A book and a craft: Crafty Chloe

Recently, the girls' new favorite book is Crafty Chloe by Kelly Dipucchio. I love Dipucchio's books because of the detail that she puts in the illustrations, which makes the book one that you can read again and again. Like Mrs McBloom Clean up your classroom.

Anyway, back to crafty Chloe. Chloe is not good at many things, but what she is good at is making stuff, out of other stuff. As a result, her dad's pajamas have no pockets, her mom runs out of coffee filters in the morning - you get the idea. Now Chloe has to make the perfect present for her friend's birthday.

I got the book because I love rehashing and making stuff, something I like to impress upon to the children as much as possible. It really warms my heart when other kids bring toys to the playground and my kids bring cardboard easels,  paper and paints, mermaid costumes and stuff like that to the playground, and when Anjali proudly tells her friends when they ask her where she got something

"My mommy made it!"

So, naturally, I borrowed crafty Chloe because it seemed to impart the important message that making is more fun than buying.

The girls made me read the book about fifty times so far.

But yesterday evening, Sophia took her blue baby for a walk in the baby stroller. Then she returned home and came up with the ideas that she needed a bed for the baby. So  the girls taped and cut and glued a little bed.

Let me first clarify by saying that the whole thing was done in under fifteen minutes and that most of it was their idea - see the large number of nappy cloths that served as blankets and pillows and the canopy?

 Here is the blue baby, settling for the night

 Pretty isnt it?

Now for the crerative process that went into it.

The girls went around looking for a box that would fit blue baby, and ofcourse, i have any number of milk cartons lying around.

And like Chloel we had to cut up some stuff. It was daddy's shirt that got victimized, but thankfully, it was one of those old stained ones which was going into the recycling anyway

Cover the box with the bedsheet

The doll gets put in, and tucked

And ofcourse, the truly fabulous ideas require lots of glitter

Another nappy cloth becomes a pillow

Sophia got it into her head that she required a canopy. So we made one with kitchen rolls. On top is the cover of our lego box, and another nappy cloth.