crooked house

Brain Hemisphere Hat

Ellen McHenry designed the pattern for this brain hemisphere hat, to be labeled, coloured, and constructed by your child. We need to do this activity -- I know I could use a little review. Via Jessica Van Dyne-Evans on pinterest.

Love and Stationery

Image taken from here.

Happened upon this love poem to stationery yesterday, via Thomas's links list. It's from Sarah Salway's collection You Do Not Need Another Self-Help Book.

Love and Stationery

Tonight, women dream of stationery;
well thumbed catalogues hidden
in bedside tables, falling open
at filing solutions. Some promise
this will be the last time, one final look
at industrial size staplers, hole punches.
Others take it further. Post-it notes
edge their desire as they chase private
rainbows husbands don’t understand.
At lunchtime, propelled out by a need
for highlighters, their fingers brush
sellotape dispensers as they imagine
being held by paperclips,
protected by bubblewrap,
wiped clean with Tippex.
In quiet moments,
they will pull out new journals,
those blank, lined, empty pages waiting
to be filled; who knows what magic
will result from an organized life?
At bad times, when the ink runs dry,
you will find a woman standing in front
of an open stationery cupboard, the flutter
of her heart stilled by the solid weight
of correspondence quality paper.

Polish Paper Town

Here's yet another paper town -- a cardboard one, actually. They come as templates like these:

There are three different sets that cost 20 PLN each -- they are made in Poland and are based on Polish suburban life. That's about $6.33 Canadian. Not bad -- it'd cost a total of $14.26 to purchase one and have it shipped. Via handmade charlotte.

The Crooked House Paper Village

Here's a shot of the paper village we always put up around this time of year. Some of the houses -- the three-dimensional ones with pastel roofs -- I made a year or two ago using a Martha Stewart winter village kit. At some point, I used Country Home's plans to make the plain white buildings, which are flat. And this year's addition is the one in the middle  -- it's made from a photograph of our own crooked house, printed on vellum and taped to a square glass vase. I got the idea from Hutch Studio. They made similar ones of their shop. (Via the lovely new blog A History of Home.)

I've taken photographs of other houses in our neighbourhood, and ones of the houses of some relatives and friends -- you know, the people who don't actually live in our neighbourhood but we wish did. (Gramma, when you read this, please email us a photo of your house and Den's.) And, time permitting, I'm going to add those houses to our paper village, too. So that even if the real world isn't perfect, our paper one will be.

Or maybe not. If you look closely, you can see where the roof of our porch is starting to fall down, right above the steps. And unfortunately, there's another slight problem. I suggested to Luke that we might like to put little cut-out photographs/paper dolls of him and Vivi on the felt, next to that snowman say, and he thought that was a great idea. "We should look sad, though," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because the house is on fire," he said. And unfortunately, it does look a little like that. Luke thinks the glossiness of the map behind the roof of the house even looks like smoke.

We could just go with that, I suppose. Add a toy fire truck and all.

 

All you need to make your own is a photograph of your house printed on a sheet of vellum, a battery-operated tea light or two (whatever you do, don't use real ones), and some tape. The glass vase or candle-holder is optional. If you don't want to use one, just fold the photo of your house in a kind of tube around a tea-light and fasten it with the tape.

Free Printable Polaroid Photo Project

Camie Dyess created this as a birth announcement but I think it would work well with all sorts of photos. She is sharing the printables and DIY instructions for free at Fresh Baked. Via l'il magoolie.

A Victorian Kindle

Illustration student Rachel Walsh designed this book filled with tiny books in response to the assignment "Explain something modern/internet based to someone who lived and died before 1900." It's a visual explanation of the Kindle e-reader for Charles Dickens. Love it with a passion. Via Iris Blasi

William and Kate Paper Dolls

 

William and Kate Paper Dolls You'll have to make your own wedding outfits but click through to paper and felt for the full-size images and a couple of other costumes. From today's Dover Pictorial Sampler.

Two Easy Flower Crowns

Sylvie and I were in the dollar store this morning, where we picked up Easter grass and these adorable felt flowers on wire stems. I think they were $1.25 for five flowers. When we got home we spent five minutes making this flower crown. We cut a piece of green construction paper in half, taped two ends together, wrapped it around Sylvie's head and then taped it to fit. We removed it and used a glue stick to attach the grass. The wire stems of the felt flowers are taped inside the crown. Easy peasy, if a little messy-looking.

I also came up with a simpler one using a Goody headband we already had. For this, I had to bend the stems of the flowers to make them a bit shorter. Sylvie put the headband on first and then I simply tucked the flowers inside it.

As always, click on any photo for a closer look.

 

April Showers Bring May Flowers Mobile

I bought this Umbra metal frame mobile last year on a whim -- Sylvie and I were out for a walk and it was hanging in a shop window downtown filled with images of poppies. Umbra designed it for photos but it is very versatile. This past weekend the kids and I hung paper clouds, raindrops, and flowers on it, christened it "April Showers Bring May Flowers," and hung it in the new playroom. Yes, I know we're getting a little ahead of ourselves but we're desperate for spring around here.

Almost any arrangement of photos, paper or felt objects, or natural items (think leaves or dried flowers) would look great hanging on this mobile. Even candy would -- imagine it filled with red lollipops or candy canes at Christmas or treats at Halloween. While we were working on our version, I was dreaming up lots of other versions -- how about one filled with origami cranes? Paper cranes are still a bit too difficult for my little kids to manage but origami crane mobiles might make a good fundraiser for older children to do for Japan. People could sponsor a child so much per crane and then perhaps they could bid on the finished mobiles.

I'm thinking of getting one of these for Luke's teacher -- it would be a lovely way to display the primary children's art when they all make something like snowflakes.

This model takes 59 photos, paper flowers, or other objects but there are other smaller versions available.

Note: I am cross-posting this as the first post on my new blog, Paper and Felt. I hope you'll follow me there.

Little Golden Books Gown

Artist and designer Ryan Novelline made this gown out of Little Golden Books. The skirt, obviously, is made out of the pages. The bodice is made out of the gold foil from the books' spines.