Gruffalo DIY: Wooden spoon Gruffalo puppets

Gruffalo wooden spoon puppets

One of our favorite books is Julia Donaldson's Gruffalo. Apart from the humor and the cool rhymes and rhthymn of the text , I find the illustrations of Axel Scheffler particularly  attractive. It is also a great story to act out with funny voices.
So last week I bought some wooden cooking utensils (a pack containing a spatula, a spoon and two less useful items a fork and a spoon with two holes in it) and decided to make some puppets out of them based on the Gruffalo characters.
The spoon and spatula were easy to work with, and I used wood putty to fill in the holes of the other items.

I added bits of detail to the handle of the utensils

I used acrylic paint and a matt finish on the spoons. I used thin cardboard (formerly a box for chocolates) for the ears and horns of the Gruffalo and put paint and finish on them to make them harder.

These will come in handy when we start reading The Gruffalo to the little one, and they will give my older son an opportunity to participate in the event! :)

More hair clips

I made these hair clips as a birthday present for our neighbors' granddaughter.

Felt matrioshka hair clip: I used two layers of felt for the body,embroidered the face, sewed the fair on the face and then sewed the face onto body with transparent thread. The flower was made of a glass and a flitter bead.

Organza hair clip: I cut flower shapes from organza and melted the edges over a candle and decorated the middle with beads of the same color.

Felt heart with ribbon hair clip: I melted the ends of the ribbon to prevent fringing

Felt watemelon hair clip: I stitched the two layers of watermelon together with the seeds. This was especially fun to make given it is watermelon season!!!

Napkin holder

I have been meaning to buy a napkin holder for years. I could not find one that was right so I kept putting it off. This one was originally meant for my cousin to match the bird mirror frame (: http://thefeverishfeltist.blogspot.hu/2012/05/put-bird-on-it-be-birded-mirror-and.html). So I painted it brown, but I accidentally got sunblock and possibly nappy cream smudges on both sides of the napkin holder and there was no way I could cover it with more coats of paint. I had to cover the oily stains with paper. So I decided to make stocky animals wearing scrapbook paper...

I bought this base at the crafts shop

I drew and cut out the animal shapes which I traced onto the wooden base and also traced onto the scrapbook paper.

I used acrylic paint and a matt finish. I have a red and white polka-dotted table cloth and I added the dotted dishes on both sides so at least the napkin holder matches something :)

More letters!

I made some more letters for my friends'  kids. I kept the baking paper cutouts from the first batch and it was much easier to make these! See previous project here: http://thefeverishfeltist.blogspot.hu/search/label/alphabet

I gave the bear a ribbon for a more girly effect!

Eskimo child with penguin painting

I painted this picture of an eskimo child and penguin on a piece of ply-wood I bought at the crafts store. I used acrylic paints and a matt finish. I found similar illustrations in a djeco catalogue, so the design is not mine...

Dr. Who pencil box

I wanted to make a Dr.Who themed gift for a friend, but do not know anything about the show. Unfortunately it is one of the few geeky things that my husband is less engrossed in :) So I searched the  web to find what the emblematic characters or symbols Dr.Who universe are. I came across the Tardis or Police box. It seemed to be a good image to use on a plain wooden pencil box that I bought at a crafts store the previous day.  I found a great cross stitch design for a Tardis here http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/cross-stitch-tardis

 

I traced the front side of the pencil box onto  a grid notepad page. Then, I copied the cross-stitch design onto the grid paper.

 

I did not copy the cross stitch design exactly, but the design helped me get a sense of the scale of a Tardis, how big the windows are etc...

 I sanded the box, painted it with blue waited until it dried and sanded it again, and repainted it. Then, I traced the cut out tardis onto the box and painted within the lines with a slightly lighter blue color (difference cannot be seen on photos). I then painted the whitish windows, light, sign and than used black for outlining etc. When it was all dry I added a matt finish for acrylic paints.

Luau DIY

My sister-in-law had always dreamed of a Hawaiian-themed bachelorette party, and that is exactly what she got! Her sister and a good friend organized the party and I chipped in as well. Hawaiian stuff are a bit of a novelty and quite expensive in our country (a single lei would cost around 5 euros) and we were on a budget so we ended up making most of the decorations and accessories ourselves.

The grass skirts were made by my sister-in-law out of crepe paper stapled on elastic band. The leis were made by a friend out of tissue or crepe paper and cut up straws. The tissue paper was cut into many flower shapes. They turned out really pretty.

I cut triangles out of a cereal box and painted them with acrylic paint-

I made 4 holes in each of the triangles with an office hole puncher.

I threaded a ribon through the wholes

I found this idea for cupcakes and the flip-flop cookies on another blog. The base is simple sponge cake, I colored half the frosting blue and kept the other half white and dipped it in brown sugar Ű(before adding the blue frosting to the other half. I used gum candy for the float belt.

I had searched for an oval shaped cookie cutter, but could not find one anywhere, so in the end I decided to look in the bathroom cupboard where I found the cap of a Nivea sunscreen bottle.

I used store bought decorative icing to make the flip flop straps. ( I used Schwartau colored icing pen thingies http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schwartauer-Werke-Schwartau-color-yellow/dp/B003RFQOVY)

I made these flowers for everyone's hair out of muslin and organza and beads. I cut out the flower shapes and then I melted the edges and I used transparent thread. I may make a tutorial.