Man in the Yellow Hat Costume Tutorial and Free Pattern

When my boys were really little they were not fond of dressing up for Halloween in costumes that felt a lot different from regular clothing.  Anything that was too tight, too puffy or had a mask was out.  I had fun finding ways to transform regular clothing and hooded sweatshirts into costumes.  They felt comfortable in this costume which consisted of a regular button down shirt and pants with a soft comfy hat and of course their favorite monkey character!

Materials for hat and tie:

• 1/3 of a yard Yellow Felt (72” wide off the bolt)
• a square of Black Felt 
• 1 1/3  yards of Fusible Midweight Interfacing (at least 12” wide)  (this will give the hat some body to help keep it’s shape so look for something not too flimsy but not too thick)
• I” wide black gross grain ribbon (23 ½ inches long) or 1” strip of black felt
• yellow thread
• black thread
• ¼” wide elastic (14 inches long)
• Glue gun

To Make Hat:

Download Pattern Here

1. Attach fusible interfacing to one side of the yellow felt according to manufacturer’s directions.
2. From the felt with attached interfacing, cut three panels of yellow felt for the dome of the hat. (pictured to the right)
3. Cut 2 circles of yellow felt with a diameter of 12”.  Place circles together with interfacing together and sew the outer edge of the circle to create the brim of the hat. 
4. Put two of the three panels  together with right sides together and sew the seam from the point at the top to the bottom corner.  
5. Match up the point on the third panel to the point on the other two panels (again right sides together and sew the seams on either side then turn right side out to create the dome of the hat. 
6. To attach the dome of the hat to the brim of the hat, cut 6 ½” slits through the center of the circle leaving a 2 ½” brim.  
7. Trim to leave 1” tabs in the inside of the hat brim.
8. Set up the dome of the hat and gently slide the brim down from the top of the dome.  The tabs should all be sticking up against the dome.  Hand stitch or glue the tabs to the dome of the hat.
9. Cover the tabs with black ribbon or a strip of black felt.  

Download Pattern Here

To Make the Necktie:

1. Cut two yellow pieces from the necktie template.  
2. Place ¼” elastic in the top of the tie and pin in place.  Be sure there is an ample amount of elastic inside the yellow tie (about an inch on each side).  
3. Cut black accent circles.  Place the black circles on the yellow tie and sew in place.

Clean vs. Creativity Conundrum

I was recently commiserating with another mom about the perils of keeping the house clean with little ones.  It seems like an endless struggle.  Getting our kids to clean up after themselves seems impossible!  My cousin who has her own interior design business posted an article from house beautiful about “9 habits of people who never have to clean their house”.  (Obviously no children live in the house pictured here!)

How to Never Clean Your House  click to read full list of tips
from House Beautiful Magazine

They seem common sense enough and complaining that I can’t handle one of these seems ridiculous.  Put clothes in clothes hamper, cut down on clutter, file paperwork immediately upon opening the mail.  But in the midst of day to day survival the hours seem to slip by without much success on training my family to accomplish these tips and everything else on our plate.  

I know some parents institute rules that only one toy can be taken out at a time and that everything must be cleaned up before moving onto the next thing.  I find it to be more complex than that.  Certainly holding a child responsible for the care of their belongings is an important life skill.  And having a clutter-free, clean house is good for my family’s well-being.  But there are times that my child is so engrossed in something that he spent time building and is playing out a complex pretend scenario that is also important for his emotional and creative development.   

So my challenge: how can I balance the cultivation of creativity and extended uninterrupted playtime while also nurturing healthy cleaning habits?

One evening I got so fed up with cleaning up after my kids at every night (and the younger one had dumped an obscene number of toys on the playroom floor) that I simply locked the door and put a sign up that said “Danger” I told the boys that the room had so much on the floor that it was dangerous to walk in there and it wouldn’t be opened until they were ready to clean it up.

