Matchbox Mayflower Diorama

Thanksgiving is around  the corner, thought we would share this old favorite from a few years ago!

I gave this to my mother who hosted our Thanksgiving dinner that year!

------------------------------

It is November, and Thanksgiving is approaching! 

Here is a clever gift to share for the holidays: a matchbox diorama of the 

Mayflower voyage with a ship you can move around through the waves like it is sailing to the New World.

British Royal Guard Jumping Jack

 They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace -
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
"Do you think the King knows all about me?"
"Sure to, dear, but it's time for tea,"
                                                                    Says Alice.

Did you ever run across the A.A. Milne poetry collection  When we Were Very Young? If you like Winnie the Pooh you will find his favorite boy featured in many of the poems.  Anyway that was just one stanza but it is a nice poem, and brings me to today's project: my Brtish Royal Guard Jumping Jack!


I think little kids are always really intrigued by the Royal Guard and their impressive outfits. At least I always was. Plus, I am a pretty huge Anglophile so I have always wanted to make a little soldier for our house. (See the bottom of this post for our many projects inspired by our love of English culture.)
I have some really incredible German craft books that my mom bought in the Sixties in Europe. This one is called "Tiere, Puppen, Hampelmanner" and is by Ilse Strobl-Wohlschlager. It contains some really fantastic jumping jacks that inspired me to make my own. Unbelievably, I did an internet search and this book is available at Amazon! In English! For like $5! So I did not know this when I started and I could not actually read the instructions, but I think I came up with a working jumping jack using her photos for inspiration.
First I cut out the body parts from card stock. There are lots of templates for jumping jacks floating around the internet to inspire you. The German book had a very stylized doll, with a pinched waist and pointy feet, which I totally copied.
You will note that I punched small holes at the shoulders, top and bottom of thigh piece and top of arm and foot pieces. These holes will hold the brads. So, check out how large your brads are and make sure your hole is the right size. The big brass fasteners you get at office supply stores don't work very well with this as they stick out all over the place. I used smaller brads from a craft store.
 I then punched an even tinier second hole at the top of the two arm pieces and the top of the legs. This second hole will be for the string. It should not be too close to the edge as it could tear if people get too rowdy with the jumping jack.

I glued tissue paper onto my body parts. The leg and feet pieces are black and the body is red. I also cut out a hat piece and covered it with black tissue paper. The chin strap is white paper colored black, cut to frame the face. I used Mod Podge to apply the tssue and put a few coats on top to make it a little sturdier.

I drew the face using a black Sharpie. (Pencil first.) After I colored the face I glued on the hair and chin strap. I also used black marker on the cuffs and collar and added a white tissue belt and gold accents using a paint pen.
 I attached the arms and legs loosely with brads so the limbs can dangle freely. Then I took a needle and some embroidery floss and rigged up the back. I tied a straight string between the arm holes. This needs to be tight but not tight enough that it causes the arms to pull up. Don't worry about the ends of the string until later. Tie a straight string between the top of the legs. Then Tie a string from he middle of the top string to the bottom string and have it hang down. I added a bead to the bottom. I don't really care what the back of this guy looks like so I trimmed the edges of the string and taped them down. You could probably do this neater if you are so inclined. My kids LOVE the jumping jack. I am going to make some more blank body part pieces and let them design their own. My daughter wants to make a princess and my son probably has some incredibly complicated design of his own.
Enjoy!
Other projects inspired by our love of England:
What is in Dr. Watson's Desk?


Ms. Marple's Desk


Sherlock Holmes Stenciled Pillow
 

The Parlor from Longbourn House

A Box of Pirates

If you read this blog you will know that Corinne and I often make little toys and games. We also like to make cute containers to hold these toys so that they make nice gifts and also can be stored neatly. Recently, I repurposed an old cardboard pencil box using felt scraps and the Jolly Roger flag. This box is nice enough on its own for school supplies and as a keepsake box for your favorite wanna-be pirate, but I decided to make a little scene to fit inside and make it even more fun.This is a pretty easy project but it has a few parts so I will lay them out separately here. 

The pirates:  Use my tutorial for Ping Pong Ball Fairy Puppets and make

 pirates instead of fairies. I dressed mine in a variety of shabby fabric and felt scraps and added some messy hair and facial hair and a bandana for one and an eye patch for the other.  I did not want the pirates to be puppets but to be able to stand on their own. So, when everything is done you will want to insert a wooden craft clothespin under the clothing and up into the ping pong ball head where the finger holes are. You can then glue the clothespin into a wooden clothespin stand (they sell these in bags at craft stores) and your little figures will stand up nicely. I should also add that for some reason I gave my dark-haired pirate vertical stripes. It would look way more pirate-y if the stripes were to go across his outfit. But hopefully you can tell they are pirates.

