Well… this is my come uppance post: here I am “forcing” Red Ted to craft with me week in and week out and now… he turns around and turns the tables! It all started with his Birthday: he received a Playmobil toy, which came with a Playmobile mini brochure (Aka my magazine). He has since been asking everything in it! The Englishman complies with “Lego versions”. When The Englishman went to work, he came to me with a request for a pink castle.. off I went to the Lego. He said: “no mummy bastlen!” [Basteln: German for crafting. “Basteln?” I say “Are you sure”. A firm “yes”. Oh. We had 20min before needing to get ready for a playdate… This turned into a 3 day craft session… continuous craft session… including a 6:15am wake up call: “Mummy I need Googly eyes NOW”. Serves me right.
Apart from the paint & the googly eyes everything is recycled – the box, the loo roll, the roof (old subject dividers), the roses (saved tissued paper), the clothes…
The Book.
Well firstly the Playmobile Magazine:
Then a real book:
Mein erster Märchenschatz, by Rosemarie Künzler-Behncke.
This book was a lovely gift from Red Ted’s Godmother. We have a number of “classic” fairy tale books, but this somehow caught his attention. Red Ted (3) isn’t too good yet at “too much text” and “not enough pictures”. This fairytale book gets a great balance – of telling the classics in a concise and fun way with lovely illustrations. We actually manage to get to the end of the story on each page. Red Ted was so excited by all our crafting, that this was a really good “let’s sit on the sofa and calm down” book. I particularly lingered on “Sleeping Beauty” and the castle in that – talking about the castle we had made – and then got the idea to add some rose bushes (like on Sleeping Beauty’s castle). More to that later.
A great “first fairytale” book for impatient little minds!
The Craft
As mentioned above, this craft was sprung on me a little… I like to “think crafts” through and figure out “what the best way of doing something is”. Then I like to “Prep the table” and “the children”… none of this happened this time. We had 20min to make a “basic castle” before rushing out for a play date… Red Ted ran off and rummaged through my “bastl bag” and came back bearing loo rolls and boxes. And off we set. Poor Pip Squeak just got to hold a paint brush and water.. there was “no time” for her to paint too (much much much to her dismay!)
As you can see from the photos, the activity covered 3 days (3 different t-shirts on Red Ted!)
1) We cute out a “door” and a “window”. I wanted to do another “window”, but Red Ted firmly said “no”.
2) We taped 4 differently size loo/ kitchen towel rolls to the box with masking tape. I used masking tape, as you can paint on that.
3) We painted it all white. Red Ted took it VERY serious and also painted the inside of everything.
4) We rushed off to our playdate whilst it dried.
5) We painted some loo rolls pink for “lots of men”
6) When Red Ted went to bed, I stuck on 4 pink half circles as turrets. I found some gold tape (hooray) to secure them and also painted a gold “frame” around the doors.
7) The next day, I got a 6:15am wake up call for Googly eyes – the men needed “dressing” and googly-eye-ing. The dressing, consists of strips of fabric glued one – I recycled everything and these are our old clothes – clothes that were too old for the charity shop – the skirt lining made a lovely pink dress, the old sari (that I had a dress made from) made the “baby” (green), the old shirt the daddy etc etc.
8 ) We made the men and took some photos.
9) A call for more men. More pink painting. More clothes. More goggly eyes.. and then a call for noses… then I asked if we should add some glasses. Oh yes! Even “Boy” got glasses. Then they ALL needed glasses. So I suggested moustaches… then they ALL needed moustaches, so I suggested ears… you get my drift.
10) We then read the story book above and I suggested adding roses. YAY! I drew on a bush on the “door” and “window” side of the castle with tissue paper roses to stick on. Red Ted loved the ones at the door.. but then got very grumpy at the ones by the window.. so I had to repaint that part of the castle. Note to self: ask VERY clearly what he wants before doing ANYTHING!
11) Red Ted went to bed with his “men”! Happy.
Top Row: mum (with earrings), baby, daddy (with moustache)
Middle: Family, uncle 1, boy & penguin
Bottom: the crazy family members, with beard, moustache and crazy eyes
My favourite:
I suspect we will spend the rest of the week adding hair (wool and cotton wool) and different hats! YAY! (oh and I have added the “original” Boy & Penguin that started all this off!
Have you made a castle in the past? Let’s make this a castle fest – ALL crafts welcome, but would especially like to see your castles and dolls houses!!!
For more Kid’s Craft ideas, click here for a full list.
If you have been crafty with your kid’s be it at home, in the kitchen or outdoors, I would love for you to link up:
If you enjoy blog hops and link up parties.. do go and the fabulous Play Academy & Something for the Weekend every Friday and Monkeys Doodles every Monday! Just click on the badges below!
And join the BLOG HOP and cardboard box challenge:
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sunnymama says
March 2, 2011 at 5:38 amThat is a fabulous castle and the little loo roll people are so cute! I’d better start saving loo rolls now as Sunnyboy will love this. 🙂
fabmums says
March 2, 2011 at 8:03 amThat’s an amazing castle, well done! I love the little loo roll people with googly eyes:)
Red Ted Art says
March 2, 2011 at 8:34 amThank you both! We did have fun! Interestingly the men are the “important” part and for the best part of a week Red Ted took them everywhere with him!!!!
mermaid says
March 2, 2011 at 8:54 amThe castle is very beautiful (I love the rose decoration)! And the loo roll men are cute (I love the glasses 😀 ). We made a couple of small castles a year ago. And we made loo roll people at Xmas.. I don`t think I have posted them at all.. will have a look 🙂
Amy A says
March 2, 2011 at 11:56 amI love the castle! The only castles we have made have been sand castles! (Or snow ones if you count our snow forts!) Thanks for hosting this great link up!
