Hello everyone! I hope this post finds everyone in good health, both mental as physical... and that everyone is keeping themselves safe. Uow, what crazy times we are living, never ever have I imagined that in 2021 posts of mine would start this way. But this is still our covid's reality.
It has been a long time since I have last published a post about our little makings around the house. Have to say that with lockdown, I have never been so busy and lacking time to do anything. My sewing machine is closed up in a cupboard. And, being completely honest is not as I have the right mind frame be sewing properly . And since I have little people to keep entertained, any makings have to involve tiny hands, and be fun!
I have come across an amazing whale automata when browsing the internet for ideas:
Yes, this at some point will be something for us to make, but.... not in the foreseeable future!
I had to search for something more feasible for us to make. Much easier to do as well! So more browsing and I found this tutorial at a great website for automata, Rob Ives .
The tutorial I chose to use was this one, for a cork bird. So .... we started to make this little guy! We begun by gathering all the materials. We have a lot, and I mean a lot of corks in our home (not sure why... do we have someone who really loves red wine??). As I am always printing articles and so on, we have a lot of paper clips. We just had more difficulties finding foam, as it was spread in different places, kiddos love to find new spots to stash their craft materials. You can also use card for the bird body really, but since we had leftovers of foam, we chose that material instead of card.
Cutting the materials for the bird body was easy. I did made the hole on the cork, which is very straightforward to do. The bit that was really difficult for us (particularly for the big kiddo, although he had fun using mummy's tools) was straight the paper clips, and even more difficult to fold these at the correct angles, as you can see below:
In this image big kiddo is trying to shape the crank. He started shaping the angles, and I finished as the best I could. Not the most easier task even for mummy!
This image shows another step, inserting the legs in the birds body.
The bird final look! A bit different from what it was suppose to look lol
And here is the bird finally attached to the cork:
But the good part is, even if you get clumsy angles or not straight at all legs, the bird still moves, although in a really funny manner!
It really did not matter if we did not managed a perfect bird, but making this little guy kept us busy, and the kiddos still enjoyed playing with it.
Let's see if I can start posting more regularly. No promises though, as finding some free time with home-schooling is not easy. I hope this post gets you some inspiration to spend time at home with kids! Share some ideas below, I would love to hear from you.
xx
