Crafts for Boys

Makes for Maman

Posted by Helen and Cara

Sunday was the 'Fête des Mères' here, i.e. French Mother's day (managing to be different to both Canada and the UK) So we thought for a change we'd post some things that our super kids made for us.

 

Over to Helen:

Tommy made me a lovely picture which now has pride of place in our bedroom.

 But the gift that really melted that cold icy heart of mine was a little book about 'maman' with his pictures and some sentences that the teacher helped him write.

 

What made me burst with pride was this one " What I love doing with Mummy is... making things" :o) Love you Tom xx

 

 

Cara's turn ;)

Jacques made me this sweet necklace, he picked his favourite beads and placed them in the front.

Anthony's gift was inside this box he decorated, when I put it together there was a poem that he wrote that spells out my name. :D

Philippe's gift wasn't so much of a surprise, he's not very good at keeping secrets!  He says it's only for picnics but I want to put in my new kitchen... if the renos ever end!

I'll throw Juliet's fimo necklace in here, since the boys in her class made them too.  Besides these are good ideas for the end of the year teacher's gifts ;)

There were cards as well, and the littles recited poems, or at least most of them :D  Oh and yes, I did wear both Jacques' and Juliet's necklaces on Sunday ;)

bathroom blues

Thankfully both my boys love bathtime and all the associated toys (no need to mention Tom and all things fishy...) However this (combined with a lazy mummy) results in my bathroom being a complete tip.  When we replaced our windows and put obscured glass in the bathroom, I struck on the idea of re-using the old shower curtain to make two bags to put the bath toys in - out of sight, and out of mind (for me at least.)

Before...

 

I cut the curtain into four pieces and used the two with holes at the top for the bags.  That way hopefully the draw strings won't tear too easily.  I then painted two scenes in shades of blue (to match my tiling in the bathroom) - in theory there's one with with boats etc for the boat toys, and one with marine creatures for the fish, etc, but I'm sure that won't last!

 

I sewed a double seam along one side to make and tube, then using yellow and brown thread, I used the largest zigzag stitch to make the sea bed.  Hopefully this will allow any water inside to drain out.  I finished the bottom edge with pinking shears and found some nylon thread to make the drawstring.  Hopefully tidying the bathroom will now be more fun for the boys and less of a headache for me!   

After...

 

 

... just wanted to sneak in my bathroom scales too which I rejuvenated with an old cork place mat and my trusty acrylic paints.  I love paint :o)

 

Helen's picks of the year

posted by Helen

Of all the challenges I've set myself this year, I think this has been the most difficult - to choose three or four of my personal favourites from all of Cara's projects over the last twelve months...  In the end I narrowed them down to four - one costume, one item of clothing, one bag and one other, but it was tough and I may yet change my mind before I publish this!

I've had lots of fun looking back so here are my top hi-lights of our first year on-line:

In at number one - my all time favourite with top marks for originality. Tom still loves it too and takes it to school every day : Tom's shark bag

I just had to include Dean's fab transformer costume - it's ingenious: Dean's costume

Picking one item of clothing was really hard, but in the end for the shear amount of detail and just cool boyishness it had to be Anthony's robot shirt.

And last, but by no means least, although maybe slightly off topic the brilliant gift that Cara made me for Christmas - it's really cute, fits perfectly in my bag and has already proved incredibly useful - after all boy mums deserve good stuff too :o) My out and about pack.

Here's to the next twelve months :o))

 

all that glitters isn't necessarily girly

posted by Helen

Ok, so most boy projects are pretty devoid of flowers and frills, but when you're four and a half, glittery shiny jewels have universal appeal!

A couple of weeks back Cara and I took some well earned kid-free time to make a fab calendar project from LollyChops with Live at Prima  Here's a quick sneak at mine, as it IS relevant (honest!) 

 

 

Poor Tom was so sad that I was going to make mine without him, that I had to promise we'd make his own version with any left-overs I had. 

Tom LOVED the image transfer technique - as far as he was concerned that was really magic.  The drawing and cutting was started with enthusiasm, but after a couple of months that was left mainly to mummy, but with the insistance that Tom was still chief jewel sticker!!

So here it is, slightly less flowery, but still pretty sparkly, and still managing to be 100% boy.  The hi-lights of Tom's calendar 2011...

Mummy's paisley fish:

 

... and Yellow submarine:

Tommy's racing car with flames coming out of the exhaust:

 ... and his favourite dinosaur (Ruby from Land Before Time!)

 

a sparkly whale:

 

and Mummy's alien planet:

 
 
 
 
 

Out and About with Boys

posted by Cara

Okay, so I'm cheating a bit this week ;)  This project isn't actually for boys but for moms mums of boys.  It was Helen's Christmas gift from me :)  When you are out with boys 2 things happen consistently.  They get dirty and they get hurt.  So this is a pack that's pretty slim that she can take with her to remedy the scrapes and the stickies.  The pack is rough and tumble for a proud boy mum!

shark bait

posted by Helen

We're very lucky to have a free bus service for the kids in our village, so the start of another school year means another bus pass.  I have no idea if enyone ever checks them, but in theory all the kids are supposed to have their pass with them. As Tom is only 4 and my son to boot, I'm really nervous that he'll lose his card, especially as we have to pay for a replacement!