 Another day I tried handing my son, then in first grade, his digital camera and asking him to take a picture of the kitchen, entryway, trash can, bathroom, beds in his room shared by his little brother and the toy room.  Then we went room my room cleaning up each space and taking “after” pictures.  I then created a lift the flap poster that is still on our fridge.  This wasn’t a magical fix to our cleaning habits, but it did start the conversation and I notice my sons flip the pictures when they walk passed the fridge where it’s hanging. 

Flash cards allow kids to choose a task to keep their focus
and let them feel like they have control over cleaning up.

I’ve found that flash cards and a timer work pretty well.  Each card has a task like “pick up all the trash” or “put all the Legos in the box” and a picture that illustrates it so my preschooler who doesn’t read yet can understand it.  The cards are laid face down and my kids choose one task at a time, this gives them the feeling of control over what job they get.  Then we turn on a timer for three minutes or so and try to see who can finish their task first.  This method has worked quite well. 

I’ve also found that if I choose our clean up sessions wisely they are met with less resistance.  If I try to get my 4 year old to clean up in the middle of an elaborate pretend scenario it’s not going to be as successful than if I wait until a natural break in his playtime or a natural change in our routine for example before a meal time or when we move from outdoor play to indoor.   I give my kids the option to get special permission to keep toys out for extended times, like if they’ve built an elaborate fort or set up a play restaurant for example.  But it’s up to me to discern when it’s truly worth extended time and when it’s just a mess that they don’t want to clean up.

The latest thing that I’m continuing to work on with my kids and myself is to have everything cleaned up at least once a week.  This way I can make one sweep through the whole house to dust and vacuum without first having to put everyone’s belongings away.  This cuts down my cleaning time tremendously and keeps my basic housecleaning possible!  I also learned that I could wipe down the bathroom fixtures while the kids played in the tub.  That gets the bathroom cleaned at least on bath nights which is, no joke, a huge accomplishment for a family with two little boys!

How do you train your little creative hearts to clean up after themselves while also allowing them to engage in extended creative playtime?  Share your tried and true methods, because every care giver could use another trick up their sleeve!  And perhaps someday we can actually instill in ourselves and our kiddos the “nine habits of people who never have to clean their house”!

Craft Closet: ideas for organizing your kids art supplies

Earlier this week, I led a craft at my son’s playgroup.  I needed some pony beads so I snagged a peanut butter jar full from our stash of craft supplies at home.  At the playgroup I mentioned to the other moms that these jars were great because they’re clear so the kids can see what’s in them and that I keep them on their side in a shoe organizer.  One of the moms asked me to send her a picture.  After I took a picture, I thought I’d share some of the ways I keep my kids arts and crafts supplies organized on my blog. 

We have an odd closet in our basement play area.  The room has a large tiled floor so it’s a great place to spread out and do some messy art.  I took advantage of the rod for hanging coats and hung a sweater storage unit and hanging shoe caddy.  The sweater holder is the perfect size to hold printer paper, construction paper and coloring books.  The topmost compartment has a weaving loom and some embroidery kits that are used less frequently.  

Large plastic peanut butter jars (40 oz.) fit on their side in the hanging shoe organizer.  I soaked mine to remove the label and food residue and then washed them with hot soapy water.  You can also wash them in the top of a dishwasher to get them squeaky clean.  They are great for several reasons.  They are clear so you can see what’s in them without labeling them or having to open them.  They are plastic which is lightweight and won’t shatter if dropped.  And lastly the lid screws on so it doesn’t accidentally pop off, spilling its contents.  Other things fit in these cubbies too, coffee filters, skeins of yarn, duffel bag full of play dough tools, and small paper lunch bags for making puppets. 

A set of stackable bins holds and separates various recyclable odds and ends like spools that once held thread and ribbon, paper towel tubes, shallow plastic containers, divided take out containers, and yogurt containers.  These can be combined to build all kinds of wonderful things or hold supplies while working on a project.  Hanging on removable hooks are smocks and aprons that are within my little guys reach. 

