Book Week - the result

Since I wrote about the fun I had with making Juniordwarf's Book Week costume, I thought I should post a picture of the result.

So here it is.

Hat by Spotlight. Makeup by Slabs. Cat-like outfit by me.

Unfortunately the photos don't show the tail. The skill, imagination and improvisation used to create the final part of the costume should put me fairly and squarely in the running for Crafty Mama of the Year.

(im)perfection

This week is Book Week. Juniordwarf’s school is having a Book Week Parade and the kids are all encouraged to dress up as a character from their favourite book.
 

Two years ago he wanted to be The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and I did this.

Last year he was a pirate, which was easy because he already had a pirate costume.

This year he said he wanted to be The Cat In The Hat. 

I figured this wouldn’t be too hard, and set about planning how I was going to do this

I always thought one of he fun things about primary school-age kids would be doing stuff like making costumes. You know, in all that spare time I have. Yeah.

I can remember my mother making me a Wild Thing costume in primary school for something our class was doing around the book Where The Wild Things Are.

(It looked like this:)

I assume I could actually breathe in this outfit

I figured if my mother could create such a thing out of an old blanket, I could come up with a cat costume pretty easily. Black pants, a black and white top, a tail and OH MY GOODNESS HOW THE HELL DO YOU MAKE HATS?

(Luckily a nearby craft supply store just happened to stock red and white striped hats exactly like the one the Cat in the Hat wears, which I discovered when I went in to get my supplies for this crafty endeavour. Enormous relief.)

I got out the sewing machine. Yes the very same sewing machine I got for Xmas two years ago and had not actually used. The same sewing machine listed at Number 24 on my 100 things to do in 2013 list (24. Sew something. Anything. Just use the damn sewing machine!).

Once I worked out how to thread it (which could be a whole post in itself – my mother’s old basic Bernina it is not), it was time for action.

The black pants were going to be easy. I based them on the same pattern I used for the caterpillar costume. 

OK, not quite so easy. Fluffy polar fleece isn’t quite as easy to sew as I thought it would be. I mean, it moves when you sew it. What kind of sorcery is this?

Anyway, I got there eventually. The pants were done. I’m totally rocking this crafty mama thing.

I didn’t have any sweatshirt patterns. No drama. How hard can it be? It’s just four pieces right? A front, a back and two sleeves. So I can just trace one of his sweatshirts and copy that.

Seam allowance? Pfft, who needs that? It’s a cat outfit. It’s meant to be tight.

 

See, it fits him.

Oh, you know what? You should have sewed the sleeves into the shoulders before you sewed up the side seams.

Well I’ll just trace the top of the sleeve using the arm hole as a guide, extend it to the length of his arm, and narrow it in at the bottom. Then I can just sew the sleeve in to the arm hole. No worries.

NO WORRIES? WHAT, ARE YOU KIDDING? HAVE A LOOK AT THIS! THE SLEEVES AREN’T WIDE ENOUGH! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO “MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE?”

True. In most garments the sleeves actually join up under the arm. 

Bugger.

By this time I was getting somewhat frustrated at this whole exercise. Who said the crafty mama thing was fun? I actually wanted to do this? What was I thinking?

Juniordwarf was watching me. “So I don’t think this is going to be a very good costume,” I said to him.

He looked at me.

Then said, “I don’t mind. It doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, I don’t want it to be perfect.”

I thought back to where I’d heard this before. It had come from Juniordwarf’s teacher. His class is doing Art this term, and the teacher has been stressing the point very strongly that their art doesn’t have to be perfect and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t look exactly like what they’re drawing and painting or if it doesn’t look the same as anyone else’s work. The idea is to capture what they see and reproduce it the way they see it themselves – so how one child sees something and draws it will be different to how any other child sees it.

The displays around the classroom are testament to this, and it’s fascinating to see each child’s style in their work.

While I was thinking about this, Juniordwarf then proceeded to quote what I’ve often said to him, right back at me. “It doesn’t matter if you make a mistake. We all make mistakes. Mistakes are how we learn.”

 

And you know what struck me most? That while I’m encouraging him not to be hard on himself and not set himself impossible standards, I continue to expect myself to be perfect and to never make a mistake.

It’s not going to be enough for him to hear these messages is it? I can’t really tell him not to seek perfection if I continue to expect it of myself. He’ll catch on to that one day, and how am I going to explain that? 

“Well . . . it’s OK for you not to do things perfectly, but I’m different. I have to.” 

