Monday, March 10, 2014

February 24- March 2, 2014 (Needle Felting Fun and Daisy Girl Scout Luggage Tags)

This week turned out to be a super fun week full of tons of felting. I had signed the kids up for a Children's Swap with the Waldorf crafty folks in my festival group, and they decided to make little sets with nests, eggs and mama birds. The nests and eggs were Rainbow Girl's idea, and Sugar Bear came up with the idea to add mama birds.





After Rainbow Girl finished half of the nests and eggs, they mutually decided to do some wet felting. 



While they were working on that, I caught the crafting bug and decided to make a Saint Patrick's Day wall hanging. To speed up the process, I made a multineedle tool. I have been wanting to buy one for some time, but the one I made works pretty well! It is simply a wine cork with four felting needles wrapped in duct tape. 




Rainbow Girl eventually gave up on wet felting and started up a needle felting project. Sugar Bear followed suit soon after.




Initially, the goal was to felt the mama birds to go with the nest and egg sets, but Sugar Bear suggested that we make them out of "gnome people" (peg dolls) and that I wood burn details on them. I agreed that was a fantastic plan. 

After I burned on the beak, eyes and wings, Sugar Bear painted them with water colors....Easter egg style. :)







As always, we also read our Super Sam story of the week, and retold it several times. Rainbow Girl drew this great picture on the chalk board of Super Sam and his friend Toby- working on the plan on Toby's house near water.


I believe that I have mentioned a few times before that I am a coleader in Rainbow Girl's Daisy Girl Scout troop. Daisy scouts work much harder than they use to! When I was a Daisy, it was simply crafts and social interaction. They now have opportunities to earn petals, leaves, and journey patches to put on their smocks and vests. 

For the second half of the scouting year, I am leading the Daisys in earning the Journey, Between The Earth and Sky

One of the first things to do in earning the Journey is to decorate their "Luggage Tags". The leader book suggests a piece of cardboard shaped like a luggage tag or a bookmark. They then want the girls to learn how to say "Have a good trip!" in six languages and write all six sentences on said luggage tag and bookmark. 

I don't know if you can write six sentences on a bookmark...but I think that would be a stretch for me, and I did not plan on expecting eleven 5-7 year olds to do so. Enter my super cool Luggage Tag Book.

Later in the Journey, recycling is discussed, so I was hoping I could recycle something so make the books. What better to use than the boxes that the Girl Scout cookies came in!
I cut out two luggage tag shapes out of the cardboard and four luggage tag shapes out of construction paper. I then punched one heart shaped hole in every piece and connected it with hemp twine. I purchased the girls some fantastic scrapbook stickers to decorate their books, and they had a ball decorating their cool books.

While I was working on my project, the kids woke up from their nap and were thrilled to find a pile of scraps at their disposal. With out any suggestion, they took out their scissors and glue and got to work making their own creations.







Later that night, I finished up my items for the Saint Patrick's Day swap I was signed up for. I decided to go with the rainbow aspect of the holiday and made rainbow silk dancing ribbons and rainbow Waldorf window stars. (I obviously took pictures in the morning ^_^)




I also packed up the nest, egg and mama bird sets in little vintage fabric scraps and twine. 



After looking at my Saint Patrick's Day wall hanging a couple days and not being happy with it, I decided to add a rainbow ring around it, and to wet felt it. I am so glad I did because I think it turned out pretty cool in the end!


On the way home from Girl Scouts, in the dark of the back of the car, Rainbow Girl's sleepy voice speaks up. "Mommy? I would like to have a 'Happy March' party on March first. I would like everyone to wear green, and we will do shamrock crafts. Wait. I want C&V to come over. I also want to watch Frozen with them. *pause* I would like to have them over and we will all dress like princesses and watch Frozen. THAT is what I would like to do." (This was Thursday night, March first was on Saturday.) I messaged the family that she asked about and thankfully, they were all for a "Happy March/Princess/Frozen" party. 

It's always fun to hang out with them. The older girls were both born in May 2007, and Sugar Bear and V were both born in May 2010. We had a great morning together, and it was a lovely way to kick off March. 






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