Last year I made a temporary holder which I tied to his bag with elastic.  Of course I never got round to replacing it, so this year I was determined to make something more permanent. 

If you didn't see Cara's post from June, tom's school bag is a REALLY cool shark , so of course I had to make it a tasty fish-shaped snack!

I recycled part of a thick, clear pastic packaging to hold the pass, which I simply stitched to two pieces of printed cotton (another off cut from Tom's playing out trousers)  Then I made a simple fish pattern from scrap paper and stitched around the outside using a close zig-zag setting. 

To attach the holder to the bag I used an eyelet through which I knotted some blue cord and tied it onto the drawstring of the bag.  So hopefully next 'rentrée' I'll just have to switch the new card over and Tom will be ready to start another year. 

Dig dig dig

posted by Helen (in rainy England!)

Hello! The boys are being spoiled wrotten by Nana and Grandad, so I've sneaked away for five minutes to do battle with this funny English keyboard - apologies for any typos.... 

I just wanted to share some cushions that I made this time - inspired by some reverse applique (sorry no accents on here) design I saw in a magazine, I decided to have a go at making a much more masculine version. (the orignials were pink & grey flowers, very pretty, but just not Tom...) Using off cuts from the curtains with some black for contrast, I came up with this idea. I pinned the black fabric to the wrong side, stitched round the letter outlines, then (very carefully) cut out the inside of the shape. Then made the piece up into a simple cusion cover.

When they were tots Tom & Dan spent lots of time dig dig digging in Nana's garden, and even now Tom has a patch of our garden which looks more like a building site than anywhere that plants might grow.   

And cushions are always a hit, of course they spend most of the time on the floor, but that's half the fun!

School's out for Summer!!

So here we are at the beginning of our summer vacation which began Friday after classes!  All of our boys are excited to be free of school work and teachers and us moms are happy to be able to enjoy our kids without schedules and driving around endlessly.  

 

We have decided that with Cara's new baby and Helen's trip to England and with having kids home all day long to dial back the blog posting a bit.  Don't worry, we still plan on hitting you with at least one project a week and we'll be back in full swing come September :D

 

Before we head off here are some fun pix of the happy boys.  We also want to show off the projects that they have made for their teachers.  Cara's boys made necklaces out of felt balls and ribbon and Philippe even painted some wooden pens for his.  Helen's Tom decorated plant pots with lots of sticky paint, glue, buttons and mosaic tiles.

 

Nana's cushions

Posted by Helen and Maggie Billings

I can’t remember learning to sew, it’s just something I’ve always done, and that is entirely down to my Mum.  She loves making things for ‘her boys’ too and with four grandsons there’s plenty to keep her busy!  These cushions are some of my favourites.  I think the photos show how much Tom loves his big fish.

Over to you, Mum:

As you already know Tom has always been a fish fan. Whilst watching T.V. I saw an interviewee with several fish-shaped cushions placed along the top of his sofa. 'What a brilliant idea for Tom' I thought, so I quickly made a sketch. Using different coloured fleece (Helen's favourite!) I made Tom one for Christmas.

I made a pattern out of newspaper and cut two pieces so that I could make the stripes exactly the same size. I sewed the stripes together first. I made the fins and tail separately with two pieces stitched together and stuffed them. I sewed them into the seam as I went and after turning right side out I stuffed it with washable, polyester toy stuffing.

 

As Tom has a cousin (Dan) of the same age who loves all animals, I devised a lion cushion for him. For this I made a large circular cushion and made the head separately. The mane and tail are made from wool.

 

Daniel's mum loved the soft fleece of the cushion so I made her a dog. I used the simple circular shape again adding the features directly to the cushion with unstuffed ears attached in the seam.

 

For the boys' cushions I bought the special toy eyes which have a fixing inside. Unfortunately these broke easily so I have replaced Lion's eyes with suitable buttons. Although maybe not a first choice for kids’ toys, at least you can see whether these are becoming detached. For Dog I simply used felt for the eyes which was more successful.

GIVEAWAY AND FLICKR LAUNCH

posted by Helen

Happy due-date Cara! (although as yet no news on that front... maybe he/she is holding out for Canada Day on the 1st July!)

To celebrate, with or without the new arrival, we've decided to launch our flickr group by hosting a giveaway.

After nearly 2 months of sharing our projects, we'd love to see some of YOUR ideas.  You have until the end of July to share with us your favourite boy project then we'll pick our favourite to  showcase on here.  Of course we won't let you go away empty handed so there'll be a material prize too (no pun intended...)

For Cara's baby and my new nephew, I decided to make a set of scrunchy, munchy, crinkly, crunchy set of keys, complete with car/ house motif key ring.

I made a set for Joe too so that I could try out different types of crinkles and trims to see what worked best.  I can confirm that he loves them, so hopefully you will too, and of course the bright contrasting colours are perfectly unisex, so there's no 'boys only' here.  And don't worry if you don't have a baby who'd appreciate them, I can easily adapt the idea to make a grown-up key-ring fob, with less baby-proof embellishments and I'll throw in some bits of funky boy ribbon too. 

So... get making... all ideas and crafts are welcome whether completely original or versions of our ideas, just think BOYS and post on  http://www.flickr.com/groups/1452404@N21/

All entries posted before 31st July will be considered and we'll announce the winner shortly after.

Good luck and we can't wait to see your handy-work.