Not really convincing is it? I’m not different. 

So for him to truly embrace these messages, he has to see them in action. That means he has to see me make mistakes and see how I learn from them. He has to see me accept less than perfect. He has to know that I believe what I’m saying. And therefore, I have to believe it.

Maybe I should go back to Grade 1. 

(P.S. Costume is not quite finished . . . but it will fit him and I expect it will hold together for a day. So all is well.)

P365 - Day 361 - the pirate caterpillar (and year in review 8/12)

Juniordwarf helped me in the garden.

What I mean is, he played in his sandpit while I spent hours clearing out vegetation from various parts of our yard. Then he wanted me to fill his little clam shell pool up.

I didn’t want to say no, because I’d already told him we weren’t going to the pool today and I didn’t want to disappoint him again. But the clam shell pool is located off to the side of the house, under shadecloth, in the fenced off area where the dog can’t go, and I was working in the main yard.

He’s not at the age where he can be left unsupervised in water, so I had a problem.

Luckily there was a shady area just near where I was working, and the beauty of the clam shell pool is that it can be detached from the sand pit part and moved. So that's what I did, and Juniordwarf played happily in his pool while I continued the clearing out process.

Win-win.

After he got out and had dried off, I told him he could put his same clothes back on. He didn’t want to, and insisted wearing an ensemble that included the green stripy pants that I’d made for his Very Hungry Caterpillar costume for Book Week. 

Ok, well they weren’t intended for general wear, but he didn’t seem to care. He put on his antenna headband and his pirate eye patch and announced that he was ‘the Pirate Caterpillar’.

I’m just glad that something I made has actually been worn more than once. 

And . . . now that I have my very own sewing machine (courtesy of Lil Sis, Mr Tall and my mother), I’ll be able to get out the pants pattern I used for the costume and make some more pants for Juniordwarf that fit around the waist and in the legs – something that has proven to be more and more of a challenge when shopping for clothes.

Year in Review (8/12)

Since my Project 365 is rapidly coming to an end, I’m going post a link to my favourite post from each month this year over the last 12 days of the year.

August: Giving the inner critic the boot

A post, and a day, I am really proud of. Somewhere between the miserable post from July that I posted yesterday and this one, I started to feel like I could make some of the changes in my life that I think I need to make. This is an example. 

P365 - Day 340 - 19 days til xmas

A few years ago, in a rare fit of Xmas nostalgia, I bought a ‘beyond the page’ wooden Xmas tree from Kaisercraft. 

Kaiser had a few example trees on their website and in their workshop magazine, but they all looked a bit too, well, Christmassy. (Yes, it is a “Christmas” product, designed especially to count down the days until 25 December, so um . . .  if you don’t like Christmas stuff, why did you buy it?)

Not being a huge fan of the traditional seasonal decorations (cue blog post on why I shall call the 25 December festival whatever I want to, and how I find it weird to be doing wintery stuff in the middle of summer*, and how I rather despise fake snow), I wanted to make mine look a bit more ‘summery’. So I went for red and gold colours to look a bit like the sun. It didn’t really work – it still looks Xmassy. Never mind. At least it doesn’t have fake snow!

This year is the first time Juniordwarf has really been interested in the festive season, and he has designated himself as the official day changer on the tree.

I’ve also come up with some grand plans for the seasonal tree that we’ll be decorating soon. The plans don’t include snow or holly. I might be persuaded to use some tinsel. Maybe.

*You wouldn’t actually know it’s summer here right now. But according to the calendar it is.

P365 - Day 316 - show time

This weekend is our local Garden Club’s Flower and Horticultural Show.

The show is mainly for flowers, but there are sections for things like produce, home brewing and photography, and there's also a kids’ section.

For Juniordwarf’s age group, there were classes for photographs and for models of a flower. 

I asked Juniordwarf if he wanted to make a flower during the week for the show, and he was very keen. He said he wanted to make flowers from felt, which luckily we had, so he used his developing cutting skills to cut out three different coloured flowers. He then stuck green icy pole sticks to them for stems and foam circles to the middle.

This morning we weren’t sure what to put them in, and thought of filling a jar with dirt and topping it with grass, then sticking the flowers in so it looked like they were in the lawn. So we went outside to do that, then headed off to the show, with Juniordwarf very proudly carrying his little jar of flowers.

Unfortunately we had a little hiccup on the way, with the flowers falling out in the wind*. This upset the poor little boy terribly, but I rescued them and told him we’d fix it when we got inside.

