Unplug Your Kids

Above you can see the product of this week’s Unplugged Project theme of metal: a knitted hamster.

I know what you’re thinking: “Wait a minute, the theme was metal, why is she showing us a knitted hamster?” Well, my point here is to prove just how flexible the Unplugged Project can be.

This is not just any old knitted hamster, it is a hamster that was knitted on a homemade tin can knitter. A tin can is made of metal. Voilà! There is the connection! Our finished product was made of yarn, but it was made by using something metal, so it “counts.”

This type of knitting apparatus is known as a French Knitter, a Corker, a Spool Knitter, a Mushroom Knitter, a Knitting Nancy, a Knitting Knobby, and a few other names too I believe. My daughter has a commercially produced wooden one like this with four prongs that produces long, narrow, “snakes.” But you can easily make these knitters yourself (see links at the end of this post).

For even more fun, you can make big ones with various sizes of tin can which will produce different sizes of knitted tube. Ours is made from a 15 ounce can.

I found the instructions for the knitter and the hamster in the wonderful book Corking (Kids Can Easy Crafts) by Judy Sadler and Linda Hendry. There are also some instructions online here.

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Here is how we made it:

You will need a clean tin can, some finishing nails (small heads) that are about 1.5″ long, and some sturdy tape. Small nail heads are important because the knitting process involves slipping loops of yarn up over the top of the nails, so you don’t want the yarn to get stuck on the nail heads. The book calls for cloth tape, but all I could find was colorful duct tape and that worked fine despite being a bit annoying to cut (I recommend slicing it with a box cutter instead of using scissors, which tend to stick):

First we removed the bottom of the can. You can usually do it with a can opener, but sometimes the bottom edge is rounded and must be removed with a dremel tool, or small saw. My advice: make sure you use a can whose bottom rim is narrow enough to be removed with a can opener.

Beware of sharp edges. I had a sharp shard that was sticking out on my can, so I squashed it down with some pliers, and then wrapped both raw edges with the tape.

Next apply a strip of tape just under the lip of the can sticky side out. Stick a pair of nails side by side (they should be touching) to the tape. Make sure to have about half an inch of the nail sticking up above the can edge and the other inch below. In order to knit, the nails must be stable so you’ll want a lot of the nail to be attached to the can:

Put another pair of nails on opposite the first. Continue putting on sets of nails around the can. It doesn’t have to be scientifically precise, but try and space them about 5/8th” (1.5cm) apart. After all the nails are stuck to the can, wrap a few strips of tape all the way around the diameter of the can to hold the nails in place.

Press the tape down between each pair of nails. Next cut short strips of tape and apply them to the can between the pairs of nails like this:

Wrap more tape around the diameter of the can. I did two layers of tape, and finished off with more little strips between the nails for added stability and to cover up any raw sticky edges. You can either leave your can like that, or decorate it with glued on paper, fabric , or ribbon. We glued some fabric on and this is what we ended up with:

You can experiment with different sized cans which will produce different sized knitted tubes. If you use a jumbo, restaurant-sized can, you can even make an infant hat!

This was so much fun that after my daughter finishes her own hamster (which is well underway), I think I will steal the knitter back and make some nice, cozy socks for my two year-old. The tube that comes off this sized can looks to be just about the right size for her feet!

So that is it for the metal part of our post. If you want to know how to make the hamster, then you should buy Corking, or borrow it from the library.

LINKS:

Make a Sculpey Clay Spool Knitter

Make a Spool knitter out of a wooden thread spool

Spool Knitting (instructions on how to make a knitter, and how to knit)

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What did your family make for the theme metal? If you did a metal Unplugged Project this week, then please leave your link in Mr. Linky (and a comment in case Mr. Linky malfunctions and I have to remove him).

If you didn’t join us, then feel free to explore everyone’s projects to get inspired, and please consider joining us next week. You don’t have to do anything fancy or complicated! For more information on the Unplugged Project as well as instructions about how to participate even if you don’t have a blog, read more here.

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Next week’s Unplugged Project theme will be:

Paint

So far we’ve done quite a few Unplugged Projects that used paint, but I don’t think that it has ever been the theme before. Hope to see you here next week!

