The Easter races home-made hobby-horse

The Easter long weekend is coming up soon and for many of us who reside in and around Adelaide, the following equation applies:

Easter weekend = chocolate + Oakbank Easter Racing Carnival

or

Oakbank Easter Racing Carnival = Chocolate +Easter weekend.

In honour of this long-running event I have designed a very quick, whip-together in a jiffy hobby-horse that your child will enjoy racing around the house on for the Easter long weekend.

If you’re not from Adelaide, bookmark this project for Melbourne Cup (November), as there are some primary schools that ask their younger students to bring in a hobby horse to celebrate Melbourne Cup day.  My daughter’s school has begun a tradition of holding a mini-hobby-horse-‘Melbourne Cup’, and this is how this project came about, I couldn’t bring myself to purchase an overly pink and prissy hobby horse that I felt would be left in the corner of the cubby house, unplayed with and ignored, so I went ahead and made something that I thought would be able to withstand a day’s play at the races and then could be dismantled and the broom returned to sweeping duties around the cubby house.  How wrong I was as the home-made hobby-horse remained intact and was well played with for quite some time until he was left out in the rain one night.  The one in the photos here is a new one I popped together and that’s why I can provide step-by-step photos.

It’s truly pretty simple and swift to whizz up, so have confidence and please have a go!

Here are the 6 PDF's you will need to download and print out.  I have reversed the image for you, so just click and print (onto A4).

Horse head 1 of 3 reversed pdf pattern

Horse head 1 of 3 pdf pattern

Horse head 2 of 3 reversed pdf pattern

Horse head 2 of 3 pdf pattern

Horse head 3 of 3 reversed pdf pattern

Horse head 3 of 3 pdf pattern

What you will need:

A small child sized broom

Some poly stuffing

Stapler and staples

Glue stick

Sticky tape

Scissors

The 6 print outs of the PDF’s provided (onto A4 sized plain copy paper)

A4 sized plain copy paper x 6 sheets

2 lengths of ribbon (I used black and white stripe), 40cm and 150cm

1.              Print out the PDF’s onto A4 (each side is made up of 3 A4 prints, you need 2 sides, so 6 A4 print outs in total).

Showing the 3 print outs required for each side.
Also note the centre strip (with the eye) which has been trimmed of white excess.

2.              Take one set and cut the excess white paper off the top and bottom of the centre image.

3.              Run the glue stick along the excess white of piece 3 and piece 1 on areas shown on pattern.  Stick piece 2 (the centre piece) in place, lining up the image so a complete horse head is created.  Repeat for the other side.  You have now created a left side and a right side.

The 3 pieces glued together.  You need a reverse version of this also to form the other side.

4.              Cut out the black triangles on each side (these will be used to match the sides together). 

5.              Match the triangles together, and hold up the horse head in front of a bright window to check the two heads line up together.  Pop a staple onto the nose to keep the two sheets in place.  Roughly cut off the excess paper  around the edges to allow the stapler access to the perimeter of the image.

Illustrating the triangle cut out to match to the other side.

Look closely at the bridle over the nose to see the first staple placement.

6.              Re-check that the images line up and begin stapling the two images together around the mane area, around the top of the head, and around the nose, into the mouth and under the chin.

The orange arrows show roughly where to staple.
The extra paper has been cut away to allow the stapler to access the stapling line.

7.              Trim around the stapled area, leaving a 5mm edge.

Stapled, and now trimmed with a 5mm 'seam'.

8.              Push a little stuffing into the nose and mouth area.

9.              Slip the horse head onto the broom head.

The lower half has not been stapled yet, the neck needs to be trimmed.

10.           Lightly stuff the horse head with poly stuffing, especially over the cheek and over the eye areas (both sides).

11.           Staple* under the chin to complete joining the two sides together on either side of the broomstick, stapling in a line along the chin.

Staple along either side of the broomstick following the cheek line.

