Christmas Mice & hair help (!)

Our obsessive reading of The Tailor of Gloucester recently inspired a little Christmas crafting episode. We felt that our tree needed some mice, but how should we make them with most of our craft supplies still packed away in boxes? Wool felt! Yes, that would do the trick. I stocked up on it before we moved and brought it with me for "in case of emergency" situations. (like the times when the children are going stir crazy and about to lose it) We decided on a candy cane mouse pattern from Martha Stewart's Favorite Crafts for Kids. It was simple enough for C (age 5) to be able to make yet fun enough to spark K's (age 8) interest.

We just cut out the wool felt in the girls' choice of colors (I helped C cut hers), glued on the face and inner ears then cut slits for the ears to slide through and slits for the candy cane. Then we slipped the ears through the front slips and the candy cane through the body slits and voila! We were done. After I helped them with the first mouse they ran with it and ended up making a mini army of mice. K decided she wanted to hang them on the tree until Christmas morning and then we would hand them out to one another as gifts.

Afterthoughts on the project:

-Buy extra candy canes! I think the project might have been a bit agonizing for the girls if I hadn't let them each have a candy cane to snack on while working.

-Make sure you have craft glue! We didn't have any on hand so we used some Elmer's glue that was given to us. That was a mistake. We ended up having to re-glue the pieces with craft glue later on because they were falling off.

-Another idea we had was to sew on the felt pieces instead. I think I would do that next time.

On to another subject:

Hair help!!

Okay, the day has come - Little L needs a hair cut. Kevin went out and bought clippers. I don't want him to end up with a buzz cut. I have a surfer boy look in mind. I have never used clippers before, nor have I ever tried cutting boy's hair (minus trimming it), so I have no clue what I am doing. Any guidance, tutorials, warnings?

p.s - Flickr has changed the way my photos are viewed on the blog and I am not particularly fond of it. Anyone know how to not have the pictures upload as a slideshow with writing on them? Ugh. I am full of questions today!

Christmas Mice & hair help (!)