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Yesterday was the last day of school here. Always a sad day for me. This year however, I was distracted from my self-pity-fest by the fact that I was driving my children home on the last day of school…in a snow storm! About four inches so far. More on the way today.

On Tuesday we were sweltering in a record-setting 95 degree heat (35 Celsius). Yesterday it was 35 degrees (1.7 Celsius). A 60 degree drop in two days. Impressive!

My son’s birthday party is today. His real birthday is in about 2 weeks, but this year we are having his party early before people depart on their summer adventures. I guess we won’t be picnicking in the back yard as planned. Will the party be snowed out or will we be having snowball fights?

I told my little boy to take a good look out the window because this might be the only snowy birthday party he has in his life!

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Recently Jens Hewerer of Giddio.com kindly sent me some review copies of his radio-type plays for children. “The Adventures of Billy Brown” are not traditional audio-books where an actor simply reads a story, but fully produced radio plays with music, sound effects, and different actors playing each part.

Apparently German children have been enjoying this form of entertainment since the 1970’s. Fond childhood memories of German audio adventures and a lack of anything really similar in the US, prompted Jens Hewerer to found Giddio and create his own “Hoerspiele” (literal translation: “hear plays”).

The stories bring to life the adventures of a big bear named Billy Brown and his best friend Emma. They are non-violent, not frightening, and short enough for young attention spans (30-45 minutes). Each adventure involves a problem that needs to be solved, and also has a few educational tidbits of information woven into the story.

One thing that makes these an interesting alternative to TV or videos is that they sound a lot like videos. With my eyes closed, I would not know the difference. However, lacking the visual component allows children to use their imaginations to visualize the action. For that reason, I think these might especially appeal to children who are used to TV and video.

One thought I had while listening to these, was that for parents trying to wean their children off TV or videos, these CDs might be a useful tool. The sounds will be familiar, but your kids will be using their imaginations instead of their eyes to take in the action.

When we tried the first one out, my 5 and 7 year-old both seemed to enjoy it. My impression was confirmed when, the next day, they remembered it and asked to hear another one. They lined chairs up in the playroom and sat and listened as if they were at a play!

There was a disagreement over listening to CD number three. I wanted to save it for an upcoming long car trip, but my 5 year-old didn’t want to wait until then. My 7 year-old thought we should wait so that she could “be surprised” on the trip. My 5 year-old “won” and they ended up listening to it at home, but they have since heard it (and the others also) again a few times, both at home and in the car.

Honestly, I am astonished at how much my children love these CDs. My 5 year-old is especially intrigued (the series is recommended for ages 3 to 7). I expected that they might enjoy hearing them once, but I really didn’t anticipate the eager requests for Billy Brown on a daily basis!

The formula must be just right for them. They laugh at the child-oriented humor, seem interested in the informational bits, and want to hear the stories over and over.

The other day we listened to Billy Brown and the Frog Tunnel in the car. Later that afternoon I heard my 2 year-old chanting “Save the frogs, save the frogs,” a line from the play, while she played with her toys. Obviously she had been listening with interest too.

You and your children can try out Billy Brown by listening to a free download of Billy Brown and the Mystery Package from the Giddio website. While they listen, your kids can color some free Billy Brown coloring pages. If they like the audio play, you can order the CD version of it, plus the other two adventures, at the Giddio site too.

Personally, I am hoping that Giddio can continue the Billy Brown series. My children have already been asking for more, and obviously wish that there were more than three adventures!

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Despite writing a blog for all the world to see, I actually tend to be a rather private person. I am very bad at self-promotion, but I have news that I simply can’t keep to myself any longer.

That picture above may look like any old page from any old book to you, but to me it is astonishing, amazing, and quite unbelievable. It is something that I must pick up and look at again and again in order to be completely sure it is real.

Those words on that page, and several others like it, are MY words (”Mines!” as my 2 year-old would say). My words in print, published in a real book that is available in real bookstores for anyone to pick up and read as they sit and sip their Starbucks. A fat, solid book with a lovely glossy cover and that wonderful “new book smell.”