12.           Trim excess paper from under the chin and on either side of the broomstick.

13.           Use a generous amount of tape to secure the horse head to the broomstick.

The lower cheek line area has been stapled and trimmed, and sticky tape has been applied to secure the hobby-horse head to the broomstick.

14.           To form the reins, take the 150cm length of ribbon and fold it in half, making a knot in the ends.  Put the centre fold in the horse’s mouth and have the ribbon lead up from the mouth to just under the lower ear on each side.  Staple the ribbon in the mouth area to secure and staple through all layers (both ribbons and the two sides of paper) several times to secure.  Then staple through all layers under the ear.

The ribbon has been secured to the hobby-horse head with staples in the mouth and under the lower ear.

15.           Complete the bridle by wrapping the 40cm length around the nose, and slipping the ends under the horizontal bridle straps to keep the look tidy.

Note well that the ribbon has been folded under to discretely hide ugly raw edges.

*It is advisable to check to ensure that all the staples are sitting flush to avoid any nasty cuts/grazes.

Your Easter races home-made hobby-horse is ready to run!

This horse head image has been taken from:

“Animals, 1419 copyright-free illustrations of Mammals, Birds, Fish, Insects, etc. A Pictorial Archive from Nineteenth-Century Sources” selected by Jim Harter, Dover Publications, Inc. New York, ISBN 0-486-23766-4

It is copyright free.  These sorts of publications are great fun to noodle through, you can use these images in so many millions of ways, and all you need is a scanner, a program to re-size or manipulate the image and a printer.

Cover illustration

Autumnal inspiration

Gorgeous!   A little on the hot side of things during the days, but perfect sunset observing weather.  I'm waiting for the pink Easter lillies to emerge from the dry paddock in front of our cottage.

And we look forward to rain that will fill our water tanks and saturate the ground.

Such a beautiful sunset, what a big beautiful Australian sky.

Orange Hawthorn berries, growing near Hahndorf, the ones on our property are Cadmium red.  Vive la difference!

I love the palette of greys, beige and russet browns.

A galah's feather rests upon a nest of dried burr pods (they're the ones that get stuck in your socks).

Papier Mache Easter Egg Autumn Arrangement

... And a personal homage to Edith Holden.

There’s no denying that traditions and the seasons are inextricably intertwined, even to the point where Australian children associate Christmas with snow, (explained nicely away to little ones because Father Christmas does live at the North Pole), but it only takes a few hot and windy Australian Christmas days to cement your early Christmas memories as summer ones, it is after all, the Southern Hemisphere. 

As a very young girl, the opposite seasons between the two hemispheres remained deeply confusing; I could understand that when we had night, people on the other side of the world had day, but that others were freezing in the winter whilst we were larking about on the lawn with a sprinkler just didn’t make sense.

Children’s literature; all my precious books that I so loved provided proof that in June, it indeed was summer in America, but from where I used to sit, with my legs on the kitchen table near the fire, (I agree, poor form and extremely bad manners, but it was the family weekender at the time and a chance for all of us to relax) for me, June was cold and wintry.

Me as a child in the cottage.  Note the odd green tones the previous owner (a very old lady) had chosen to use. My parents purchased the property in the mid 70's.  This was the original kitchen in the old cottage that was at the time, the only residence on the farm.  The Kookaburra stove/oven (white with black knobs) is a classic now, but don't get all romantic and silly, it was AWFUL to cook with!  We used to leave the wood fire oven door open to release more heat.  Cosy!  Reading was my thing as a young one, I look at this and re-live all those happy times turning pages.

When I was a teen a book arrived in the house that I developed a deep fascination with.   It was the ‘The Country Diary book of Crafts’, containing a series of craft projects and instructions using Edith Holden’s illustrations from her ‘The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady’ as the mantle or structure on which the book is laid out.  The projects are divided into sections based on the seasons and each project makes reference to one of Edith Holden’s lovely artworks depicting the natural world around her, as she experienced it, season by season, in 1906.

