Making knights armor

Playing around in the middle ages this week Calvin has been on a knights quest. The instigator was a book called King Arthur's Knight Quest, which I picked up a while back at our library book sale. It's a hidden pictures kind of book and on his quest he's been finding the armor he'll need to rescue all of King Arthur's favorite knights. It's been fun, especially since he decided that finding the armor in the book wasn't enough and decided to make his own.

We started with a shield, which is merely an oval cut from corrugated cardboard. He painted and decorated it, then I added another strip of cardboard to the back, secured with hot glue, to act as the handle.

The helmet came next. This was a doozy of a project. Basic instructions came from the Usborne Knights and Castles activity book, but our first attempt at the helmet didn't go so well and we ended up scratching the job and starting over again the next day with some of our own ideas.

I used a measuring tape to measure around his nose to the back of his head then we marked and cut a strip of posterboard to length, plus an inch for overlap, and 3.5 inches thick.

We folded it in half and Calvin punched a hole, through both sides, about a half inch in from the long edge and almost halfway along the length. I then marked two cutting lines along the folded strip: a line starting at the bottom corner of the folded edge and arcing up to an inch from the bottom and finishing straight along the length, and another line staring about a half inch from the top corner of the folded edge and arcing smoothly up to the top edge. Calvin cut these out and they became the pointed tip at his chin and the slight dip below his eyes.

After the cuts were made we opened the strip and glued it together in the back, gluing the overlap front to back.

We used the tape measure again to measure the length in the back between the two holes, then cut out seven strips of that length plus one inch, six at two inches wide and one at four inches wide, and rounded at the ends. We punched holes in each strip, a half inch from the ends. We added the two inch strips to the helmet one at a time, lining up the holes to the ones on the helmet and tilting the strips until the bottom edge just touched the top edge of the strip below. Calvin held each strip in place while I hot glued it around the hole.

Calvin cam:

For the face mask we folded the four inch strip in half and drew the slits, then I cut them with a box cutter. Calvin then threaded silver colored pipe cleaners through the holes on the helmet, glued them on the inside, then threaded the face mask onto them on the outside and coiled the end of the pipe cleaners to hold them in place. This way the face mask can be raised and lowered.

 

The sword was made with the remainder of the gold poster board, which was silver on the other side. Calvin traced the shape then cut it out twice. I cut a long, thin strip of heavy cardboard and we glued it to the insides of the sword shapes, lining them up. We then glued all the way around the edges of the sword, and Calvin traced and cut out a hand guard using more of the leftover pieces. He decorated it to match the shield.

We still haven't worked out a way to make armor just yet, but if we do we'll be back. 

Making a castle

While exploring Italy this week we found ourselves in the Renaissance, and it wasn't a big leap from there to the general medieval era. We'll go back to the Renaissance some day but right now I have a little boy who is fascinated by the fantastical side of the middle ages, the castles, knights, lords and ladies, and jousts. Knowing this day was likely to come, a few months ago I picked up the Usborne Knights and Castles activity book at the library sale for 25 cents and it is serving us well now. It started us down the castle building road last weekend, when Jon and Calvin constructed a castle tower, and over the course of the week it grew into a two towered, multi storied play castle. I knew all that cardboard I'd been putting away would come in handy eventually.

Calvin was part every part of the planning except for my idea of the shoebox for the center piece. He assisted with every step, including measuring, marking, gluing and cutting. Here's the run down of our process.

We decided on the size of our first tower, and later I built the second tower to match, but the size doesn't matter much. After selecting the cardboard and size for the towers Calvin painted the outside and we lightly scored the folds on the inside with a box cutter, four equal sides and a small overlap for gluing it closed. With Calvin's help we measured and cut the battlement edge and an opening for the door.

For the draw bridge we used lighter cardboard, cut to a rectangle shape twice the height of the door opening and folded in half. We spread hot glue around the inside of the tower door and glued the bridge to it so that it was adhered on the inside and would fold up over the door opening on the outside. We then cut the door space out of the lighter cardboard, leaving the doorway open and the bridge adhered to the tower by two tabs inside. We poked two holes opposite each other on the walks perpendicular to the door, slightly above the top of the door opening, and threaded a straw through them, trimmed flush on one side and attached with a brad while left long on the other. We poked smaller holes, through the bridge and the castle wall, on each top corner of the bridge then treaded waxed twine through these holes, knotted on the outside to keep it from puling through, and tied it to the straw with the bridge fully open. I then used hot glue to secure it.

When the straw is rotated the twine is wound up and the bridge pulled closed, when twisted loose the bridge drops open. The turrets were made from wrapping paper rolls and attached to the main tower by sliding them into short slits made in the tower body. The flags and windows were cut from construction paper.

The central part of the castle was made from an Asics shoe box. I love those boxes for crafts. The lid is attached so that it will swing open, and while the box is printed on the outside it is all one piece and assembled using only slits and folds, no glue, so it can be completely turned inside out leaving the clean inside on the outside for painting and decorating, which Calvin did to match the two towers.