The book is called How to Fit a Car Seat on a Camel: And Other Misadventures Traveling with Kids and is edited by Sarah Franklin. It is a very funny anthology of absolutely true nightmare stories about traveling with children. I feel very honored that my unusual adventure was chosen for inclusion. Suffice it to say that my contribution involves a small single-engine airplane piloted by me, and a screaming, hungry 3 month-old baby (my oldest daughter).

Anyhow, I really enjoyed reading all the tales in the collection, and I often laughed out loud! I would have recommended it as a great summer or travel read for all parents, except that now I am a bit embarrassed to do so since my piece is in it. How weird is that?

Seriously though, consider reading it this summer on your United Airlines flight to Chicago, or your cross-country car trip to Grandma’s. If your little darlings fuss on the flight or vomit cherry slushies all over your new car, this book will lift your spirits and you’ll immediately feel better knowing that it COULD ALWAYS BE WORSE.

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Sorry this didn’t get up last night, but when I went to post it, my site was down! The support people told me that there was a “migration” taking place on my server. “Oh, of course!” I said with knowledgeable techie certainty, but I was really thinking: “Isn’t that what geese do?”

I decided that whatever it was, it sounded important enough to take a Long Time, so I went to bed. I’m happy to report that the geese did not fly away with my site, as it is back this morning. So finally, here’s my post:

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This week’s theme, chosen by my oldest daughter, was ribbon. It seems that she had bookmarks in mind when she chose that theme. In between running around outside in the glorious weather, and despite my lack of preparation, we somehow managed to make two kinds of ribbon bookmarks for this week’s Unplugged Project.

As usual, I had not prepared for this project and at the last minute we scoured the house for odd bits of ribbon or anything that we might be able to use. Here’s what we found:

My daughter wanted to decorate a bookmark-length ribbon with glitter glue, buttons, and flat beads. First she cut a length of wide ribbon, and then she added some glitter glue, and positioned some beads and buttons that I glued on with the glue gun. Here is her finished book mark:

For my book mark, I decided to do a bit more experimenting with weaving with pipecleaners. I attached four pipecleaners at the top like this:

Then I tied two different colored ribbons at the top too. I then weaved the ribbons between the pipecleaners, twisting the two ribbons together as I went along:

When I had about 2 inches of pipecleaner unwoven at the end, I stopped and knotted the ribbons around the pipecleaners. I then threaded beads on the ends of each pipecleaner, and a few on the ribbon ends. TIP: To thread beads onto fat ribbons, wrap the end in scotch tape (so it is kind of like the end of a shoelace) thread the beads, then cut off the tape:

I also added a few beads to the hanging ends of the ribbon at the top of the bookmark, just to dress it up a bit. Here is my final product:

I was rather pleased with the result of this. It would be fun to experiment with different colors and widths of ribbon instead of just using what one has on hand.

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Did you join us this week? If so, then link to your ribbon project post in Mr. Linky and please leave a comment.

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The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project :

Metal

I look forward to seeing your wonderful ideas! Hopefully the geese will leave my server alone from now on, and my post should be up Sunday night as usual. Enjoy your week!

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This past month I have probably spent close to 60 hours sorting through other people’s castoffs while my 2 year-old rolled around in the dirt.

Every year my children’s small but worthy, financially challenged Montessori School holds a giant yard sale, and every year I volunteer to help sort. I never work the sale because, although I find the sorting process rather fascinating in an odd way, I simply can’t deal with the actual feeding-frenzy atmosphere and depressing desperate bargaining of the sale itself.

The sorting experience is really quite enlightening however. I can share a few tidbits here.

What I have learned from five years of sorting through other people’s junk:

1) People all have different tastes:

This year I had the pleasure of discovering the number one most revolting looking and smelling giant “hand-dipped” candles I have ever encountered in my life (picture “chocolate - cinnamon - banana - lavender - cat pee” fragrance in candles looking as if they had been lovingly hand-dipped in vomit). Resisting both my gag reflex and my urge to toss these misplaced treasures into the trash, I optimistically priced them at 10 cents for the pair (other candles of that size, more acceptable to my taste, went for $1.00 each). Guess what? A lady stopped by and excitedly purchased them WHILE WE WERE STILL SETTING UP!!!