Amanda says
March 2, 2011 at 12:10 pmOh my gosh that is so creative and adorable!!
Holly says
March 2, 2011 at 1:08 pmThat is great! We will definitely have to make it.
maryanne says
March 2, 2011 at 1:09 pmThis is fantastic! We’ll have to make one =)
Esther says
March 2, 2011 at 1:40 pmI love the castles. Even I want to make one with my daughter! The little people are adorable! No wonder Red Ted went to bed happy with them
Robin Neorr says
March 2, 2011 at 3:37 pmMy kids are on a castle kick. this is great!
Melissa @ The Chocolate Muffin Tree says
March 2, 2011 at 6:53 pmSo adorable! It looks like he had a Great time
Rachel Sue says
March 2, 2011 at 8:42 pmWhat a fun project! I would love to feature this on my blog, Reduce, Reuse, Upcycle.
Thanks!
Red Ted Art says
March 2, 2011 at 9:43 pmThank you everyone… we really rather enjoyed this one.. and then men have gone on all sorts of exciting things since we made… they have even grown arms (would you believe it?!).
Liz Burton says
March 2, 2011 at 10:19 pmFab castle! I want to live there :0)
Jill says
March 3, 2011 at 12:26 amI love this, it’s incredible! We made a craft out of toilet paper rolls this week too – Horton hears a who. It’s just amazing what you can do with them!
Kerri says
March 3, 2011 at 3:06 amOh the fun that we could have with that in our home!! Great job! Thanks for sharing! Kerri
Catherine says
March 3, 2011 at 11:05 amI love this castle & the characters are so cute, good ol’ loo rolls!!;o) I especially like the one with the crazy eyes – just fab!
PippaD @ A Mothers Ramblings says
March 3, 2011 at 3:53 pmI love the little men! We made Cat In The Hat Hat’s with loo rolls and a castle this past week, but the men are great!
huana says
March 3, 2011 at 3:56 pmLove! Love! Love! Great idea!
MellyBentley says
March 3, 2011 at 8:01 pmLove this so much. It is on my to do list
Carole says
March 3, 2011 at 8:06 pmWhat a fab Idea I just love your castle and people they’re brilliant! I remember my eldest sons first Christmas in primary school and one of the Mum’s made the whole class a snowman each made out of Loo Rolls, they were just fantastic, she even put some chocolate coins inside. Even though that was 11 years ago I still remember it fondly. The fact that she had taken the time out to make 20+ snowmen and that they were handmade with love I thought was just lovely. That Loo Roll Snowman comes out of our Christmas box every year…we treasure him!
Red Ted Art says
March 3, 2011 at 8:13 pmWhat a very lovely story!!!
Molly says
March 3, 2011 at 9:57 pmUm, this is amazing. I love it!!!
melissa newell says
March 4, 2011 at 12:24 pmVery cute and creative. Stopping by from JDaniels Hop
SnoopyGirl says
March 4, 2011 at 5:49 pmLooks amazingly well thought out despite your last minute efforts. This is the advantage of being creative and having supplies on hand. You can always “punt” as they say in American football.
Chris at Thinly Spread says
March 4, 2011 at 6:11 pmGLORIOUS!
JDaniel4's Mom says
March 4, 2011 at 8:18 pmCongrats on your feature! I love the people that get to live in the wonderful castle.
Thanks for linking to Read.Explore.Learn.
Natalie says
March 4, 2011 at 10:19 pmThis is amazing. You are such a super creative mommy. I cannot imagine whipping up a castle in 20 min.
Red Ted Art says
March 5, 2011 at 7:38 amOh Natalie! I am sorry if I gave the wrong impression: we made the “basis” of the castle (turrets & white) in 20min… and believe you me it was NOT stress free 😉 the rest of the castle was finished over a couple of days!!
kewkew says
March 6, 2011 at 4:24 amI love doing crafts with toilet paper rolls. Love the castle.
Almost Unschoolers says
March 7, 2011 at 2:25 amThis whole thing, from start to finish, is awesomely terrific!
Messy Missy says
March 7, 2011 at 5:49 pmI love it!! Kids are so inspirational!! I would love it if you would link this up to my blog party, A Marvelous Mess. Each party I pick one project to feature for a week on my sidebar!! Here is the link:
http://marvelouslymessy.blogspot.com/2011/03/marvelous-mess-3.html
creativejewishmom/sara says
March 10, 2011 at 4:24 pmwonderful project! and love those men! thanks so much for sharing on Craft schooling Sunday!
Michelle Willow says
March 12, 2011 at 5:16 amTotally awesome Maggy!
Featuring this post in this week’s High paw! Thank you for participation and hope to see you around this week too! 🙂
PS. I’ll be adding link to TP roll heaven later on too! 😉
Red Ted Art says
March 12, 2011 at 8:40 amOh thank you Michelle! Much appreciated! And yes, have of course stopped by!!!
Tim (aka Dotterel) says
March 12, 2011 at 8:10 amOh damn, I seem to be too late for the McLinky thinky… but we made an absolutely, super-duper garage for Roary this week: http://www.bringingupcharlie.co.uk/2011/03/roary-racing-car-plus-garage.html
Maybe I should add it to the next crafty linky? Oh dear… I feel a Private Godfrey moment coming on.
Michelle says
May 9, 2011 at 4:10 amLooks spectacular!!!