On one end I have an over the door shoe holder attached to the wall with nails.  The clear compartments again allow you to see what is in each pocket.  The pockets are small enough to organize small items and keep like items together.  I keep extra refills in the topmost pockets that are

harder for little hands to reach and regularly used items lower down.  Here you can find pencils, colored pencils, erasers, glue, scissors, watercolor sets, ink pads, clothes pins string, wooden popsicle sticks, boxed crayons, markers, small containers of play dough, small scraps of cloth and paper.

A short three drawer storage unit houses finger paints, glitter, stamps, pipe cleaners, etc.  This is not my favorite storage unit, it gets disorganized every time someone digs around for something.  Limiting like items in each drawer helps.  Between the drawers and the wall we slide larger flat items like pads of paper, jumbo coloring books and drawing boards.  

On top of the drawer unit is a plastic caddy that can be carried to another location, filled with skinny markers, pencils, brushes, wet wipes and small pads of paper and booklets (folded and stapled paper with card stock covers for the kids to write and illustrate their own story books). 

These ideas make a small space into an easily accessible craft studio for my little creative hearts.  What tips do you have for organizing your kids craft supplies?  

Flex Your Fine Motor Skills: How to Make a Bendable Doll

Today we did yoga at our active playgroup that I help facilitate.  Our group is geared for preschoolers

(2-5 year olds, which covers quite a range of ability).  We all did an ABC yoga DVD together and then made flexible dolls out of pipe cleaners.  It worked very well with the 3 and 4 year olds, some of the younger ones enjoyed putting the beads on and giving their doll a haircut, but needed a lot of assistance.  Definitely a good “Mommy and me” activity where there is a one to one ratio for our youngest participants!  (Of course you’ll want to be careful that you don’t give young children small beads if they are prone to putting things in their mouths.)  On the plus side the pipe cleaners are easier to string beads on than string since they have more rigidity to them, the fuzziness gives the beads some traction so they don’t easily slide off and the ends don’t fray.  I blended a couple ideas I had found online and simplified it as much as I could.

The first pipe cleaner doll I found was through pinterest.  I wanted more realistic hair on the dolls, but didn’t want to have to glue it and wait for the glue to dry and using hot glue with a room of preschoolers is not an option.  I also wanted to simplify the number of pipe cleaners used and how the beads were strung so the kids didn’t have to make any knots between the beads.  The second site I found was from a Waldorf School in Los Angeles called The City School.    They had done a much more intricate doll, but the way the hair was incorporated worked well with our project. 

Below are the materials needed for our flexible yoga doll and instructions for making one.

Materials:
43 Plastic Pony Beads (1-neck, 7-each arm, 10- body, 9- each leg)
12” chenille stems (1 and a half per doll)
Large wooden bead for the head
yarn for the hair
shallow container to keep the beads from rolling on the floor
scissors

Fold the long pipe cleaner in half.  Put the loop through the wooden bead. 

Wrap yarn around your hand (about 8 times)and slide it through the loop at the top of the bead.  Pull it gently back towards the bead, pulling a little bit of the yarn into the hole in the bead so that the loop in the pipe cleaner disappears.   There should be enough yarn to make the hair stick into the bead, but not slide through it completely.

You can either cut the loops in the hair now, or give the doll a haircut at the end.

Slide both ends of the pipe cleaners through a pony bead up to the base of the wooden bead to make a neck. 

Wrap the shorter pipe cleaner around the two attached to the head of the doll to make two arms.

Thread 7 beads on each arm and curl the end of the pipe cleaner so the end is tucked into the last bead to form an arm and keep the beads from slipping off.

Next, thread 5 beads on each of the two long pipe cleaners to make the torso, and then twist the pipe cleaners to create hips and thread 9 beads on each leg.  Curl the ends of the pipe cleaners the same way you made the hands to form feet and keep the beads from falling off. 

The end results were pretty successful and the kids will enjoy playing with them and perhaps they will even get their dolls to do a few yoga poses they learned.

