Kids Get Crafty: Castles & Loo Roll Men

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!