‘The Country Diary book of Crafts’ by Annette Mitchell, 

Published by JM Dent Pty Limited, 

ISBN 0 86770 034 3 

Introduction pages from "The Country Diary book of Crafts" by Annette Mitchell.

Contents pages from "The Country Diary book of Crafts" by Annette Mitchell.

Chapter heading, 'June' from "The Country Diary book of Crafts" by Annette Mitchell.

‘The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady’ was created by Holden as a personal record of the flora and fauna she encountered in the area of England where she lived.  She had named it ‘Nature notes for 1906’.  One has to assume she never intended it to be published, but published it was in 1977, (posthumously, she died in 1920) and it was a worldwide publishing hit.  I still lust after a copy, but I thumbed through my friend’s mother’s copy so many times I can remember every page and so I don’t think I need the real thing (although if I were to come upon a copy in a second hand bookstore I think I would purchase it now, out of respect for the impact her work had on me as a young person).

(Click on the link below to take you to Amazon where you can purchase a copy).

The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady - available at Amazon

So when ‘The Country Diary book of Crafts’ made it’s appearance in our house I grabbed it with both hands and lovingly turned each page imagining what it would be like to make each project.  I did, even in my teenage years stitch up a few of the cross-stitches, one of them being the “Midsummer day”, the swallows cross-stitch, my mum still has it in her sewing room.  And here it is, as proof!

Edith Holden illustrated the flowers, birds and insects that were, for her, in the Northern Hemisphere, the visual indicators of the seasons changing.  And so Edith’s Easter time would naturally be represented by daffodils, nests with eggs and spring-time flora.  Here in Australia, Easter is an Autumn event and I associate this special period with pink lillies bursting leafless from the parched earth, the smell of dry grass in the paddocks and with Hawthorn berries, red and gaudy against the bright green of their foliage.

I also like to retrieve my Easter decorations box from the cellar and bring out some of my favourite old friends to decorate the house.  When I was a child, my mother went on a decoupage-papier-mache-blown-egg jag that lasted for over a decade.  This obsession with blowing the eggs, cleaning the shells and making decorations with them coincided with the period when we had geese, ducks, bantams and chooks (that’s Australian for chickens).  They were the Poultry Years I like to think.  We used to sit and stick layers of plain paper (cut into tiny pieces) over the eggs, leave them dry and then add the final decorative layer.  In this case, bantam eggs decorated with ‘Bunnykins’ paper.  The hanging was clever, made of looped fishing line tied to a small piece of toothpick or bamboo skewer, the skewer inserted vertically into the egg and then jiggled so that it sat horizontally in the top of the egg.  The final step was covering them in a lacquer to protect them.  I have fond memories of busily sticking whilst watching the midday movie with my Mum, all those fabulous Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly classics, sublime!  Now, for how to display my pretty collection of hanging papier-mache Easter egg decorations?

My yearly Easter tradition is bound by season and family history.  I like to gather a huge bundle of Hawthorn branches and a large swathe of the beautiful dried grasses found in my area (in this case picked from the side of the road because it was too hot to walk down to our dam) and make a large Autumn arrangement that also serves the function of displaying my old papier-mache Easter egg decorations. 

I’m keen on the fabulous Cadmium red in the Hawthorn berries, which I have discovered are used in treatment for the early stages of heart disease, and is meant to be good for those who suffer from high blood pressure and circulatory problems.  We don’t ingest the berries, just enjoy their visual appeal, the red of the berries on the Hawthorn bush seems to arrive overnight, suddenly every country roadside sports flashes of red for a few weeks, and then the berries lose their rich red hue and the air chills and the dews arrive in the morning and that hot start to Autumn is over, and we in the Adelaide Hills wait for the rains to come.  