Once we’d set his model up with the other entries, it was time to go and let the judges do their work.

* Note for next time: if you’re going to push things into grass, make sure you push them all the way through the grass into the dirt below.

P365 - Day 286 - a day in the life

Apparently it's my birthday today. I took the day off work, because I really don't like to be at work on my birthday. Last year I had Juniordwarf with me - this year he was at school, so I had a rare day at home by myself.

Here are some photos of what I did today.

Juniordwarf 'helping' open my presents.
Whose birthday is it again?

Waterfall card from the wonderfully talented Lil Sis

Coffee!

Catching up on my blog

Playing in my craft space

Wondering how I'm going to journal in all this.

Solution: put the writing somewhere else

Catching up on washing I didn't do on Tuesday

The scary shed. Who dares enter . . . 

It's starting to take shape

Time to say this is finished and to move onto the next project

Out to dinner

Well what other table would I want?

Entree tasting plate

Beer!

Not a bad laksa. I'll be back!

Cheers Mum, Happy Birthday.

P365 - Day 274 - crafty wood projects

I've got a few craftwood projects stashed in my bottom drawer.

I got most of them for my (now very tidy) craft space, but have no idea what I'm actually going to do with them, so they've sat there for quite a while.

I decided that if I wait for inspiration I'm never going to do anything with them and they're going to stay stashed in the bottom drawer forever. So today I got a few of them out and painted them - the first in several steps.

Time will tell how long it will actually take to finish them, but I really want to make my space 'mine' so I have a bit of inspiration to get them done quickly!

Crafty wood projects

Hmmm, looks a bit more grey than metallic silver.
We'll see how it turns out.

P365 - Day 273 - i've been tidying up my craft space (30/09/2011)

P365 - Day 249 - special activities

Juniordwarf loves talking about how they do ‘special activities’ at school, so somehow anything that is remotely crafty that we do at home has become a ‘special activity’

Today the Salvation Army was holding a ‘crazy crafts’ session through the Communities for Children program. That sounded like a whole morning’s worth of ‘special activities’, and when I asked Juniordwarf if he wanted to go he was very keen.

He had a fun morning. He made a sheep, did some footprints, painted a picture for me, did some tile painting and helped out with story time.

I’d also promised him a special activity to do at home today as well.

On Saturday when we went to his swimming lesson he wore his goggles all the way there, and was amazed at how they turned everything blue. I thought it would be fun for him to make a mask with coloured cellophane over the eye holes so he could see how the different colours changed his view of the world.

He was very excited to be making a mask and, based on something he’d seen on one of his DVDs, has decided that the purpose of a mask is to scare people! So he said he’d make a mask to ‘scare Dad’.

He coloured it in and decided he wanted blue and red ‘lenses’, so he ended up with purple.

(Attempted purple tint on photo to simulate
what he's seeing!)

As soon as we’d finished it he raced into the bedroom to scare Dad with a huge roar. Dad was suitably terrified, as was I when he came back to scare me.

He then proceeded to wear the mask for the rest of the day. At bed time he put it on his bed head, presumably so that he can put it on as soon as he wakes up in the morning – and come into our room to scare us.

P365 - Day 247 - fathers day

When we picked Juniordwaf up from school on Thursday he had a wrapped present in his bag, which was for Slabs for Fathers Day. I had a pretty good idea of what it might be, so I couldn’t wait to see it today.

Juniordwarf made Slabs’ card at Playgroup on Friday, and yesterday afternoon we wrapped the presents we’d bought a couple of weeks ago. Juniordwarf was very excited by all the wrapping and he took all the presents and lined them up on the lounge room floor. (He is really into presents at the moment – we made a DVD of his first Xmas, where SantaMe gave out all the presents from the Santa sack and we opened them all – he likes to act the whole thing out, including reciting the comments that people make and their laughs. He does the same thing for his first birthday DVD. So anyone in my family who has a distinctive laugh, beware: he can imitate it!)

I told him he’d have to hide them from Slabs, so he took them into his bedroom – and lined them up on the floor.

I managed to convince him that he needed to actually hide them so Slabs wouldn’t see them when he put Junoirdwarf to bed, so we found a hiding place in his room and stashed them there.

I told Juniordwarf that when he woke up in the morning he had to come and wake me up first, so we could get the presents and surprise Dad.

