How to make a Tin Man (and a Tin Lady and a Tin Baby)

A trip to see the Wizard of Oz at the weekend, and a current museum project of mine which involves puppet-making research, gave me the idea to make a Tin Man marionette. My children were keen to join in - provided we also made a Tin Lady and a Tin Baby. So yesterday we made the whole Tin Family. It took a while, but we are thrilled with how they turned out. The way the puppets move is so funny, and they are full of character - we love them.

Here's what we used:

3 x small tin cans (heads)

2 x large tin cans (bodies)

12 x empty tea-light foils (hands and feet)

6 x drinking straws (arms and legs)

3 x 30cm sticks (operating rods)

5m colourful string

a selection of stickers and googly eyes (faces)

30cm tin foil (skirt)

silver foil sticky tape

15cm diameter circle of silver card (hat)

1 x silver pipe cleaner (hair)

Here's what we did:

1. First we selected our tin cans - Tin Baby used just one small can, Tin Lady and Tin Man each had one small can for their head and one large for their body.

2. Using a small and pointy-headed screwdriver (a bradawl would have been even better), I punched a hole in the centre of the top of each can.

3. I made two holes where I wanted the shoulder and hip joints to be on each large can (for Tin Lady and Tin Man) - and for Tin Baby I did this on the small can. I used the screwdriver again but this time someone had to hold the cans steady; it was definitely a two-person job.

4. Then the fun really began - it was time to make our characters:

i) my son made Tin Man - with googly eyes and stickers for bushy eyebrows and a moustache on the small can, sticker-stars as buttons and some shiny tape as a belt on the large can 

ii) my daughter made Tin Lady, with stickers for facial features and a silver pipe-cleaner for hair on the small can, and a tin-foil skirt on the large can. She decorated the shoes (tea-light containers) with some shiny tape 

iii) I made Tin Baby by adding some facial feature stickers to the small tin

5. When all the decoration was finished we were keen to see these characters come to life. I cut about fifteen hand-to-elbow-length pieces of colourful string in readiness - and then we began the rather fiddly job of threading all their bits together.

6. We threaded the head and bodies together first (using a blunt-ended darning needle) leaving about 20cm of string to attach to the operating rod. We also stuck each head and body together with some shiny tape to make the puppets more robust.

7. We threaded the arm-and-leg strings to each of the joint holes in the cans and then, having punched little holes through the centre of each tea-light container we threaded on the hands and feet.

8. The tea-light hands needed two further strings to attach them to the operating rod.

9. We made a hat for Tin Man from a cone of silver card which we stuck on with shiny tape.

10. Our last job was to cover the arm-and-leg strings with straws. Each straw was cut to the length of the arm or leg, then in half again to make an elbow or knee joint. Then I cut each straw along its length and wrapped them round the strings.

I thought our puppets were complete, but my daughter has just asked whether we could provide each one with a heart - just like in the story. I'm sure we will; that would be a lovely finishing touch for the Tin Family.

Cauldron cakes

1. Take one slab of solidified frog slime

2. Melt it in a cauldron over a puddle of bubbling, boiling pond water

3. Meanwhile take four goblets of dried frog skins and scrunch them in your (clean) hands

4. When melted, coat the frog flakes with the slime, and say some magic words

5. Finally, divide the crunchy mixture into equal portions and cool them in your cavern

Daisy's cauldron cakes

Thanks to Daisy for her inspired twist on we-forgot-about-the-cake-sale-till-the-last-minute chocolate cornflake treats. Our magical cauldron cakes will be available to all witches and wizards in the area tomorrow - for just ten pence each.

Beanbag tin can alley

How about this for an easy-peasy weekend game? 

My children got hold of our stash of empty tin cans this morning and began making towers. I found our beanbags and soon a game resembling both tin can alley (but without the guns) and ten-pin bowling (but without skittles or balls) evolved. It was brilliant fun with plenty of giggling and shouting, and lots of stacking...

...throwing

... and Final Score calculating.

Warning: if you attempt to photograph your family playing this game you will undoubtedly get a beanbag thrown with precision accuracy - right in the face. Ye-ouch.

DIY Bakugan base

Meet Rex, Metal and Sky Raider - our first three Bakugan bought by my seven-year-old son with some of his birthday money. Apart from my friend mentioning she'd recently found an unwelcome and rather pointy Bakugan in her bed, I'd never heard of them before. But Buddy was adamant that this was what he wanted to buy.

Keen to be supportive, I attempted to help my children play Bakugan by reading out the game's rules which came with the set. We found them totally incomprehensible, and I felt rather grumpy about it; Bakugan seemed to be a bit rubbish - and quite possibly an utter plastic-tastic rip-off. I stepped away mumbling something like I think you roll them onto their cards and they pop open - and then my dears, your guess is as good as mine  - and left them to it.