Treasure Chest

I used a mini Altoids tin, some leather scraps, felt, and a little key and lock charm I got at a bead store. You could follow my example or come up with something different. If you don't have leather, felt will work fine. Glue the pieces on with craft glue. Inside the chest I glued in lots of beads and glitter and balls of tinfoil to represent the treasure.
The Trees

I made a banana tree and a coconut tree for my pirates. I painted craft sticks of different lengths brown then added felt leaves and either bananas or coconuts cut out from felt. I glued the craft sticks into a clothespin base so they will stand. I had to file them down a bit to get them to fit. I would also add that my banana tree is so tall it is a little off-balance and if I did it again I might make both trees shorter for better stability.
Swords 
The swords are probably the least successful part of my little play scene. You can do better! I used gold and silver polymer (Fimo) clay and shaped these little weapons and baked them.

More...  there is plenty of room in the box for additional accessories. I found a cute little bird and added that to the collection. Ideally you would give this to a child and help them make more stuff like more maps, more weapons, more pirates. A mermaid would be cute, too!

Matchbox Valentine Keepsake

Here is a fun Valentine you can make with an empty matchbox.

The best part is the surprise inside.

A little diorama of arrows and a lacy Valentine heart.

But that is not all, one of the arrows is on a stick, so you can slide it from side to side to reach the bulls-eye. 

There you go.

Felt Heart Blocks

Fairy Finger Puppets

While trapped in my house for two days this week, in sub-zero Chicago, I decided to make some finger puppets. With our car fuel line frozen and no way of going to my beloved craft store, I had to work only with materials at hand.  I always thought it would be effective to use a large wooden bead as the head on a finger puppet. Since I had no large beads I wound up using a ball left over from my Ping Pong Ball Thanksgiving Turkey project.  It turns out a ping pong ball makes a perfect head for a little puppet.

Materials

• Ping Pong balls
• Acrylic craft paint for ping ball ball. I used a "sandstone" color for the flash color.
• Small paintbrush
• Paint or markers for mouth, eyes and nose
• Small scissors. Nail scissors work well.
• Yarn or embroidery floss for hair
• Craft glue
• Fabric
• Tooth pick
• Confetti or star sticker for wand
• White felt for wings
• Gauzy fabric for wings
• Needle and thread
• Optional accessories like beads for headband, necklaces, trim on dress 

Steps

1. Hold the ping pong ball so that the indentation is where the jawline of your face will be. This way it will not show when you add the hair. Poke a hole where the neck will be using something like a knitting needle or nail.
2. Use tiny, sharp scissors to cut away a neck hole. Make it large enough for a finger to fit inside.
3. Paint the ping pong ball the skin color of your choosing and let it dry.
4. Add facial features to your head. I used white paint to make the eyes and permanent markers for the lips, nose, eyebrows and pupils.
5. Assemble your hair. Lay a long piece of yarn down on a newspaper and put glue all over it. Then cut your hair pieces (longer than you need them to be) and glue them along the center of the main piece.
6. After the glue is dry you can attach your hair to the top of the ping pong ball. Wait to give your puppet a final haircut until she is all assembled and you can see what length will look best. 
7. I sketched out a simple wing shape and cut out 2 felt wings and 2 gauzy pieces to go over the felt. Glue them together.
8. I made a simple dress template that is around 3 inches high and 2 inches wide at the bottom. You want the neck to be long so you can stuff the fabric inside the ping pong ball hole and hold the puppet together.
9. Pin the template to some fabric and cut out two pieces. If you are using felt and hand stitching you can cut it out along the line of the pattern. Otherwise give yourself 1/4 inch around extra for seam allowance.
10. Sew the dress pieces together with the front sides pinned together. When you sew you will sew down the neck, down both arms, and down the side. You will leave the bottom, head and sleeves open so that you can add hands later.
11. Reverse the dress and cut out some little felt hands. Sew them into the sleeves.
12. Apply glue to the inside rim of the ping pong ball and stuff the neck of the dress into the head using your finger like you will when it is a puppet.
13. Sew the wings onto the back of the puppet.
14. Make a wand. I used a toothpick painted gold and some star confetti I had left over from a party. You could also cut out a star from tinfoil or use those star stickers they sell at office stores. The star seems to have fallen off the wand in our photos so you also could just have a plain stick.
15. Glue the wand into the hand.

Here the fairy joins some of her pirate friends.

Felt Train Scene