Sticker Mandala

How to get the kids to sleep?

Back in the day when Jack the ripper was a household name, it was a spoon full of whisky in the bottle. Fast forward to now and there’s ‘controlled crying’ where baby cries whilst parent doses up on the whisky!

Another approach is to read the kids to sleep. An honest look at the frustration of this from one adult to another…

And then there’s the Mandala.

Made by monks as a tool for guiding individuals along the path to enlightenment. These are lofty ambitions for a mama who just wants bub to sleep! nonetheless surely that kaleidoscope of radial balance will work it’s trance like magic and induce baby into an hour long nap.

DIY STICKER MANDALA

The finished product

Put up in place and wait for desired effect!

 

 

Lisa Larson Flygplan

Amongst Sweden’s better known exports are Abba, Volvo and Ikea… and then there’s Lisa Larson, a ceramicist and designer.

Some of her better known mid-century sculptures include Small Zoo (1955), ABC-girls (1958), Africa (1964) and Children of the World (1974–75). We based this craft activity on Flygplan (Airplane) from the 70s.

DIY Flygplan with cardboard & watercolours

Blinky Bill

Penned by Dorothy Wall in the early 1930’s, Blinky Bill is a cheeky fictional koala.

 Not content to doze and munch on gum leaves all day long, he lugs about a tucker bag and slingshot and gets up to all manner of mischief…

Yoram Gross & Blinky Bill

This is my watercolour Blinky Bill

He’s a little geriatric looking, possibly pondering the ‘when I was a young koala….’

 

Pom Poms & Strawberries

Finger pom-poms

Wax candle on Strawberries

Watercolour strawberries…

Pom-pom and strawberry garland

on the knocker…

 

Kangaroo Carousel

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.

Well put George Elliot! Clearly you’ve not experienced the ‘adventure’ of life indoors with two kids… during school holidays! Yessir, that’s 14 consecutive days of non stop “mama I’m bored.” And so one must take the adventure outside. We went bush…

we went beach…

Now back home and daughter is still yabbering on about kangaroos and carousels, so we merged the two for this craft activity…

KANGAROO CAROUSEL

Kids colour in kangaroos whilst unicorn waits patiently

Cardboard carousel top

Pipe cleaners passed through straws

 Kangaroo Carousel!

Raining Cats and Dogs

Back in the day when ‘forsooth’ and ‘uncouth’ were in common use, cats and dogs sought warmth and shelter in the thatched roofs of village folk. When the heavens opened, the downpour would flush out the four legged from their comfy hidey holes, and thus was borne the saying ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’. This is one of the many theories of the origins of this phrase.

It’s raining cats & dogs in water colour pencils

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