magpie puppet

I wanted a magpie puppet to use in some storytelling shows in 2011.  After lots of searching on the internet - there were NO magpie puppets available (well, for less than the $400 it takes to make a customised puppet.)  So, I asked my sister-in-law if she was up for making one for me.  Without a pattern.  Reverse engineered from a current puppet I have.

She said yep, let's give it a go.

So here is how we (I use that term loosely - I mostly watched, affirmed her choices and broke the bobbin on the sewing machine) made a magpie puppet on the three days after Christmas in 2010.  In between watching cricket, geo caching (future blog posts on this) and children wrangling.

Step one - take a close look at the puppet you want to copy from.  Poor Mr Orange got turned inside out so many times he probably felt very violated.

2. Make some wings from black fabric (we found a great shiny flat fur fabric at the local shop in Armidale.  It looks like flat feathers) and fill with flat foam.

3. Make the body out of the fabric and add a tail filled with flat foam.

4. Make a prototype of the head - try this three times until you get a beak kind of shaped head.

5. Then make the head in black fabric with a red felt mouth.

6.  Cut a ping pong ball in half and fill with silicon.  Just for fun.

Ok, these are the eyes.

7.  Attach the head to the body, with the wings joining in as well at the neckline.  It was a tense moment as my SIL sewed this inside out - had she pinned the wings on the right way...?

yes
She is a legend.

8.  Attach the eyes where I had added red and black felt to bring them to life.

9.  Add some white felt to make it look like a magpie - we had to consult the bird watching book, and while it is not totally accurate, it is fairly magpie-like.

10. Finally (drum roll please.....)

Meet MARGARET!

She was originally called Maggie during the construction period, but as she was completed, her personality started asserting herself.  She prefers Margaret, and she loves to feather her nest.  She has scatter twigs, and a subscription to "Nest in Style".

She defends her territory fiercely and she always has an opinion on most topics.  She will pick up tiny objects and scraps around her nest area and convert them to works of art in her craftastic space.

 Welcome Margaret.  Looking forward to getting to know you better.


Thank you to my excellent sister-in-law Katie, without whose skills this project would not be possible.  The total estimated cost of this puppet was about $20.  And three days work after Christmas.

book hand

I am in Armidale at the moment - on the cold slopes of New England.  At Christmas time I am wearing jeans, jackets, scarves, and huddling under the doona at night.  I love being here, but there is one thing that is a problem in Armidale in the cold, and I have not found a solution for it yet.

Cold book hand.

You know, when you are reading a book in bed at night, which I do every night for about an hour, and the hand holding the book gets really cold.

It sounds very trivial I know.  But it concerns me. 

But maybe I am in a place where cold book hand can be a concern.  I am very blessed and grateful for all the things I do have - family to love, books to read, a house to live in, Christmas ham to eat tomorrow, and friends to play with.

Maybe I should get a glove and stop complaining about cold book hand.

connected

Lightning strikes.  That was what caused out router, network card and modem to frizzle up and collapse in the storms in Brisbane last Thursday.  So I was disconnected from the net  for five days.

It has been liberating and frustrating.  I didn't realise how much I look at the net - check the weather, do banking, check my ebay sales, check email communication, blog, facebook, look up stuff like where are the Christmas lights, watch i-view....

On the other hand, it has been quite good being a woman of mystery for five days.  No contact via electronic media.  I looked up our paper white pages for a phone number (for the optus guy to come and fix our internet!).

I read a lot of my current book (A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin), and went canoeing in the great outdoors.  I cooked and chatted and tidied the house.

But now I am back on.  Hooray.  I think if in the future we have little ear pieces with connection to the internet and we wore them all day - I would probably be one of those people who would wear it. 

I like being connected.

mickey stories; chapter six

I have small friend called Mickey.  I write about him because he is interesting and a bit cheeky.  And because his life needs to be documented.  Possibly for the authorities.

This story is from last year when he was four as recounted by his slightly horrified mother.  Please keep in mind he is not a malicious or destructive person, just a curious one.

Mickey was put to bed at his normal bedtime one night.  Later, as his mother was going in to bed she popped her head into his room to check all was okay and kiss her cherubic boy goodnight.  What she saw was.....
Mickey surrounded by a pile of white fluff.  "Look Mum" he exclaimed, "a cloud!"  She worked out that he had taken a picture frame off the wall, smashed it, got a big shard of glass, and then proceeded to shred his pillow to make a cloud on his bed where he was sitting amongst bits of glass and destroyed pillow.

