5-minute pinwheel

I found this very easy pinwheel photo-tutorial from Petit Poulou which we pinned to our Windy board on pinterest. To make on, you will need: square paper, hole punch, brass paper fastener, bbq skewer or chopstick and scissors. It took me 5 minutes to make and when I photographed it outside it spun like...a pinwheel ^_^

The only paper fasteners I had were fancy fabric covered ones for some reason, so it looks like I've added a button or something, but it's just a paper fastener. For square paper, I used origami paper — mine is white on one side, so I glue-sticked two pieces together. It looked like they paper was buckling when I did it, but it looked smooth when folded. I used a chopstick instead of a skewer. 

This is the pinwheel blowing like mad.

This shows the fastener wrapped around the chopstick at the back.

This is Windy's pinwheel from Sunny.

South Pointe Academy

Recently we did another “Windy” school visit to South Pointe Academy in Tsawwassen. After reading Snowy & Chinook, two kindergarden classes wrote and illustrated their own Windy-inspired story about a trip to the Animal History Museum. Here are some of the amazing animals they made for their story. Can you see which is the elephant, bunny, fish, penguin, leopard and dinosaur?

easter origami baskets

Our first Easter post was bunny origami, from the book Windy. Here is another Easter origami craft. This one is origami easter baskets — adapted from this pattern for a newspaper bin from origami club (I found following the animation easier than following the diagram, by the way) which I found via pinterest on my paper board.

I don't like buying a lot of plastic Easter materials which only live in the house a few days. Here is an upcycled basket which is fun to make. Oh, I did break down and buy some commercial stickers ^_^

I tried these out with some friends and neighbours. This basket is by our neighbour W., aged 4.

origami easter baskets

M A T E R I A L S

—sheet of newspaper (or very large sheet of rectangular paper)
—glue
— 1 or 2 strips of paper about 1/2 -inch by 11 inches (you can cut a strip lengthwise from a standard) letter-size sheet of paper or use lucky star strips, which we did)
— decorations such as feathers, stickers, rhinestones, washi tape
— extra newspaper or coloured paper cut into strips to be filling for the basket (optional)

I N S T R U C T I O N S

— fold newspaper according to the instructions from origami club. You might need to do a couple before you get it right, that's ok.

— put a little glue at the bottom, between the bottom flap and the bottom of the basket — this will give it extra support for holding eggs. Give it time to dry. You can decorate the eggs and basket while it dries.

— attach the handles using a stapler. I used a mini-stapler. If you use a standard stapler, staple sideways to be sure the handle is punched through and won't slip out.

— decorate your basket. We did letters for each child's name on the side of the basket with washi tape.

E G G S


For the eggs we used some kool-aid dye:

1 packet of kool-aid + 2/3 cup tap water. The koolaid is nice because it smells good and costs about 30¢ a packet. It does a great job.

We also made some food colouring dye:

5-10 drop food colouring + 1/2 cup tap water + 1 tablespoon vinegar.

— put stuffing & eggs in basket and you're done. Good job!

snake puppets

Update: we did make these — it's a good template. Here is our snake exploring the wall of a garage...


Mr. printable has some great templates for snake finger puppets, both coloured and not coloured (so you can design your own pattern). We were excited to try this (my son picked this activity), but due to illness, we didn't finish up, so I don't have photos. Hopefully we will later this week. In the meantime, here is a link to the tutorial as well as printable templates. Image from mr. printable.

Also, we did some vegetable printing for Valentines day. I don't have pictures of our finished valentines, we rushed them to school before I had the chance. We let them be pretty wonky and we had fun ·_·

snowflakes for chinook

5-point paper stars are easy and you can let even young children cut shapes out of the sides. It's impossible to cut the shapes incorrectly — it will always look good as far as I can tell. Some of ours went terribly wrong and we thought they looked like masks (I didn't photograph them). If you use brightly coloured origami paper it will also add a little colour into early December. There is a really good tutorial diagrammed at howaboutorange. I quickly photographed the sequence here. This is a purple one, for Chinook.

materials: square paper, scissors

lay paper coloured side down, turn so it is a diamond and fold the bottom point to the top to make a triangle (pictured)

paper & wood

I always meant to put up a Windy doll tutorial, but haven't yet had the time. Luckily la lapin dans la lune has put up a comprehensive clothespin doll tutorial (image detail above from la lapain dans la lune). It's not exactly the same, but it's a good replacement for anyone who wants to make a diorama, and a really nice tuto on its own.

I've pinned it to the windy board, too.

Also, bloesem kids has links to a cute tutorial and source link for making things from honeycomb paper. Image: een nieuw avontuur via bloesem kids. I put more at hundreds & thousands.

Snufkin hats

Snufkin, the vagabond and philosopher, arrives each spring to Moominvalley to set up camp, fish, and comfort the small creatures of Moominvalley. He is always wearing a green hat, sometimes decorated with flowers and sometimes with feathers.

If you would like to make your own Snufkin hat, you can use this Pilgrim's hat template, using green paper instead of black. Then decorate. Instead of gluing the headband, we cut notches like this.

Make your hat soon. At the first sign of autumn, Snufkin slips away from the valley and doesn't return until spring comes again.

Elephant paper punch

Dressew has loads of paper punches with different shapes for 99¢. They each have a little box on the bottom to catch the punched paper, so you can make confetti! This has caused a mild amount of excitement and many small elephant-shaped holes all over  the house.

Happy day

It's cinco de mayo tomorrow...

You could make a fruit balloon garland, oh happy day via pinterest

Make a pull piñata garland, love + cupcakes via pinterest

My favourite piñata by lieschenmueller flickr, via pinterest