Sea Monster Puppet

Sea Monster
I ran across a washcloth puppet tutorial recently and having just seen some super cheap and fun polka-dot towels at the Zeeman, I had to make one. I ended up scaling up the pattern quite a bit or I don't think it would have fit over an adult hand. This may have been partly due to printing on A4 rather than Letter size paper, but I ended up roughly drawing the pattern again with the paper in "landscape" orientation.

If/when I make another one, I will probably switch the seam to run down the side rather than the middle of the head (the dorsal fin could easily be attached in a slit like the other fins). Overall this was a great (i.e. quick, easy, and pleasing) project. I got most of it done while the Wee Lass emptied a bag of clothespegs and happily tried to pry them apart.


Photographs and artwork by Allison Gryski. © All rights reserved.

Easter Science

Natural Dye Easter Eggs

On Easter morning, I threw together some jars of natural dyes for hard-boiled eggs. If I'd planned ahead, I would have done it the night before and stocked up on some white eggs, instead of brown. I used cranberry juice, purple cabbage, and turmeric. I got ideas from here and here.

Next time, I think I need to scrub off the eggs before dyeing though, since the dye seems very prone to rubbing off. I think the colours would have come out much better on white eggs. The dark ones are actually a forest green sort of colour, but would probably be a bright blue on white eggs.

This was so much fun that I may have to do more kitchen science experiments before next year.

Photographs and artwork by Allison Gryski. © All rights reserved.