It’s good to think that a humble personal diary of observations created in another hemisphere over 100 years ago remains relevant for the simple reason that, despite technology changing our lives so radically, the seasons still come and go, and we have to remind ourselves to look away from our screens and out of the window and observe, touch and experience the wonderful and miraculous changes that occur as the year passes.  And give thanks because, if you take the time to look, the world is still a beautiful place.

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog today.

Please visit this blog again as I'm publishing new ideas at least once a week.

I'd love to hear what you think!  

Best wishes and happy days, Lara Jane.

Try this! The split image drawing challenge

(Or a clever way to entertain your little ones on holiday or a rainy weekend).

I’m a keen pinner. 

One of the boards I curate is a collection of images that I know my daughter would love to see, she loves scrolling through, clicking on certain images to make them larger; she’ll often sit with paper and pencil in hand in front of the screen and try and draw what takes her fancy from Pinterest that day.

Some of the pins are activities.  I pin the images into her board and let Sylvie come upon them herself and ask me, “Mummy can we make this?”  We’ve done quite a few of the activities I’ve pinned for her and in the next little while I’ll publish the accounts of how we fared.  They certainly don’t look like the original pinned image, but we had fun taking on the challenge and Sylvie is always very proud of her efforts.

Please have a look at http://pinterest.com/larajanet/things-to-thrill-sylvie/ ‘Things to thrill Sylvie’ and follow this board if you're keen to see more happy projects to organise and make with your children.  I'm always collecting new ideas and things to do with Sylvie.

The original pin that inspired this project shows a small fraction of an animal and the challenge therefore is to expand the cutting into an entire image.  

                                                    Pinned from fellow pinner Alayna Wolf

I modified the challenge to a complete split down the centre of the image, and the instructions following explain how to prepare a split image challenge for your child.

Splitting an image down the centre is a traditional art school exercise designed to free the student artist from the topic (ie ‘what’ to draw/paint) and allow the student to concentrate and develop technique, that is, recreating the image accurately through line and colour.

Really this means that you could prepare two images and see how you, as a parent manages.  Adults are more particular about the line they create and in most cases, you’ll see the difference between the freedom of line in your child’s drawing and the tighter, more restricted style of an untrained adult’s drawing.  This will really give you an insight into the thrilling permission children give themselves when they draw.  It’s a beautiful thing.

Here is the first post of the results from Sylvie’s own projects inspired by Pinterest. 

The split image drawing challenge

(Suitable for ages 5 & up)

To make one split image you will need:

3 sheets of plain A4 copy paper

glue stick

scissors

ruler

pencil

printer

Step 1

Find a suitable image in Google images (make it something that delights your child).  It needs to have a strong silhouette and nice clear lines and preferably be on a plain white background.  Examples here are a chameleon and a Chihuahua.  We also did a bee and a grasshopper, but this would work really well with ships and cars, trains and planes too.

Step 2

Re-size the image to the largest size that fits on an A4 sheet and print out (in colour is good if you think your child would like to take the second step and either paint/colour-in the image).

Step 3

Take a ruler and mark where to cut the image in half, and then cut the print out along this line (into 2 pieces).  You could also simply fold the image in half exactly and cut along the fold.

Step 4

Stick each cut out onto a piece of A4.

Step 5

Ask your child to draw the other half and have the print out of the other half nearby for them to work from.  Repeat for the other side.

Step 6

Paint with watercolour or colour in.

Step 7

Show them the magic trick of joining the images together by folding on the dividing lines between the child’s image and the print out.  You can see either a complete image of the print out, or more magically, a complete image of the child’s drawing.

Sylvie absolutely loved this!

You could also bookmark this project as something you could utilise as children’s amusement whilst travelling.  A few weeks ahead prepare a bundle of images and give your child one or two a day, they’re light, take very little space to pack, are inexpensive and best of all, are highly entertaining for your little one!

PS (If travelling, I would also pack a clipboard, lead pencil, coloured pencils and sharpener).