He didn’t, and when I went into his room at 8 o’clock this morning (yes! 8 o’clock!) he was awake in bed. I asked if he wanted to get the presents for Dad, and he said yes, got up and went to get them. They were in a completely different (and better) hiding place than where we’d put them yesterday.

He took them in very proudly to Dad and announced that he’d help Dad open them. Which meant that he’d open them himself, which he proceeded to do, with very little input from Slabs.

He opened his school present first, which was, as I’d thought, a hand-made photo frame with a picture of him from school. Very cool!

Then he opened the rest of the presents, and handed over his card, which he had written ‘Dad’ and his own name in.

Slabs seemed very happy!

Juniordwarf decided to wear his pirate outfit today (good to get some wear out of it), and we went to our favourite coffee shop for morning tea.

After coffee we went outside so I could try to get a photo of Juniordwarf and Slabs (I try to get one good photo of him with the relevant parent on the relevant day – it is not an easy task).

We were going to go out for a picnic lunch, but it rained, so we had the picnic inside, which Juniordwarf really enjoyed (not that you can tell from this picture).

I tried again to get a decent photo of the two of them, but Juniordwarf really wasn’t cooperating today. This is the best I could do! 

P365 - Day 230 - crafty mama (UPDATED 27/08/2011)

UPDATE 27 AUGUST

After telling Juniordwarf I’d make him a Very Hungry Caterpillar costume for his school’s Book Week celebrations this week, I had no choice but to come through with the goods.

Fortunately my ability to operate my mother’s sewing machine hadn’t deserted me, and I managed to come up with a reasonably respectable looking pair of green stripy pants last weekend.

During the week I roughly hand stitched some dark green stripes to Juniorddwarf’s green t-shirt and created some antennae out of a headband, pipecleaners and (bought, not made) pom poms. All I'd have to do in the morning was apply some face paint and we'd have ourselves a caterpillar.

Juniordwarf was very excited about dressing up. (It was also canteen day for him and, as a once a fortnight treat, I’m actually not sure if he was more excited about having canteen or dressing up!)

It all came together very smoothly.

Slabs and I both took him to school, and we hung around until the bell rang so we cold see all the other kids’ costumes as well. There was a huge range of book characters, and they all looked fantastic. The teachers made a huge effort too, although I wondered how some of them were going to make it through the day with costumes that looked decidedly uncomfortable.

They had a parade later in the morning, where Juniordwarf said all the kids had to tell everyone who they were. He said he was ‘a caterpillar’. It sounds like he really enjoyed it.

So I survived my first foray into actually creating a costume and, as he gets older, I’m expecting Juniordwarf to get involved too.

Fun times ahead!

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When I was in my early teens, I used to read Dolly magazine. I don’t remember much about it, except that a very young Nicole Kidman once featured on the cover, and she was in an ad for a hair colour, I was once tempted to write to the advice column (but never did), and it was full of bad 80s fashion, hair and articles about what you could do with boys.

One year they ran this feature on how to make a pair of shorts in an hour, with this incredibly simple one-piece pattern that was so easy even I could whip up a funky pair of summer shorts.

And now to the actual point.

Last week we found out that Juniordwarf’s school would be doing a dress up day next week for book week. He decided he wanted to be the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Sure, I can do that.

After a bit of thought and a call out for help on Twitter, I remembered how easy it had been to make the Dolly shorts, so figured I could just find a similar pattern for kids pants and make a green pair that would match his green t-shirt. Add some pipe cleaners on a head-band for antennae and bang, instant caterpillar.

I found what looks like a pretty easy pattern from Dana Made It, bought some cheap green fabric, organised with my mother to use her sewing machine on the weekend, and tonight I set about getting everything ready.

It was all going well until I came to the bit where it said ‘trace the pattern to the fabric with a fabric pen or marker'. Well I was sure I had one of those in the shed somewhere, with a lot of other sewing junk and patterns that I hadn’t looked at for years.

I headed out to the shed, found the bag of stuff, but of course there was no fabric pen in there. What really surprised me was that the original pattern from Dolly magazine, that I’d cut out of newspaper (The Australian to be precise), was there, tucked in amongst all the other paper patterns, most of which I'd never used.

