Paper Plate Peacock

Our neighborhood has a flock of about 200 peacocks. They've never come to our street; they hang out a few blocks away. We see them almost every day as we head to school or the park. The people in our neighborhood network are divided into two distinct groups: those who love the peacocks (us and everyone in our immediate area) and those who hate the peacocks (those who actually have peacocks in their yards, on their roofs, blocking their driveways, etc.). It's possible that if I were regularly cleaning up peacock droppings and watching them eat my landscaping I might not love them as much as I do. But since I love the peacocks, I decided to make a paper plate peacock. Affiliate links below. 

Paper Plate Peacock

Materials:

• blue paper plate
• acrylic paint (navy blue, turquoise, light green, grey)
• foam brush
• chipboard
• scissors
• googly eyes
• light blue feather

Steps: 

Use a variety of greens and blues to create a background. The colors should radiate from the center out toward the edges. 

While the plate is drying, cut a pear shape from the chipboard to make the body of the peacock. Paint it dark blue. Cut the scraps to make a tiny triangle beak and long, skinny legs. Paint the beak and legs grey. 

Use your pointer finger to dot light green evenly on the plate. These will be the peacock's eyespots, so they should radiate outward as well. When the light green is dry, use your pinkie finger to put a dark blue spot onto each green fingerprint. 

When everything is dry, it's time for assembly. Use a hot glue gun to attach a feather to the back of the peacock's head, then glue the bottom of the body to the edge of the plate. Glue the legs underneath that same edge. Add the googly eyes and beak. Here's a side view:

I really do love peacocks.

43 New-to-Me ... #19 Special Uraro

I was strolling through an Asian market when I spotted something called Special Uraro. How could I pass it up?! I couldn't.

Special Uraro are tiny cookies, about the diameter of a nickel, made of arrowroot. And, it turns out, they are incredibly dry and crumbly. They have a vague coconut taste, but the texture is so unusual that the taste hardly matters.

I opened the package when my inlaws were here for dinner. Despite the fact that the cookies are tiny, neither my father-in-law nor Trevor finished theirs. Not a good sign. I rated them a 5, but that was the highest rating they received. The others said 4, 3, 3 and 2. I did end up finishing the rest of the package eventually.

After trying them, I found this interesting review of Special Uraro. I agree on every count. Special Uruaro: Special? No. Unique? Totally.

Paper Plate Bunny

Have I really NEVER written a tutorial for a paper plate bunny? It's hard to believe, considering I've shared 15 bunny crafts and a handful of paper plate crafts over the years. Time to fix that. 

Trevor made this adorable paper plate bunny recently to enter in the county fair's paper plate contest. Materials: paper plate, foam brush, gesso, paint, chipboard, scissors, buttons, Sharpie

Begin by putting a coat of gesso on the paper plate. This step is important if you have a shiny, slick paper plate. You can skip it if you're using a very inexpensive plate with no coating. While the gesso is drying, mix paints to create the color(s) you want for your rabbit. Trevor mixed black, white and tan to get the grayish-tan of Trouble's fur. When the gesso is dry, pounce paint onto the plate to create the look of fur.

Use the same technique to paint the chipboard.

When the paint is dry, cut out ear shapes from the chipboard. Use a hot glue gun to attach the ears to the plate. Draw a bunny mouth, then glue the button eyes and nose in place. Draw in bunny whiskers and that's all there is to it!

How To Train Your Dragon Party

Trevor turned nine yesterday. NINE. I can't believe it. We celebrated with his friends at the ice rink where he takes lessons. As part of the party package, the rink provides non-themed cups, plates, napkins, goodie bags, etc. Because Trevor had his heart set on a 'How to Train Your Dragon' theme, we did a few simple crafts to work the theme into the fun.

Even though goodie bags were provided, Trevor REALLY wanted to make some that look like Toothless. We found small black party bags, then cut green cardstock ovals, used a Sharpie to color in the pupils, then glued them in place. We filled the bag with a dragon's favorite food, fish.

Swedish fish, that is.

We printed out The Viking Alphabet. Trevor used it to make placecards for each guest. That's his own name below.

We kept the cupcakes very simple: chocolate cupcakes in black wrappers, with green-tinted vanilla frosting.

They're topped with Shrinky Dinks. For each topper, we colored Toothless onto a piece of opaque white shrink film using Sharpies (left photo). Then we rounded the edges and punched a small hole (center photo). Finally, we shrank them (right photo). 

We shrank narrow strips to create anchors, which we attached to the main charms with Glue Dots. That way, the party guests could remove the anchor and take home the charm to use as a keychain, zipper pull, etc.

Of course, the birthday boy's cupcake was extra special. We got glittery black candles which we arranged just like a spiny-backed dragon.

Happy birthday, Trevor! You've made the past nine years the best of my life. I couldn't be happier being your mom.

Wolf Year

Tomorrow, Trevor and the rest of his fellow Bears (3rd grade) will bridge to the next level of Cub Scouting, Webelos (4th grade). It's been an amazing year. I'm looking forward to scrapping his many adventures. I'm also eager to share his final progress with the Academic and Sports program that has now ended.

First, however, I needed to get his Wolf year scrapped. It had been sitting on my desk unfinished for a long, long time. It feels great to have it done and in the album.

I'm going to challenge myself to get his Bear year scrapped sooner than the day before his Webelos year is coming to an end!