Finally finished my monkey men

So I finally finished the two monkey-men who have already found their way to their new home. Here is the navy blue one - his mouth is a little crooked but I do love the way it makes him look. He's a cutie. I hand sewed him entirely - He seems very strong so hopefully he will be able to stand up to the punishments of a little boy :)

And this one is the black one - he's going to the brother of the blue monkey. His body is all machine-stitched but it seemed to work this time - the stitches weren't breaking. So I must have been doing something wrong last time.



And here's all three together, hanging out.

These guys are so much fun to make.

Fly me to the moon . . .

Having saved all these boxes, I decided to use some of them. I got a slow cooker for my birthday (yay!) and the Styrofoam packing seemed to be a good size to form some structural support for a cardboard car - the last one we made was very sad and droopy :-)

So we started with this frame . . .


. . . and this fruit box . . .


I trimmed the inner circle of the Styrofoam so it was a touch bigger and then pushed it into the bottom of the fruit box - and it fit perfectly!



A quick check for size . . . all good!



Next we added some wings (yes, by now we had changed from a car to a plane!) and I thought we were finished! But Master O reminded me that planes have nose cones. So we added that too.


Here's a close up of how we added the wings and nose cone - just a simple tongue and groove arrangement. Works quite well!



Next was a coat of paint and we were done for the day. Had to let it dry overnight.


Some headlights and . . . . . it was ready for take off!!

Enjoy!

Some recent sewing

I have a lot of things on my to-do list and finally, finally I am nearly finished a gift for somebody special who gave me a heap of flannel last year so I could make lots of raggy quilts. I don't think she reads my blog so I think I'm safe posting he pics here.

So I made a pair of warm winter pyjamas for both of this lovely Mama's boys - I'm a chicken when it comes to sewing stretch, so the tops are just from Big W and I appliqued (quite badly) their initial on each one so that they can tell whose pj's are whose! They are quite close in age so I made them the same size. The flannel is from spotlight.

Along with each pair of pj's I have a sock monkey - I have yet to make them - they are almost completed but just need their limbs sewed on. So I've added a photo of a sock monkey (same socks but different colours) that I have made as a special order for a friend overseas. I wonder if she'll read this and think "Oh it's mine!!" :-)

He was so lovely to make - I didn't use the machine - and it turned out so much nicer than my machined sock monkeys. For some reason (it's that stretch fabric thing!!) the seams just always seem to split :(. I never have a problem with the ones I've hand-sewn. Any ideas on what I"m doing wrong?

Haven't posted for ages so I just thought I'd let you all know that things are happening - I just don't have 36 hours in the day. I wish!

More Beanstalk action.

So here is how we are situated now. We have three clouds, from left to right is O's, mine and then E's :) She subscribes to the "less is more" school of design.

On the top is O's artwork - the Giant's castle with the Giant poking his head out. The Giant, as well as the O figure and the Mummy figure are all separate and have little cardboard sticks on them so we can make up stories and move them around. O decided he didn't want pegs on them - he wanted sticks. So there you go. Glad I didn't rush out and buy a bag of dolls clothes pegs!

And here is O, Mummy and their house.

Master O's version of the story is . . . .

Once upon a time there was a boy named O and his mummy. They lived in a house and one day the Mummy asked O to go to the markets to get some food. He came back with lots of vegetables and ice-cream for dessert. He grew big and strong because he ate his vegetables. Then they threw the beans out the window and went to bed.

Next morning they woke up and looked out the window (much throwing up of hands and exclaiming) and there was a GIANT BEANSTALK!!!! It was so cool. So O climbed it and went up to the top through the clouds. He knocked on the door and the giant was there and he said "come on in O!" He wasn't mean at all - he was a friendly giant. His name was Mr Friendly. Then O's mummy climbed up and they all had a cuppa tea.

The End.

I love his stories - but then I am a sucker for a happy ending :)