you see
how the tail is formed from the top piece?

adding on his red breast

a better view.



his front view. before stuffing



after stuffing, before putting on wings

front view. kind of a hack job. but i was wearing baby, sleeping, standing
in the kitchen with the vent on to keep her asleep and two kids jumping
on me to finish....

the tail, sewn up. see how i let the tail piece fan out?

a finished birdie, with wings added.

happy kiddos.

the birds on our nature table.

a closer look at little man's bluebird

 Ok. So those are kinda crap directions. Sorry. But I swear it was pretty easy. Aside from the whole baby sleeping kids jumping thing. Eh. HA!

Here is a little verse we have been learning for spring.

Happy crafting!

What the wind told the grasses

and the grasses told the trees

and the trees told the bushes

and the bushes told the bees

and the bees told the robin

and the robin sang out clear

WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

Spring is here!