Made It Monday #1

I am jumping on-board and going to try to do a weekly Made It Monday.  Every Monday, I will feature something that I made over the past week!

This week I am featuring the super cute Soapbox Mouse that I made for Aubrey.  I originally found a cute idea on Pinterest, to do this using an Altoids tin.  Well, I don't like Altoids, and I wasn't going to buy them just for the tin.  Any dollar store sells travel soapboxes and I had picked up a few of them for various storage projects, so I thought one of them would be a good substitute.  

I started off thinking about doing this as a tutorial, but I couldn't find a good way to take step-by-step pictures.  Sorry :(!  I did, however, take quite a few pictures of the finished project, and will give you as many details as possible.

Aubrey hasn't seen her little mouse yet, so we'll just call her Mousie!

Here is Mousie without her dress.  I started by stitching the face onto one side of the body.  I blanket stitched her double-felted arms and legs.  Then I did a blanket stitch around the outside, adding in the ears, arms, and legs as I went.  I added a bow and button last.

Here she is next to the hand-stitched half moon dress.  Again, I blanket stitched all the edges and added a plastic snap in the back.

Mousie, in her dress, and with her soap box.

Mousie will be so comfy in her little soap box bed.  I simply stitched a blanket out of scrap fabric.  Then stitched it onto a piece of scrap felt and hot glued it to the bottom of the soapbox.  Her bed wouldn't be complete with out a little felt pillow.

Here she is all tucked in and ready for bed!

The original idea came from mmmcrafts and can be found at:  

http://mmmcrafts.blogspot.com/2012/02/wee-mouse-tin-house-pattern-available.html

Today I am linking to:

http://www.thegirlcreative.com/

http://www.craft-o-maniac.com/

http://makingtheworldcuter.com/2012/09/making-the-world-cuter-8/#more-7500

http://sewchatty.blogspot.com/

http://ninthstreetnotions.com/

http://diyhshp.blogspot.com/

Take awhile and go check out all the creative ideas that others have posted.  I found some great things that I would love to do!

Penguin Fingerpuppets

Since Lena started with a new speech therapist, I have been inspired to engage her in different nursery rhymes, fingerplays, felt stories, and songs.  The more she is engaged, the more opportunities for her to show communication with us.  She has been doing so good with leaning new signs and letting us know her intentions lately!!!

So on my search, I decided to make some fingerpuppets for the rhyme:  "Two Little Blackbirds" but after some thought, I don't think that blackbirds are very cute.  Sooooo, my favorite bird was substituted, PENGUINS!!!!

Lena absolutely LOVED doing this with me and actually hid her hands behind her back with me!!!

 They were so easy to make!  Draw out a pattern, Cut, and Hand Sew!  I had them done in about an hour.  

After the penguins flew back, Lena loved grabbing them off my fingers and trying to put them on her own. 

Two Little Penguins

Two little penguins, sitting on a hill.

One named Jack, one named Jill.

Fly away Jack (fly one behind back)

Fly away Jill (fly the other behind back)

Come back Jack (bring one back to front)

Come back Jill (bring other back to front)

Other Versions

(Do the same motions for all of these, but make the opposites animated)

Two little penguins, sitting on a cloud.

One is soft, one is LOUD.

Fly away soft

Fly away LOUD.

Come back soft

Come back LOUD.

Two little penguins, sitting on a pot.

One is cold burrrrr, one is hottttttttt

Fly away cold burrrrrrrr.

Fly away hotttttttt.

Come back cold burrrrrrrr

Come back hottttttttt.

Two little penguins, sitting in the road.

One is fast, one is slow.

Fly away fast.

Fly away slooooooow.

Come back fast.

Come back slooooooow.

(Classic "Two Little Blackbirds" is modified to "Two Little Penguins."  The other versions that I have here, are ones I heard, learned, and/or modified myself from my years of teaching.  I do not take actual credit for them, but don't know an original source)

I am linking up with Flannel Friday!  It is being hosted on   www.storytimekatie.com

She has some wonderful ideas and lots of songs and stories for little ones!