The date of the paper was Tuesday September 2, 1986. I was interested to read some of the (page 3 and 4) story titles of the day:

“Unemployed on the dole take longer to find work”;

“Democrats ([remember them?] reveal uranium sale ploy”;

“Hooker legal action may stop tabling of police report”;

“SA wants fruit juice tax canned”;

“RSL national service call”; and

“Hawke tennis challenge to China leader”

A horse called High Quest, trained by John Hawkes, had won the Chanak Handicap at Moonee Valley, and shares in BHP Holdings were trading at 37 cents.

So, after that diversion into the past, now I’ve found my pattern, I have no intention of making shorts. However, if the costume making turns out to be successful, it might be the solution to the problem of never being able to find pants to fit Juniordwarf.

Crafty mama to the rescue.

Maybe.

P365 - Day 128 mothers day

I had a lovely day today, despite being a bit knocked about by a lingering cold that I thought had almost gone, but that made a triumphant return to my life this morning.

Juniordwarf gave me a little stash of presents, which he helped me to open. (What that means is he said he’d help me open them, and then he proceeded to open them himself).

Slabs brought me coffee in bed, then a few minutes later Juniordwarf walked in, very carefully carrying the breakfast tray with my breakfast on it that he’d made (this cooking training is coming in handy!).

I was touched. It’s the first time I’ve had a Mothers Day breakfast in bed, and the look on his face when he walked in the room, with Slabs not too far behind helping him, was something I won’t forget. He was concentrating intensely and he looked so proud of himself.

It really made my day.

I was going to put the flowers he made me at school on my magnetic whiteboard to inspire me when I’m being crafty, but Juniordwarf told me they had to go on the fridge. He was very insistent about it, even though I said they were my present and I should be able to put them wherever I wanted to.

His response was ‘I’m sorry Mum, but they have to go on the fridge.’ He was very serious about it. I think his teacher might have suggested putting them on the fridge when the kids made them and Juniordwarf has interpreted this as being an instruction as to where they must go.

So rather than argue with him, I used it as an opportunity to take down a few pieces of old artwork and put the flowers in their place. And when my mother came to see us, he was very excited to show them to her in their new home.

He’s wonderful and I love being his mum. 

P365 - Day 114 it's not perfect, but it's mine

(Today's title brought to you by Tim Minchin)

Today I did something I decided on Friday to do. 

There's something I’ve been complaining about ever since my scrapbooking hobby became bigger than the dining table and started to spread across two rooms.

I don’t have a scrapbooking space. 

I can use the coffee table, but it’s very uncomfortable to work at that level. And I have to pack everything up to keep it out of Juniordwarf’s way. I can use the dining table, but ever since Juniordwarf has started eating his meals on there instead of his little kids table, it’s become less than desirable as a venue for papercrafting. And again I can’t leave anything out.

So today, I did some reorganising of the furniture in the study, got Slabs to help me move my desk back into the house from my shed (where I have used it precisely zero times) and started to set up a scrapping area.

Originally I was going to use these bedside cabinets
as 'legs' for a sheet of chipboard . . .

. . . then I remembered I already had a perfectly
good desk (and yes it is the same desk I had
at high school).

I managed to do this without getting rid of a single item of clutter in the spare room, and still enabling some kind of (restricted) access to the room, which I think is testament to my ability to hoard.

It’s still a work in progress. It’s not a huge area, and at the moment it means that my scrapping stuff is actually spread across THREE rooms. That might continue to be the case, because I don’t think there’s going to be enough room for everything to be consolidated. But it does get a lot of stuff out of the lounge room and, more importantly, it’s my own space.

I’m so excited!

Now to work on that clutter . . .

P365 - Day 57 - glitterati

Let me start this post by saying that every photo for my Project 365 is taken on my phone. My phone tends to lag somewhat between the time I press the button and the picture actually being taken. So the quality is sometimes a bit dodgy, especially in low light situations where the subject refuses to hold still for a photo.

Like in this photo:

Late in the day, just before it's time to cook dinner, Juniordwarf has taken to getting out his craft box (on Play School they call it the 'Useful Box') and doing some crafty activities. This can include pasting icy pole sticks onto a piece of paper, doing play dough . . . and playing with this stuff, which can only be described as glittery goop.

It's fabulous stuff. It's cold, clammy, slimy and glittery. It stretches, it clumps, it rolls. It gets on everything and is impossible to get off clothing.

No wonder he loves it.

It reminds me of that green 'Slime' in a garbage can that I used to have when I was a kid, which I loved and my mother hated.

And now I know why.

So this is what parenting is actually all about - finding out why your parents said what they said and did what they did. I can see my mother chuckling away now as I try to clean this stuff up.