Valentine Design: a lesson in desktop publishing

I recently posted a tutorial for recycling crayons in the oven with silicon baking molds.  My son had such fun with those that he made heart shaped ones for his classmates for Valentine’s Day.  I turned his valentines into an opportunity to teach him a little desktop publishing using Microsoft Publisher.  Below is a chronological list of our process for using the computer to make the tags pictured above.

 

Determine the Dimensions: First we determined the dimensions of our plastic treat bags.  We used 3”x4” treat bags.  We decided that a 1.5” tall tag looked best so we doubled that to get a 3”x3” square that would be folded in half over the top of the treat bag and stapled in place.  I explained that the top half of the tag would be printed upside down so that once it was folded both sides of the tag would be right side up. 

Rough Draft on Paper: On paper we decided what words should be on each side of the tag.  He liked “you color my world” best for the front and to and from on the back with space to write the recipients name.  I recommended adding a disclaimer that the treat wasn’t edible (I’ve had experience making cinnamon applesauce ornaments with my art club when I was teaching high school, we made them for all the teachers and left them in their mailboxes.  Despite the hole punched in them and hanger attached two bright teachers ate theirs!)  Anyway we added an excerpt of a cute rhyme we found online: “this may look like a sweet treat, but take note, it’s not to eat!” and added this to the back of the tag.

Snap to Guides: Since we knew we needed to make 3”x3” tags we started by adding snap to guides.  I showed him the rulers on the top and side to help us create the right sized tags.  Just click on the ruler with the mouse and drag a green line onto the document that will not print in the final draft. 

How to "Undo" Something: Then I taught him “control z” the command that will undo the last thing you did, so when you make a mistake there’s no need to worry, just “ctrl z” and you can undo it! 

I showed him how to add a text box and let him type out the front of his tag.  This was a little painful to watch him hunt and peck.  Note to self we need to find some fun keyboarding games to learn how to type.

Highlight words to change their font

Format Your Text: Then I taught him how to highlight his text to change the size, positioning and line spacing.  We changed the color and font.  I had him settle on one font and then he decided to make each letter in the word "color" a different color.  I told him that if he made one thing on the tag a different color and only used that one color that it was called spot color.

Adding Clipart: Then we added one piece of clip art.  I showed him how to change the text wrapping so that the words and the image were in their own space and not overlapping. 

Add spot color to for emphasis

Keep it Simple: Then we worked on the other side of the tag.  (I was sure to create a new text box so it could be turned upside down when we were finished with it.)  He was excited to choose a different font, but I told him that it’s nice to choose a fancy font for one thing and choose a simple font for the rest so they don’t compete.  He chose to add spot color for his name. 

Turning a Text Box: Then we turned the top portion of the tag upside down by clicking on the green circle at the top of the text box and while holding the button down dragging it in a circle as the box turned. 

Copy and Paste: We selected all the elements of the tag once we were satisfied with how it looked and used “control c” to copy and “control v” to paste it until we had 6 tags per page.

Do the Math: We determined how many sheets we’d need to print.

After printing the tags on white cardstock I cut them out with my paper cutter and helped him fold them and staple them to the bag. 

They came out great!  And he made all the design choices with only a little help from me.  I hope this will encourage you to try designing something with your creative little heart.

Martha Speaks: A School Poster Project for the One Hundredth Day of School

Tomorrow may be the one hundredth day of school, if it doesn’t snow in the wee hours of the morning. It has been pushed back several times because of snow days.  Either way my son’s one hundredth day poster project is ready to go.  We are big Martha Speaks fans at our house.  If you haven’t watched it, its very clever and funny.  It’s about Martha, a dog who eats alphabet soup and the letters lose their way, they travel to her brain and now she can talk – the theme song is great and tells you the whole back story.  You can find it on Youtube, but better yet catch a whole episode on your local PBS station.