We also painted an extra strip of cardboard and cut it to create a battlement look, then attached it using hot glue. We used a second extra strip of cardboard, attached with hot glue, to make a second floor. We cut a double door into the bottom of the box so that when the box lid (now the back of the castle) is open it provides access to the inside of the castle and creates access to the inside for play. The two towers are attached to the central castle with hot glue.

We plan to cover the "floor" of the castle with felt and create some medieval furniture as well, but it's already proved a delightful toy for my knight obsessed little boy.

Join the art parade at Saturday's artist.

Saturday's Artist—The Book of the Dead

We are finishing our exploration of Africa with a stop in Egypt, and though we started in modern Egypt curiosity has taken us back in time to the ancients. I think it will be a short stay for us right now—my concerns over timing on the death issue (as I mentioned here and a little here) will probably return us to the modern in a day or two—but we've done much just the same. I love exploring myth cultures so while building the pyramids we also read about the beliefs of their creators and inhabitants. Calvin finds the myth stories fascinating, and why wouldn't he? They are the building blocks of culture and society, and they read like fairy tales. The only down side is the prevalence of violence, but it's not like the brothers Grimm did any better.

Back to the art. To go with our pyramids this week Calvin decided it was important to create a copy of the Book of the Dead. I suggested a paper bag for the paper, to give it an older feel and look, and Calvin decided on colored pencils for his medium.

A few weeks ago, at the Border's closing sale, we luckily picked up a set of hieroglyphics stamps that came in handy here.

He used a book to copy pictures of Osiris, Isis, Horus, and the scales that weigh one's heart against a feather for admittance to the Field of Reeds.

He originally intended to create three copies of the scroll, one for each pyramid as it was the custom to bury (rich) people each with their own, but so far he has finished just this one over a two day period. I left everything out for him so we'll see if he goes back and creates more, or if we will leave the dead behind and return to the living, and camels, and sand. This morning I found him reading a book on archeology, so maybe he's actually finding that important link between the two worlds.

Come join, or at least visit, the parade of art linked to Saturday's Artist at Ordinary Life Magic.

Spring bird houses

I stradle a line between the two: the frugal shopper and the quality sensitive mother. There are plenty of cheap toys out there that we could fill our house with—quite literally fill our house with—but we have always believed that quality was more important than quantity. I like a quality tactile experience. I love wood over plastic, rich colors and fabrics, things with a heavy heirloom feel. I like what buying quality means for our environment and loathe the consequences of buying cheaply and buying much. But then I'm drawn to things like the dollar section at our Joann's craft store. Small, paintable, wood birdhouses, a dollar each, and color palettes for the same, and the joy I know they will bring not only to my son but also to the family members he desires to gift them to, are completely irrestistible.

There were multiple days of planning and painting. There were specific recipients in mind. We had a (wishing for) spring dinner party, and they were our bright decorations. There were smiles of pleasure at the simple gifts. They matched the flowers he picked out, or really the flowers matched the little houses. They were worth far more than the $7 spent, and I think that's what makes the expenditure worth it. A $100 item better be worth every penny, but a $1 item better worth oh so much more.

Africa exploration art

We spent a lot of time exploring Africa this week. Between atlases, dedicated books, BBC and National Geographic videos, and the help of YouTube, we've been to a number of places. Calvin was the instigator of this foray, and his interests led us from Victoria Falls (between Zambia and Zimbabwe, he'll tell you) through the savanna on up to Mt. Kenya and the Great Rift Valley. We learned a lot about the animals and a bit about the land. It never fails to amaze me how much information a little guy can swallow up while still being hungry for more.

It is Saturday, meaning it's Artist day at Ordinary Life Magic, and because we explored Africa with our pencils, crayons and paint at hand, Calvin has a lot to share this week.

We started with the biomes, and exploration pictures of each one.

Then it was elephants. That's who he wanted to see a lot of on his trip through Africa, so he drew an awful lot of them.

Then giraffes, and lions, too.

We listened to music and enjoyed colors and clothing and ornaments traditional to a number of south and east African populations, and we really enjoyed reading a number of different African folk tales, or Anansi stories. This is really where our week began, since it was our trip to a play of African folk tales last Friday that launched our recent safari. An Anansi book we got from the library had torn and cut paper art illustrations, so we tried that, too.

I think this was my favorite art "moment" from the week, though. Early on Calvin requested a return of the paints and the week long painting project. I am very glad that our first experiment with that went well enough to elicit a requested return. He spent the week working out a landscape painting of the savanna. With an elephant, of course.

There are still many more projects up our sleeves, and because we're having such a great time with Africa I think we'll decide to skip the flight home and spend another few days, maybe a week...maybe more. I'd like to make African masks, and Calvin want to learn more about Egypt. Maybe we'll make pyramids. With rain, sleet, and snow outside right now, the the rainforest is also pretty appealing.

More posts on our African "travels" can be found in the journal.