Mickey's mum, possibly in a much calmer voice than I would use, instructed Mickey to stay still while she cleaned up the glass around him.  Then I think she stayed with him until he was safely asleep and unable to think of more scenery to construct in his room.

Mickey still has toys and a bed in his room.

But I have not seen any more pictures there.

The end.

Christmas lights

Tonight we were out trawling the streets of Brisbane stalking houses and stickybeaking everywhere, invading privacy and trampling the grass, yahooing and cavorting through the suburbs.

We were looking at Christmas lights.

That strange obsession that people have to cover their houses in flashing lights and colours and Santas doing all sorts of crazy things, and then they let other people come and look at it all.  We must have seen thousands and thousands of dollars worth of lights tonight.

It appeared that bubbles were the 'it' item for all the cool kids at the lights party - nearly every house had a bubble machine working in the front yard filling the air with soapy wonder.

My two girls loved looking at the lights, but I tired of it quickly, and almost felt a little seizure coming on from the flashing sparkles.  We went to two streets in Belmont and Tingalpa where nearly every house on the whole street was decorated and people wandered up and down marvelling.  I felt solidarity with the dark house, the non-participants - the neighbourhood pressure must be enormous.

I like lights.  But like the very bright shiny objects they are, they are a huge distraction from what Christmas is celebrating - the slipping into the world of a tiny baby who was the very light of the world himself.

Christmas Carols

Tonight was the carols service at church.  It was surprisingly smooth and very fun and gave a great message about how candy canes can remind you of the real meaning of Christmas.  Heaps of people came and it the church was packed.  Highlights for me were:

- singing in the choir - especially Joy to the World being backup to the excellent voices of Sarah, Reece and Lauren
- playing Christmas minute to win it "Handy Candy' game - yes we totally made that up with Dizzy and Christmas Kate (Lisa in a very convincing blonde wig)
- watching the storytellers 'own' chapters one and two from Luke - excellent work people
- a sausage sizzle with actual salad
- hearing the phrase 'glow stick mosh pit'
- watching my kids faces as they witnessed their mum being a lunatic dancer in the carols
- being reminded of the freshness of the story of Christmas, and how a girl in another country thousands of years ago accepted what God had in store for her, and helped change the world

three fifths of the storytelling team:

choir!

Dizzy and Christmas Kate

playing 'Handy Candy'- keep the balloon in the air for a minute with the pool noodle candy cane

The photo I kept making Brett take because Dizzy's eyes were not looking straight.....

Happy Christmas everyone!

extra curricular

I am sure most parents would have had these thought processes -  What activities should my children do?  How many?  How much?  How far will I have to drive them?  Will it benefit them?

I find I am thinking maybe a little too much about this, and polling all my friends to see what their thoughts are.  There are so many things to choose from - art, music, sport, dancing, circus, gymnastics, drama, actually probably not sport for my girls, training butterflies, needlepoint - I think I would love an activity called CHORES.  And we are not counting kid's club at church as an activity at the moment.

We have told our girls they can choose two things each to do after school.  They both want to do about four.  Enter NEGOTIATION WOMAN - a lesser known super hero who likes to draw up lists of pros and cons, and does lots of reflective listening. 

Currently the top choices of activity for my two are:
- oldest - piano and dancing (tap and jazz).  She would love to do art.  She is also starting trumpet at school next year so something has to give.
- youngest - dancing (ballet and tap) and ummmmm - she can't decide between gymnastics, swimming, speech/drama, and cricket.

NEGOTIATION WOMAN's foot may have to go firmly down.  There is only so much driving and follow up practise that you can do.

Stay tuned.

Comments and opinions welcome on this issue.

mickey stories; chapter five

I have a small friend called Mickey.  Not his real name.  But his real current age is five.

He is a thinker and a problem-solver.  Just way out of the box.

This story is about his care and concern for a cat, and happened about a month ago.

Mickey's neighbours acquired a kitten.  They were uni students, and didn't really know how to take care of a cat, or care to take care of a cat, so the cat would often appear at Mickey's house looking for food and affection.  Mickey got to know the cat and become concerned for it.

One afternoon Mickey's mum found Mickey washing his hands very thoroughly in the bathroom, and smelling a lot like tuna.  His clothes reeked of tuna, his hair reeked of tuna and his hands stank of tuna.  She found out that Micky had taken a tin of tuna from their cupboard, opened it, taken it down the street to the neighbour's house, and thrown an open can of tuna through the window to the uni students so they could feed the cat.  Then he had come back home and tried to wash away the evidence.

His concern for the cat was touching.

I am not sure how the uni students reacted to the tuna window bomb.