My son had to put together a creative grouping of 100 things.  I helped him brainstorm a whole list of possibilities and then he settled on this one.  During the opening of the show a scientist explains how Martha started speaking with a visual aid of an ex-ray showing alphabet noodles traveling straight to her brain.  So I lightly drew an outline of Martha from the show’s logo and cover illustration from the original book by Susan Meddaugh.  Then my son cut it out and traced the head portion to create a flap.  He glued the top and colored in the details and added the ex-ray of her brain under the flap where you can count one hundred alphabet soup noodles.  Happy One Hundredth Day!

Solving Potty Training with Puzzles

When potty training our two boys we tried having them earn m&m’s and using sticker charts, but they kind of lost interest.  So a friend of mine, who is a special needs teacher, asked me if the boys liked to do puzzles.  She suggested a strategy that she uses in the classroom.  Figure out what they are interested in and then take an image of it, cut it into pieces and each time they complete the task, in this case using the potty, they earn a piece of the puzzle.  Once the puzzle is complete they earn a reward.  Start by dividing the picture up into a few large pieces so they start off by quickly earning their reward and as they make progress cut the pictures into more, smaller pieces so they take longer to earn.  Since I am good at drawing, I just took a matchbox car or toy model airplane (these are what interested my guys) and drew a picture of it and cut it up. If drawing isn’t your strong suite you could take a photo and print it out and then cut it up, or do a google image search or search for a “coloring page” of that character or object.  We also used puzzles of ice cream sundaes and the Chuck E. Cheese logo or the front of a movie dvd case to earn a family outing or movie night. There is an element of surprise as the child unveils their surprise one puzzle piece at a time.  Eventually both of my boys had earned a handful of prizes and got into the habit of using the bathroom without needing to be rewarded.  We also tailored the reward system for what they needed to work on, for example at first it was using the potty, when that was mastered we gave them a puzzle piece only after they had “flushed and washed”. 

Another friend with older children advised, “Do whatever it takes!”  Some parents don’t want to bribe their children for doing something they should do, but in our experience using rewards encouraged them and celebrated their achievement, and they didn’t expect prizes forever.  Eventually, the seemingly impossible task was completed, they were fully potty trained!

Materials:
paper
scissors
image
tape
envelope

Instuctions:

1.       Create or print out an image of their reward. 

2.       Cut it into the desired number of pieces. 

3.       As you cut up the picture, trace the outer edge of the puzzle pieces onto a blank piece of paper to act as a guide when your child is putting together their puzzle. 

4.       Tape the blank paper on the wall in the bathroom with painter’s tape that can easily be removed later and keep the puzzle pieces in an envelope in the bathroom along with some tape so you’ll have everything accessible when they earn their puzzle pieces.

Recycled Crayons

My son was interested in making new crayons out of his old broken ones.  I’ve worked with melted crayon at summer camps, and used melted crayon wax in candy molds, but melting wax in a double boiler on the stove or possibly in the microwave and pouring hot wax is not kid friendly for my first grader.  Today I picked up a silicone baking mold with a 50% off coupon at the craft store and it worked beautifully.  My son had a hands-on experience without handling any hot wax and felt full ownership over his new star shaped crayons.  

Supplies:

• old broken crayons with wrappers removed
• silicone baking mold
• cookie sheet
• toothpicks

old crayons start melting

Detailed Instructions:

• Preheat your oven to 175 degrees.

• Peel the wrappers off and brake crayons into small pieces to fit the mold.

• Place pieces of crayon in the mold, set on cookie sheet.  (the mold will be very flexible, so it will sit on the cookie sheet throughout the melting and cooling process.)

• Melt crayons in oven for about 20 minutes until fully melted – place the cookie sheet and mold on the bottom shelf in the oven and turn on the light to allow your child to monitor the melting process.

• Carefully take the mold and cookie tray out of the oven.

• Pop any air bubbles that have come to the surface with a toothpick.  You may also swirl the colors with the toothpick to get a marbled effect.   

• Once the mold is cool enough to handle and the melted crayon has set, finishing setting crayons in the freezer for 10 minutes.

• After the crayon has set all the way through, pop the crayon out of the mold.

molten wax crayons hot from the oven

Enjoy drawing with your new crayons!