Mr. Fox

The dapper and cuddly Mr. Fox is now drafted into a pattern and available below. The pattern has a bunch of pieces, but is still fairly simple. It includes instructions for making your own little tie, too. I'm packing mine up in a box to send off to a sweet little boy and his new little sister tomorrow. Why is Christmas so far away anyway?

Download the pattern here until Friday at noon (I decided to extend it a bit).   Updated:  The giveaway is over, you can find it in the shop.  Enjoy! And please share your foxes in the wewilsons flickr pool!

Sidetracked

My sister asked if I would make a fox for my nephew for Christmas.  He's been watching a fox in their backyard and calling him Mr. Fox.  Even though Christmas is over 4 months away, I decided to start on the fox right away - I get excited about new projects.  


Anyway, I love how he turned out.  I usually make my little animals small and compact, but I wanted this guy to be really huggable.  So he's long and floppy, and made of oh-so soft linen, stuffed with wool.  I made him a simple little tie to make him more of a Mister.

I decided he'd make a great pattern, so I made a second one just to get all the details right.  Consider this your pattern-giveaway head's up.  I'm hoping to have it finished in the next few days.

Little Coloring Book Lessons

I made this little coloring book for L to help her learn the Lord's Prayer as part of our home/pre-school.  I saw the idea somewhere else, but thought the graphics were little cheesy, so I just made my own.  I also used all capital letters, because she doesn't recognize lower case letters yet.  She loved it, and is really proud of her little book.  I may have to do this with all of our bible lessons!  I'm getting excited imagining a whole library of tiny little coloring books made by L. 

It's a single page that you color, then fold and cut into a little book.   Download the page here.  You can find directions for folding this kind of zine on ehow.

The Santa Project

I know it seems counter-intuitive, but I believe that limitations can produce an extremely creative environment.  This is why I love rule based projects.  You may remember my Orange Curtain Project from a couple of years ago.  I've been wanting to do another, but I didn't have any really great ideas. Until, now.

Without further ado, may I introduce The Santa Project. 

I've never really been into pre-made doll heads, I'd rather just make my own.  But, I recently came across a bunch of Santa doll heads.  My first thought was, who wants a Santa doll?  My second thought was, who else could you make with those heads?  So that's the challenge.  I have 6 little Santa heads, and a brain full of ideas.

This project is a just-for-fun, stress-free zone.  So, no time limit.  Just a bunch of old, mustached, white man dolls.  I have a ton of other things I should be doing, so I'm not sure when I'll get the first one done.

In the meantime, does anyone have any tips for working with these things?  How to attach them to the body?  How you might attach a beard?  What kind of paint you could use on the face?  I clearly have no idea what I'm doing.