The end.

random thoughts

There are some traits and skills and features that animals have that I would like to possess and utilise.  Here are a few:

- a handy pouch at the front like a marsupial - it could store keys, tic tacs, a game of uno, tissues - oh the possibilities
- a sucker fish kind of animal that lived at my house and crawled around the floor cleaning up the toys, bits of paper and maybe even folded the washing
- a parrot that said things to my children like 'time for bed', 'clean your teeth', 'put on some shoes', 'practice the piano' - then they may not get surprised at me all the time that I make these completely unreasonable requests and demands on their time, like they have never gone to bed before any night previously in their whole lives
- the big reproachful eyes of....umm...a cocker spaniel to sit mournfully besides the fridge and beam thoughts into my head like 'don't eat that, let's go for a walk instead'

Just thinking.

puppet box

I have received my Christmas present early from my wonderful husband - my very own puppet box!! Yayy!  From this design.  I have already used it three times in the last week doing various performances at Christmas carols, and it is very wonderful.  My husband made my box 10cm taller than the design and it is just the right height for me.  I decided on black so I can add colour if I need, and so the focus is on the queen bee herself.  I also added modifications such as velcro on the top to attach the curtain, and a spa and movie theatre with surround sound and lounge couches in the box.

Dizzy is finding it a wonderful home, and she is thinking up ideas for decorating already.  But I am drawing the line at pink lava lamps and pictures of furry little kittens labelled breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I am really looking forward to many years in this box performing puppetry.  It is very satisfying and creative.  Soon I will be 'that mad old puppet lady'.

I took a few photos of the box at the Gap Presbyterian Carols night where it is on loan tonight.

This is Razzle testing out the box before the carols night.

This is Dizzy being overexposed in the spotlight.

 She would argue that you can never have enough exposure.

tree up

This afternoon the tree was hauled in from it's resting place in the garden and decorations were thrown upon it.  We bough the tree as a small Norfolk pine cluster of three when we were first married, and have re-potted it gradually over the years until it became a manageable size - and I have not given it a new pot for about seven years.  It keeps losing branches from the lower section, and this year we have about four upper layers to put our decorations on.  We had to spray it for spiders and clip off the brown bits, but it keeps coming good for us each year. Maybe one day I will plant it in the garden and it can grow into the twenty metre monster it is meant to be, but for now it is a perpetual Christmas tree that can enjoy the month inside dressed up like a toddler that has got into the costumes.

Presents will be wrapped soon and placed under it.  Excitement is building.

mickey stories; chapter four

I have a small friend called Mickey.  He is very inventive and cheeky.  I have taken it upon myself to write up the stories of Mickey's life as they need to be told and remembered.

He is currently five years old but this story is from when he was two.

Mickey was in the bathroom at home for a very long time, being busy at something.  His mother assumed it was just some long business, but after about fifteen minutes she came to check what he was doing.

Remember he was only two at the time - so the literacy skills are pretty high.

Fortunately his mum remembered to take a photo of his handiwork - and this is what he had done.

"HI" back at you Mickey.

The end.

treats for friends

Every year around this time we are madly getting organised for Christmas stuff.  I know, I know - crazy hey?  But it seems to happen every year, so here we are.

Part of being at school is being in a class.  And part of being in a class is handing out treats for your friends and writing cards at Christmas.  So my girls have been busily writing meaningful 'to-from' cards - the younger one has been decorating her envelopes with beautiful drawings, and I thought I had the treats thing covered by buying cheap candy canes a month ago.

Apparently not good enough.

I made the mistake of making little holly things last year (and the year before) for the friend treats.  And now they are expected.  I couldn't get away with $2 shop candy canes.  Holly things it is.

Here's how you make them.

Gather supplies - Jaffas, mint leaves, red and green cellophane, locate the only pair of scissors in the house, and sticky tape.

Twist one jaffa in a square of red cellophane and two mint leaves each in their own green cellophane.

Then twist them together to look like a little branch of holly and tape up the sucker.

Try not to eat too many mint leaves.

I made 20.  My oldest daughter made six.

In case you are interested it takes one packet of green cellophane and one of red, half a packet of jaffas, and one packet of mint leaves to do a class of 26 kids.

My oldest daughter is probably right - they are more interesting than candy canes that someone just bought from the shop.

