another garland for the kiddos

I have been doing some Thanksgiving crafting, despite my desperate need to clean the house.  Or maybe BECAUSE of my desperate need to clean the house...   Since it was well into November, and my family was starting to make snide comments behind my back (and in front of it), I decided it may be time to take down my kid-friendly “going batty” garland.  Yep.  I’m one of THOSE people... who keeps her decorations up way too long.  You can call it reluctance to let go of the FUN from the last holiday (in fact, please call it that.  I’d hate for you to call it what it actually is, which is really just laziness).  

After it came down, we needed something to replace it.  I happened to be doing a project with the 2’s (which I can’t really say anymore, since my super cute niece just turned three... with bug to follow soon) putting together some craft foam Native Americans I’d purchased in a kit.  They reminded me of this:

via

only not all connected.  And that is how my bright idea was born.  But before I could turn them into some cute hand-holding dolls, I decided I needed some pilgrims to go with.  I mean, you can’t have Thanksgiving without Pilgrims and Indians, right?  But I couldn’t find a pilgrim kit to match the Indian kit I got.  I figured we’d have to make our own.

You’ll need:

sticky craft foam - large sheets.  1 each of flesh color, black, yellow, white.

scissors

black pen

hole punch

yarn

17 cents

packing tape

I traced around the little foam people cut-outs to make more people.  

My mom helped me draw some patterns for the pilgrim clothing.  

Here is the clipart picture we used for inspiration:

We made jackets and puffy pantaloons for the men, complete with a large collar, shoes with buckles and a big hat - also with a buckle.  For the women, we cut dresses, aprons, collars, clogs, bonnets, and bangs to stick out of the bonnet.  (we traced every pattern on the back of the foam, which is why it looks like we used tan foam in the picture above...)

Click on the picture to enlarge it and get a good idea of the shapes we used.  ( I apparently don't have pictures of the jacket but it was similar to the dress, just shorter and with straighter sleeves.  I also didn't take a picture of the buckles, but those are just little squares with smaller black squares drawn right in the middle).

collar

pantaloons

apron

bonnet

dress

bangs

clogs and shoes

Use the black pen to draw a face.  My mom also drew a line across the bonnets to make them more three dimensional and puffy-looking.  I drew “stitching” around the collars and aprons, to match the “stitching” on the Indians' outfits.

bug and K helped me put them all together.  mini contributed by finding the pile when I wasn’t looking and attempting to eat them.  I think she may have succeeded in swallowing a “feather.”

Since bug and K love playing with stickers, the sticky craft foam was a big hit.

When we were finished assembling them, the 2’s “helped” punch tiny holes in all the hands with an itty bitty hole punch I have.  Then I threaded orange yarn through the holes, running the yarn along the back of the foam dolls.

When I hung it up, the dolls were horribly top heavy.  They kept flopping around all willy nilly, some even turned upside down - it must have been all the tryptophan at the first Thanksgiving dinner.  This is where the 17 cents comes in.  You need a penny per doll.  Just take your penny and some packing tape and adhere the penny with a small piece right on the back of the doll, towards the bottom.  If you do it carefully, no one will be the wiser.  And you can’t really use pennies for anything else these days, anyway.

It did the trick!  

There they are, holding hands, the best of friends.   

I think they're smiling because they're looking forward to dessert.