Can you tiptoe your tiger through the forest without making a sound?
We recommend reading The Tiptoeing Tiger by Philippa Leathers (Candlewick Press, 2018, read here by DaddyRead2Me). When Tiger prowls the forest, the other animals NOTICE and move away. But not Little Tiger. No one is afraid of him in the slightest! So he contrives to sneakily tiptoe around the forest until he thoroughly terrifies someone. It doesn’t work with Boar, Elephant, or the monkeys…but Little Tiger might have met his match at the pond!
You’ll need:
- 1 small oatmeal container
- Construction paper and/or poster board
- 2 brass fasteners
- 2 craft sticks, approximately 3″ long
- Scissors, tape, and box cutter for construction
- Markers for decorating
Begin by decorating a small oatmeal container like a tiger. For added texture, we used a pair of wiggle eyes, a bit of self-adhesive foam for the nose, and twisteez wire whiskers, but you can also just use markers to add these features. The dynamic part of the project comes when you add the moveable back legs!
Use a box cutter to make small slices in the oatmeal container, then attach the tiger’s back legs to the body using brass fasteners. Next, attach two, 3″ long craft sticks to the legs, leaving plenty of room for you to grasp the sticks. To operate, move the sticks up and down while gently sliding the oatmeal container forward, and you have yourself a splendid tiptoeing tiger!
Just a quick, clever little flip…and your giant leaf reveals a gorgeous butterfly mobile!
Next, knot 4 pieces of clear elastic beading cord around a wooden dowel. The strings need to be fairly long (15″ or so) to allow the butterflies to dangle well below the edges of the leaf. Once all the strings are attached, hot glue the dowel along the spine of the leaf.
Now your leaf needs a finger loop. Fold the leaf in half, then use a box cutter to make a small hole in its middle. Thread an 8″ piece of twisteez wire or pipe cleaner through the slit, then circle the wire to make the loop (you can also use markers to draw veins on the outside of the leaf like we did!).
Now for the butterflies! Color and cut the butterflies from the template. The way I positioned the butterflies on the template allows you to fold them double sided. But you can also go single sided if you like! Arrange the butterflies on the elastic beading cord, then secure with tape.
To operate the mobile, tuck the butterflies into the leaf. Slide your finger in the loop, and, keeping the butterflies tucked, hold the leaf upwards. Find the person you’d like to surprise, then quickly flip the leaf upside down, releasing the surprise butterflies!
This April Fool’s day, I decided to transform a tiny, unremarkable closet in my house into what my kids and I have dubbed THE MYSTERY CLOSET. The challenge was to create it for under $20. My friends, the grand total was $19.30. Details below!
Budget was the other concern. I solved it by using items already in the house – xmas ornaments, halloween decorations, hats from the costume bin, a red tassel I found in my nightstand, a rediscovered world map, a…uh…green glow-in-the-dark pig that oinks when you squeeze it, etc.
And for you eagle eyes who spotted Bill Cipher, the question mark Post-it note, and the 8 Ball…yes, we are huge Gravity Falls fans. Fun fact: the first sentence I left the kids on THE MYSTERY CLOSET typewriter was “Stan is not what he seems.” #teamwaddles
The grand finale? This closet is wired with overhead LIGHTS! There’s no electrical outlet, so I used battery-operated LED string light stars from IKEA (a leftover xmas stocking stuffer). The battery box is taped to the interior door frame, within easy reach.