Thankfully, five minutes later, my eavesdropping mummy-ears tuned into the most wonderful game being played - where each Bakugan had been named and where the Bakugan world (in the living room) revolved around their powers; rolling and popping open, swimming, battling and flying around - turning baddies into goodies. There were also parties, bedtimes and a wedding to attend - courtesy of Miss Daisy's input, I should think. What a fabulous way to play with them. Suddenly I didn't feel quite so grumpy.

The Bakugan base, pictured above, came about a little later when we were trying to think of something to make out of our newly empty cereal boxes. Daisy came up with the idea of a Summer box (pictured below) inspired by a new sun hat I'd bought her at the same time as the Bakugan purchase. As you can see it's full of summery things which she gleefully collected from around the house. It even has a mirrored lid so you can see if you've put the summer things on right. 

And Bud came up with the idea of the Bakugan base. We raided the recycling box for their bed, a transforming pad and an entrance tube and we made everything shiny - just as the Bakugan like it, apparently. So now they have somewhere to be stored and maybe, just maybe, I'll escape finding any of the pointy little fellows in my bed. 

Shake, rattle and roll

We made these rather snazzy decorative eggs today. It was a messy project - with glitter galore - but it definitely worked a treat. It even got my sticky-hand averse son willingly involved with glue - a sure sign of success. 

1. First we covered the bottom of four small transparent plastic food storage tubs - ours were from IKEA - with different coloured glitter.

2. Then we each coated one of our small polystyrene eggs - from a local pound shop - with PVA glue. We began by using a little paintbrush to do this but soon found it quicker and easier to spread the glue on the eggs with our fingers.

3. Next we dropped the eggs - one at a time - into the glitter-bottomed tubs, wiped our sticky paws and then firmly closed the lids.

4. After that came the really fun part; to shake, rattle and roll the eggs round and round in the closed tubs - covering each egg with an even layer of glitter. 

5. The transparency of the tubs allowed us to check that our eggs were glitter-coated before we removed the lids.

6. The twinkling, and now non-sticky, eggs were then transferred to a plate to dry for about an hour.

7. We mixed up our leftover glitter to make a few multi-coloured eggs too.

This was a fun activity, with proper wows from the children as they transformed their white eggs to sparkling treasure. And now we're all ready for our egg hunt on Sunday. Happy Easter!

Right place, right time...

[Image from khwgarden.org.uk]

On Saturday we went to King Henry Walk Garden's Open Day. I often cycle past this rather private-looking place on my way to work so it was great to be allowed a peek inside. It certainly lived up to my expectations; it was magical. There were beautifully tended allotments, colourful flowerbeds, a pond teeming with life - we spotted pond skaters, newts and water boatmen - several fragrant herb plots and a delightfully shady little wooded area. It was all the more special for being off-the-beaten-track and - well - a  bit secret.

We spotted a craft activity table where they were making paper blossom branches, and headed over. Unfortunately they were just packing up their wares as we approached. Tears from my daughter were only avoided when the kind lady in charge offered us a few twigs and a generous handful of crepe paper squares to take home with us. Daisy was delighted.

Back at home I laid out the branches, pink paper and some glue on our making table. I assumed that one or both of my children would soon get pinching, scrunching, and then gluing the petals to the winter branches. Much later, when I realised my children were not in the least interested, I decided to make a few petals myself. This tempted Daisy and she joined in. She made precisely two petals, announced she'd finished - and off she skipped. End of making.

I decorated the remaining branches later that evening - after the children had gone to bed. It was a most enjoyable occupation that complemented a glass of wine and a spot of Saturday night TV very well indeed. Yes, I am that sad. And I'm very pleased with how my branches have turned out - see how delicate and real they look in our backyard. Daisy has asked me to point out which of the petals are her handiwork; keen to take a bit of the credit then. I'll take that as a compliment.

This weekend's experience has got me thinking about children's Making activities and how they do sometimes fail. With my son, I know that certain things are never going to fly. I always think carefully about what kind of activity to offer to him - it has to suit his skills and his interests, otherwise he will simply not participate. Daisy is more inclined to have a go at most things so her uncharacteristic disinterest on this occasion reminded me of another factor in determining the success of making things with children - the importance of timing and setting. Maybe Daisy wouldn't have engaged for all that long with the petal-making in the secret garden but she was so keen to try - the time was right then, not hours later at home. And looking back, the original place of the activity was perfect too. It would have been so lovely to make pretty flowery things in the dappled light beneath those real blossom trees. For Daisy, our living room simply didn't cut it  - and I think that's fair enough.

Tinker in the sun

On a sunny day:

1. Spread a blanket on the ground in your backyard to attract the tinkerers

2. Lay out some simple tools, and a few old and broken electronic gadgets and gizmos (we also had a solar robot kit - a birthday present - on this occasion )

3. Wait for the bait to do its job

4. Then spend a very happy hour in the sunshine with two very contented tinkerers. Help with the technical stuff like left-y loose-y and right-y tight-y

5. Lastly, sit back and admire their work. We had a free-form cartwheeling droid by a five-year-old and a solar-powered, instructions-followed robot made by a seven year old

Happy tinkering!