Do you think my four packets of candy canes will last until next year?

tree house

When my daughters were three and one my husband built them a wonderful treehouse.  He designed it himself, and built it in the mango tree in the back yard.  He had to get out his year 12 maths book to work out the angles for the pitch of the roof, as the four posts are not evenly placed.  It is quite high - safety not being my primary concern. I figure they will learn.  It's the same reason I don't have a trampoline with safety pads.  Old school for us!  No-one has fallen out of it yet.  Although I have caught a visiting young boy doing a piddle through the branches from the roof of the tree house.

It has provided hours of fun for the girls and a place to escape when their mother is reminding...nagging..about cleaning their rooms.  The mango tree and the vines have started reclaiming some space over the last couple of years when it has actually rained in Brisbane.  It's a jungle out there.

We even had a family portrait in the treehouse!

minute to win it night

Thanks person in TV world who thought of minute to win it.  It supplied a great night of fun material for our end of year kids club break up with heaps of church and community families attending.  It was crazy, loud, sugar loaded, touching, exciting and fairly injury free - all the things a kids club night should be.  God has done great things through this ministry.

The games we played were:
- the one where you move the cracker down your face moving only your facial muscles (a crowd favourite)
- the one where you wrap someone up in toilet paper like a mummy without breaking the paper
- the one where you keep two balloons in the air for a minute
- the one where you strap a pedometer to your head and see how many times you can shake it
- the one where you have to blow up as many balloons as you can and then pop them
- the one where you see how many sandwiches you can spread in a minute
- the one where you throw ping pong balls into a bucket on someone's head and see how many go in

and, my personal favourite

- the one where you have a minute to clean up the whole hall

We used the minute to win it timer from youtube.  I need to install one at home and see if we can play such fantastic games as:
- minute to put away your washing
- minute to have a shower
- minute to get ready for school
- minute to do your homework
- minute to clean the chook pen....

It was also a bittersweet night as it was my last night at kids club as a leader.  I got a lovely unexpected gift and lots of parents and kids came and said thanks.  One beautiful little girl came and stood in front of me patiently as I was handing out some Christmas presents and organising clean up, and then gave me a quick hug and said thank you.  I have had a great time doing it - and there is a wonderful team taking it forwards.  But I will miss it!  Thank you everyone who has been part of the kids club team with me for the last five years.

Some evidence:

mickey stories; chapter three

I have a small friend called Mickey.

Not his real name.

He is inventive, cheeky and we will all be amazed at what he does when he grows up.  I have taken the role of Mickey-chronicler as his mother is taking the hard road of Mickey-raising.

This year I attended his sister's birthday party with my two girls.  It was a great party, with cake and games and shrieking.  There were seven adults present, and four children - the three girls and Mickey.  The time came for the cake.  It was carried ceremoniously to the loungeroom, upon which the candles were lit.  We all sang happy birthday, hip hoorayed, and congratulated the birthday girl.  We turned to Mickey to ask if he would like a piece of cake.

He was gone.

In the time it takes to sing 'happy birthday' he had taken the matches from the candle lighting, scooted under the house, and was lighting them to see what would happen.  And there were fourteen pairs of adult eyes there.

He is a ninja.

The end.

my daughter...the star

My oldest daughter performed in the school musical tonight.  She had a MAJOR role - well, she had some lines and a song.  She did fabulously, and I had many proud mummy moments.  She played the role of 'Simple Simon' in a musical about nursery rhyme characters and a birthday cake for Old King Cole.  I was amazed at all the kids remembering their lines and entrances for an hour and a half.  And I was amazed at the teacher's dedication to the kids.  And I was amazed at how surprisingly good it was for a primary school musical.  And I was amazed at the kid that decided to do laps of the hall for the last ten minutes of the show - he was an audience member with the wriggles I guess.

All those times spent sitting in the lounge room watching her 'shows' have been worth it.

She has become an attention seeker like her mother.

a proud sister moment

a proud grandma moment

show in translation

On Sunday wide eyed stories was invited to come and perform at the family service at the chinese methodist church.  A translated show.  Into chinese.

We had to send the script a couple of weeks beforehand so they could subtitle our show, and for the action parts we had a live translator.  I had that experience when you are being translated of saying one word and listening to the paragraph of translation.  And the opposite one of when you say a whole sentence and the translator says one or two words.  And the embarassing situation when you have a go at a chinese word and get it completely wrong in front of a crowd of two hundred people.

It was very exciting and the church made us feel very welcome.  But very difficult to not improvise (only slightly!) with a puppet.  Oh the jokes I thought of and didn't say!  Wasted gold!

It was a wonderful experience, and confirmed to me that we are all part of one family in God.  I handed someone my camera and asked her to take a couple of photos.  My camera was returned at the end of the service with 80 photos capturing every moment.  Fantastic.