2) Sorting other people’s castoffs day in and day out makes one a little weird:

Another item that sold during set-up was our mascot: The lime green teddy bear in sunglasses and fancy flowered hat who, when you squeezed her paw, sang the Beatles song: When I’m Sixty-Four. Unlike those candles, I was a bit sorry to see her go. After hearing so many repetitions of When I’m Sixty-Four, I was beginning to think I NEEDED that bear. Perhaps it is a good thing that she was sold to someone else.

3) If you give desperate Christmas gifts to someone unlikely to appreciate those gifts, they WILL end up, unopened, in a sale like ours:

Some examples of obviously desperate Christmas gifts that the poor recipients were eager to dispose of: a John Wayne coffee mug new-in-box (NIB as they say on Ebay), several ornate photo frames with syrupy, sentimental sayings (also NIB), an electric quesadilla-maker (isn’t that what frying pans are for?), dubious-smelling candles (nothing like the 10 cent candles though!), and an actual nose hair trimmer (I don’t think I have ever seen one of those before), among others.

PS. Check out the Christmas Unplugged posts for more information on how to avoid that “have to give something” feeling.

4) Check the titles of the books you turn in (unless you plan on dropping off the box anonymously after hours):

If you have a whole box full of self-help books along the lines of How to Live With a Cross-Dressing Husband, or How I Overcame My Gambling Addiction, whether they are your books or your long lost cousin Debbie’s, then you might want to consider dropping them off after-hours. Although my friend and I who were sorting the sale were nice enough not to take notes on who made the revealing self-help book donations, others might not be so kind!

A fascinating fact: people’s books reveal a lot about themselves. Amateur psychoanalysis is a fun way to pass the time while sorting and pricing stuff.

5) Americans have A LOT OF CLOTHES.

Gold lamé jacket in East Podunk Arizona anyone?? Didn’t sell.

6) Simple donation etiquette:

Please don’t just tip the toy bin into a garbage bag and hand it over. Usually there is a considerable amount of useless junk and trash in there that needs to be thrown away. It is WONDERFUL when people bag up small pieces of toys and tie or tape the bag on to the main toy. Ziplock bags are perfect of course, or you can recycle grocery store produce bags. They are transparent, fairly large, and free. Please wash clothes before donating. If puzzles and games are missing pieces, or you only have one sock in a pair…please don’t donate. Make the sock into a puppet instead, or toss or reuse the remaining game/puzzle pieces somehow. (Unplugged Project anyone?)

7) (Warning: cliché ahead!) “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”

Very true. A lot of people found treasures at our sale last weekend (”chocolate/cat pee candles” for example) and we made $5,000 for our school!!

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I believe that everyone should spend 60 hours in 3 weeks sorting other people’s junk. I felt like an earthworm. Not only was I helping recycle all that we humans consume, but I had a lot of time to think about how much “stuff” we have in our part of the world, and how disposable it all seems.

This year, the amount of clothing we acquired is what struck me the most. I have many thoughts on clothing (enough for at least one thorough, or several “chapter” posts). Beware: I might inflict those on you soon.

Photo thanks to Wikimedia Commons.

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In all the business of life, I have not yet gotten around to sharing the TV-Turnoff Week story of Mom of 2, a reader who participated in the TV-Turnoff Week Blog Challenge by email. Here is her wrap up (which she sent promptly on April 28th, sorry I am so late!):

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“We did really well through the week (though things kind of collapsed on Sunday), and it was surprisingly easy! My 4 year old got really excited by the idea that, as I told him, “lots of people are not watching TV this week.” and didn’t ask a single time to watch TV!

I put up a NO TV sign on the TV cabinet to remind us not to watch, which he loved because it started with N, just like his name. The only protest was a short tantrum one morning by my 2 year old when his brother started talking about the No TV sign and he perked up at the mention of TV and was mad that I wouldn’t turn it on.

Saturday morning the kids wanted to play a computer game, but when I said that part of the no TV week was also no computer, they moved on to other things. They spent the afternoon and evening at a birthday party, where I suspect at least one video was watched, though they only talked about the bounce house and all the presents the birthday boy received. That night, I came in from dinner with a friend to find my husband watching TV and pointed out it was still no TV week. He argued that it only applied to Monday - Friday.

