M is for Monkey.

 

Last Thursday, I receive this note from Cameron's class...

...to celebrate the end of term, we are having an Alphabet Party on Monday.  The children can dress in their favourite clothes, or costume, and the other students in the class can guess which letter your child's dress represents....

What does that mean?  Cameron's favourite clothes are khaki shorts and an old chain-store t-shirt which reads "Property of  Japanese Ninja Club".  I doubt whether the other children will pick him as 'C for Casual dresser' or 'T for Target, Dressed by'.  And he has never been into costumes (we tend to shy away from licensed gear, we are a totally Ben 10 and Dora-free zone).  In any case, we've been advised that Superheroes are not allowed, so I'm guessing there will be alot of  'C for Casual dresser' types attending on Monday.  Aside from the girls, who will no doubt be mostly dressed as fairies.

So owing to time limitations and the fact that I really have no idea what this party is about, it's time to make something.

Cameron has thousands of sheets of coloured paper, supplied by his Dad, which is all over the place by the time I surface in the morning - my boy is a drawing machine!  So, I'll nick some of that, thanks.....

 

...cut here and there.  Stick.  More cutting.  Attach elastic and voila!  Yay.  Done.  A monkey mask.  Very suitable.  And quick...

...but somewhat disturbing. 

Nup.  Not even the Cookie Monster can detract from the creepiness.  Oh well.

A banana (which will be the most expensive bit of this costume) and a funny hat and he's good to go.   Hopefully, he looks like a monkey and not a 'U for Utter nut-job'.

Bloomers from leftovers.

Oooo, what an exciting day.  We experienced the ground-shaking effects of a sonic boom, and Sophie made the most ENORMOUS mess in her Huggies.  Quite possibly, the two incidents are related, because I know the windows suddenly rattling in their frames for ten seconds just about scared the crap out of me!  But, anyway, back to Miss Messy-pants.  Eeeeeee-yuck!!  I usually have a pretty good stomach for this sort of thing, but on the last few occasions, total retch-fest.  On the up-side though, I think she  created a brand new shade of green, which we could probably copyright.  Ker-ching!  Well done, my little artiste! *clap clap clap*.  

Fittingly, I have been making my little poo-bag a pair of bloomers.  The fabric is leftovers from the shirt I used to make one of her baby tops.   I added the bow to femme them up a bit, but I'm not sure how practical they'll be that way.  I might remove the bow and make it into a brooch, or a hair-bow.  Though, having witnessed how much her nappy bloats after one of her... efforts, I'm thinking these poor little bloomers may have their work cut out for them big-time.  Up-sizing and double stitching might be the way to go next time.  In some sort of toxic-retardant fabric, preferably.

I also finally got around to ripping all the buttons of the same shirt and I managed to cut 17 x 5 inch circles from the remaining fabric, which I gathered into yo-yos whilst watching bogan makeovers on "The Biggest Loser" (Cameron makes me watch that with him, I swear!)  These will end up on a cushion or a rug at some stage, if I don't forget about them.

Pretty good going, I reckon.  RIP, blue shirt.

Bony Cameron paper doll.

I have been a cranky maker of late.  I blame it on the low-carb diet I'm currently undertaking in a bid to lose the remaining pregnancy weight.  And what a bore it is.  I've lost half of what I put on, and quite quickly too, but I've plateaued and now actually have to put in some effort.  Blah.  So, I went for a loooong walk yesterday, and thus ended up at the pharmacy counter this morning to spend my measly purse on an ankle strap and some heavy duty band-aids for my blisters.  So what with the snarly tummy and the mangled feet, I am feeling quite foul.

So to cheer myself up, I made myself a paper doll magnet.  I saw these skeleton invitations on the Martha Stewart website yonks ago, and immediately thought that Cameron might get a kick out of making a skeleton doll one day.   So I bookmarked the page with the intention of perhaps doing them with him on the coming school holidays. But I couldn't wait.

I copied the skeleton template, got rid of the invitation bit, resized it and then copied onto matte photo paper.  I had some left over pics of Cameron that we used on the loot bags from his party so I cut out his face from one of those and glued it over the skull on the template.  The whole sheet was then covered in clear adhesive contact paper, the pieces very carefully cut out with sharp scissors and then connected them all with spinny pins.  I cut up an old promotional magnet and stuck bits of it in various places along the back side of the doll by laying contact adhesive paper over the magnet pieces (concentrating on the head, body, and particularly the neck, which is very flimsy).

And voila!  A Cameron skeleton magnet doll to stick on my fridge and pose in whatever way I like.

I guarantee you, he will hate it.  But it makes me smile.  Yay, that means I win, so on the fridge it goes.

Friendly -take two.

A much better friendly for Sophie May.  I really wasn't happy with my last effort.  I have conceded that a little bit of pink is needed to co-ordinate with the very pink dollies she was given at birth, Miss Red Nose just looks totally out of place in the cot with the pinkies.  Hey, again, that doll is a bit like me.  Not an out-and-out reject, but just sort of misplaced.  Misplaced, but happy.   I've made heaps of this particular doll, for gifts and such.  Cameron already has one, but its wearing a crochet party hat.  He calls it 'Party Bunny', which is a terrific name for a bear.  It's based on a pattern found in the book, Softies.   I just lengthened the limbs and changed the face a bit.  I don't know why I just didn't stick with this pattern in the first place, I know it like the back of my hand.  That's what you get for trying to be a smarty pants.

On a side note, guess which eleven week old slept eleven hours straight for the past two nights?!

She may seem non-plussed by all the fuss, but I haven't slept for eight hours straight since I got pregnant!   This kid is awesome - love her!