felt TMNT masks

Last year the boys started watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It wasn't long before they chose their favorite Turtles and started acting out their favorite scenes. I made them masks out of some old jersey fabric I had. It didn't look right, but they have good imaginations.

When my parents came in January, my mom brought me some felt. The first thing I did was let the boys choose a color and make quick masks out of them. Nate had red for Raphael. There was no orange for Ben's Michelangelo, so he went with anonymous green. Of course, the felt stretched out. By now they need to be thrown away. 

For Ben's birthday, I decided to make a set of better felt masks. I didn't have all the right colors for the Turtles, but Ben said he wanted one of every color I had.

I made the pattern by trial and error: cut, hold it up to his face, cut some more, and repeat. I back-stitched around all the edges for reinforcement, hopefully preventing too much stretching. 

I also reinforced the ends before sewing the elastic on, as illustrated below (that stitching didn't show up well in the pictures). I didn't have enough elastic for all six, so the last one ended up with ribbons to tie it on instead.

Ben knows about them already because of the trials, and he's very excited to get them. He's always asking if they are ready. We'll have some friends over to celebrate and have cake on Sunday, so he will open his presents from us tomorrow!

creepy

For my 12th birthday (if I remember correctly), I was given a super fun gift: Creepy Crawlers. It is an oven similar to an Easy Bake, but comes with little metal trays and "Plasti-Goop," with which you make little rubbery bugs. They are fun to make! I have heard that they now have gummy solution, so that you can make edibles. That sounds like even more fun.

Every now and then, when I am at my parents' house, my dad goes to Toys 'R' Us to buy some Plasti-Goop and pulls out the Creepy Crawlers for us to make some. My parents have moved a billion times since I left home. I moved back home once or twice and had "my room" at their house again, but still, they have moved a billion more times. That they still have the Creepy Crawlers is a testament to just how much fun we've had making rubber bugs over the years. The fact that it still works after 18 years is simply amazing.

While we were in Texas in January, of course, we made Creepy Crawlers. Nate and Ben were already asleep for the night by the time we got it out, but they had a lot of fun playing with the bugs the next morning. Rodgers did not participate, as he wasn't feeling well (possibly flu). Only one was ripped to pieces: the giant spider, which was a new mold.

Giant spider cooking

I don't think I realized before that they would stick to the wall. 

play house

We had this big box that Nate's carseat came in. We kept it for him to play with. He liked trying to knock it over, but wouldn't crawl inside it or anything. I decided to make it a little more appealing. I spent about 20 minutes the other night giving it a little makeover.

First, I turned it inside out and taped it up, so that the outside would be plain brown box instead of carseat pictures. Theoretically, I could cover it with white paper and/or paint. I wanted to make it look like a spaceship. I haven't done anything like that yet. I used a big book, a smaller box, and Nate's Bumbo to draw shapes on the box. I cut them out with a knife (this is really good for your kitchen knives (not really)). I thought about cutting them out completely, but then I remembered that Nate loves LOVES opening and closing things. So I left each one attached on one side.

The biggest one, I cut out as a door. The Bumbo shape opposite the door is low enough to the ground that it can also be a door. The next day, we introduced Nate to the play house/space ship/box with holes cut in it. He was a little less than impressed at first, but I think he likes it. He really likes it when I peek at him through the flaps. He didn't get it the first few times. Rather than looking through the box at me, he would crawl around the box to find me. He caught on eventually. Peek-a-boo remains one of his favorite games.

It would really look cute if I covered it in white butcher paper, then outlined the flaps and holes with colored tape. Then, I could draw stuff on the paper. I don't really think that would make a big difference to the kid, though.