Showing posts with label Sock Softies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sock Softies. Show all posts

April 10, 2014

O is for Octopus

My alphabet posts are in no particular order. I'm going to do the letters that Little One has already covered at school. You can find letter "a" here.

A long while back we did some activities O is for Ostrich and not wanting to be boring, I decided this time around to focus on an Octopus. 


First off we did this awesome paint activity, which Little One loved. He was completely oblivious to the final idea I had in mind and simply enjoyed the process of it. I often remind myself that it's really the process and not the product that's most important. Us mommy bloggers tend to want a nice final product to photograph for our blog and we can forget that it's about these little people and the p.r.o.c.e.s.s. :)

To do this activity, I took acrylic paint, mixed it with some water so that it was runny, and gave him some syringes. As you can see from the picture, the activity was a hit. I then took some white paper and, with his permission, rubbed it over his paint creations. The result was some pretty paper to make an octopus from. 
 

I would love to tell you that he enjoyed cutting out the tentacles and sticking on the suckers... but he was not at all interested. So the final craft here was all my doing. I cannot lie. :)

He does like having the picture up in his room though, so I'm glad about that.

The next craft was this cute sock octopus - a Soctopus! I first saw this idea on Pinterest and I love sock softies. I've made a few before (a bunny, a cat, a caterpillar/butterfly and a snowman). You can see them here, if you like.

Follow the wonderful and easy directions for the octopus at The Gold Jellybean. (I just didn't do that last part, where Shaleah added pipe cleaners to the tentacles).

Till next time, have fun!

April 20, 2011

Sock Bunny

Like this bunny?


What about this one?


I saw this idea for a sock bunny at the Disney Family Fun website and I couldn't resist making one. I used grown-up socks (instead of kiddies size) and lentils. The bunny feels quite heavy and floppy. Very different to my sock kitty , which is filled with batting.

I also don't know how they (Family Fun) got their bunnies' ears to stand up so nicely?  They must have some secret photo shoot tips that they are not sharing with us ;). Big One made me feel much better about it, when he told me that he actually prefers the floppy ears (YAY!) and he thinks my bunny is great. I so love hearing things like that!

My little secret photo tip for getting bunnies' ears to stand up straight is...wait for it...lay your bunny on it's back...hee hee. 


I am really enjoying these little sock animal additions to our home. I think I'll keep making them...perhaps a puppy next. Have you ever made a no-sew sock animal? Please share a link in the comments if you have. I would love to come and see.

March 24, 2011

Cats {Dress-up and Sock Kitty}


 
"I like cats!", Little One announced (some time last year). I giggled! For two reasons really...one being that I was so surprised that at the tender age of two you can know with such certainty what you like, and also because we (husband and I) have always thought of ourselves more as a doggy family...should we get a pet.

Little One is still at home with me full-time this year and because he is a bright, busy little person and seeks constant stimulation (like most two-year-olds), I decided to introduce some mini themes to direct our craft and learning activities. Needless to say, when I was considering my first theme, I thought "Cats". So what follows in this and the next few posts, are all the cat-related activities that we got up to.


And while we have been playing "cats", it's been reading month in the United States and Polly from Helping Little Hands has had a fun Read-Along, where she has asked some bloggers to share a book-related activity. I have joined in the fun and am sharing this sweet sock cat, inspired by the fabulous little book, Katie the Kitten , by Alex Scheffler. We have a small box set, including four of his titles (to read about another one, see here), but Katie the Kitten has been Little One's all time favourite! 


"She loves nothing more 
    than a night on the prowl.
She doesn't get scared
 by a woof or a growl."

Do go along and check out some of the other fun reads and activities shared by other book-loving bloggers!







December 20, 2010

Sock Snowmen


Says one snowman to another: "Do you smell carrots? " :)

Sometime in the 1990's, a local shop here in South Africa sold the terrific American Parents magazine and I use to love buying them. One of my favourite copies was a December issue that had the most amazing Christmas crafts in it. I don't ever part with such great inspiration and ideas, so these have been safely kept in one of my many art-and-craft flip files for all these years! These very sweet snowmen are one of those crafts.


Little One has amused me so, by saying that they are "cool" (which they are:)) and "key-ute"! But, each time I leave him alone with them, he rips off their noses!

Hope you are having a great Christmas week.

PS. I'm linking this to  
                               

May 13, 2010

No-Sew Caterpillar and Butterfly


As you may know I am a great fan of Memetales, an online e-book resource. 



Ditto The Butterfly
memetales logo
Ditto The Butterfly
See more at memetales

Ditto The Butterfly is the sweetest story about a little butterfly who learns that it is important to drink from different flowers to become a beautiful multicoloured butterfly. The story aims to encourage children to have a well-balanced diet and to try out different foods.

I have been  inspired to do caterpillar crafts lately and did a post on The Very Hungry Caterpillar a little while ago. So when Big One and I read  this story about Ditto, I thought it would lend itself beautifully to this craft that we had been working on. I don't sew (except for buttons), so I needed to make this without a needle or cotton in sight. I was very pleased with the result and have put together a little tutorial for you.



You need socks (little ones), batting, elastic bands, plastic eyes and pipe cleaners. Simply take a piece of batting about the size of a golf ball and push it into the toe part of the sock. Shape it into a nice ball and when you are happy with the size, seal it off with an elastic band. I used elastic bands in colours that matched the colour of the socks. Continue until you get to the end of the sock. There will probably be a little bit of sock left at the end. Then attach the pipe cleaner, by inserting it through the top elastic band at the caterpillar's head and bend it to make two antennae. Attach some eyes and there you go...a no-sew caterpillar!

To turn your caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly, cut out some wings from felt and glue onto the body of the caterpillar. You can then decorate your wings with some more coloured felt.



We, however, wanted to make a craft that we could pair with this sweet story of Ditto, so we made a garden and attached some felt flowers with velcro. We then also added velcro to our butterfly's wings, so that when she goes to drink from a flower, you can remove the flower from the garden and add it to her wings. So as she drinks from the different coloured flowers, her wings become multicoloured, just as in the story!



You could add the velcro to either side of the butterfly's wings. I think it would look nice either way.  You could also add a mouth. We thought that the sock's seam looked like a gentle smile, so we didn't add anything extra.

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