Sunday morning I slept in and got up to find the kids parked in front of the TV. Hey, what happened to no TV week? I asked. It’s the weekend, it’s over my 4 year old said. Hmmm….where had I heard that before?

So after a week without TV, we’ve decided that we’ll keep it off in the mornings before daycare. It just makes it easier to get out of the house. We’ll also experiment with turning it off earlier in the evenings, as having more attention from mom & dad leading up to bedtime did seem to help the kids settle down to sleep more quickly.

I also realized what a constant presence it’s become on the weekends. I’ll have to plan more activities so we don’t turn it on just because there isn’t anything else planned.

Mom of 2″

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Mom of 2’s experience is quite similar to many of the other final posts that I read. I will definitely put up a summary post of my impressions of the participants’ experiences soon.

Thank you again to Mom of 2 for deciding to join us via email!

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The theme for the Unplugged Project this week was newspaper. I confess that I was being sneaky when I chose this theme. I had planned on doing this project last week for green (green=eco=recycle=newspaper beads - get it?) but we lacked time, so I made sure to pick a theme this week that would still fit my plan. That is an advantage I have in being theme-picker!

We adapted a project that I saw in the wonderful book: Recycled Crafts Box by Laura C. Martin. The project is Paper Bead Bangles (p. 25) and she suggests using gift wrap or glossy magazines. I thought the beads might look interesting made with newspaper instead, so we tried it.

What we needed: newspaper, drinking straws, Elmer’s-type glue, small paintbrush, string or yarn, ruler, scissors, and pencil. Here are our supplies:

The first step was to choose our newspaper pages. My two oldest children chose the colorful comic pages. I thought the financial section or classifieds might make interesting beads due to the small typeface.

Next we drew a rectangle over the area we wanted to use. The rectangle was 1.5″(about 4cm) tall and exactly the same length as the straw. Here are our rectangles:

We poured some glue into a bowl and used the brushes to paint it on the back of the newspaper rectangles. Make sure your children flip their rectangle over before applying glue, otherwise the wrong side of the paper will be showing. Be sure to glue thoroughly all over the rectangle, paying special attention to the edges. The seam should be really well glued for this to work well.

The final step is to glue the paper to the straw. Put the straw in the center of the rectangle. Wrap one side over the straw as tightly as you can. Then roll the straw up in the rest of the paper, again, as tightly as possible. We then brushed glue on the outside of the wrapped straw, especially along the seam.

Here are some of our wrapped straws:

Let the straws dry and then cut them up evenly into “beads.” String the beads on the yarn or string (or wire?).

One point to consider: the straw openings are really too big for a knot. Of course you can string the beads without a knot at the end if you are making a loop for a necklace or bracelet for example. But if you just want a single strand for a tassel or something similar, then you can tie the first bead on to the end of the string by looping the yarn through and then knotting it. That will make a large enough blockage to prevent the other beads from falling off. That’s what we did for our tassel. You could also string a large ordinary bead on first to prevent the paper beads from falling off. That might be pretty too.

You can make bracelets, necklaces, bookmarks, or even tassels to hang on backpacks or dresser knobs. If you and your kids really like this project and have lots of time and straws, you could even make a 1960’s-style long beaded curtain to hang across a doorway. That would be really funky and unusual, especially for a teen!

Another idea: My daughter said she thought it would be fun to cut rectangles out of plain paper, decorate them with markers, and then turn the “homemade” paper into beads. Or how about turning old children’s artwork into beads?

Here are our finished projects -

A bracelet:

A necklace:

And our favorite - a tassel for my oldest daughter’s school binder (that they use instead of backpacks):

My littlest (age 2) desperately wanted to join in and was fixated on the paintbrushes and glue so I gave her some newspaper, a cup of water, and a paint brush and she was pretty happy despite a crabby day. She even proudly showed us what she “made” (soggy newspaper):

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What did you make for newspaper?

If you made something newspaper-related with us this week, then please put a link to your project in Mr. Linky. If not, then please visit the participants to see what creative projects they came up with…and join in next week!

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My oldest daughter picked next week’s theme:

Ribbon

Good luck and have fun!

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