Chirp!:

    Tuesday, January 09, 2007

    A Lacey Story

    The boy is fascinated by laces at the moment - or string of any kind, really.
    He loves to wind and twist and knot and loop all things string-y around furniture and through toys and through the key left in the lock etc.

    He loves to unlace his father's shoes .. which amuses me, but frustrates the father.
    AB always leaves his shoes all over the house, so i'm hoping recent tricks might persuade him to keep his shoes out of the loungeroom. Anyway.

    I've been on the lookout for those 'lacing cards' I remember from my own pre-schooling.
    Except I can't find them .. so we decided to make our own.

    We went out yesterday with this objective.
    I went to Target looking for the shoelaces first. Instead I found $13 shoes !!!
    Ok, I didn't need them, but I love them, and i'm sorry, but did I mention they were $13 ?!?!?
    A-Grade quality synthetic throughout, to be sure, but come on, $13 !!!
    Here they are teamed with my delicate pyjama pant bottoms.




    Mmm. Shooooooes.


    So .. onto the $2 Shop, and the newsagency and we're all set to go.
    The Master got a 'fake' Nemo colouring-in book this Xmas, with a colour pull-out poster in the middle. The fish all look so depressed, except Dory, who, if you remember her from the movie, was a bit simple. It seems happiness according to this artist, is only for fools.

    Or maybe I think too much ?

    Anyway, it was a good subject for cutting up, and it was nice 'n' colourful. Does it matter if the fish look depressed ? Probably.



    Cut up some cardboard backing board, and glued the fish and some little 'filler' shapes to it, then contacted. We also traced our hands.



    Then punched some holes for threading with ( I ended up getting a pack of those Scoobidous the young girls like to plait with ). Unfortunately, my holepunch doesn't have a very long reach, so I ended up just doing decorative borders, rather than the grander plans I imagined to start with. I actually think it's better this way anyway - my ideas were probably a little too fussy/busy for the age group.



    I also got some coloured beads for threading, which he loves.

    22 comments:

    meggie said...

    You are such a GREAT Mum!
    I might try to pinch that idea. We have been having SG while his pre school is closed for the hols.
    O! does he get bored! We try outside activities- watering the plants, with water saved in the shower.. colouring in, with wind-up crayons we gave him, which he loves. I find 6 hours of him, is just about our limit, & we are scratching for things to amuse him.
    Your beautiful son looks very entertained & happy.

    Anonymous said...

    WOW! What great shoes for such a low price! I would have never guessed. He will have the best find motor skills of any other little one his age. His teachers will LOVE you. I remember having lace-ups myself. I always loved them.

    Stomper Girl said...

    Aren't you clever? What a happy little lacer he must be. Hope he cures the shoe-leaver of his bad habits too. I'm a bit of a shoe-leaver myself, but I'm also the one who eventually tidies them up so it all comes out even.

    Melody said...

    We have those 'laceer' cards at our playgroup so they still must be available somewhere, though they are plastic shapes, not card. Yours look wonderful BTW. I'll give you a pat on the back for that...

    I LOVE Target. I find so many bargains in that department store it isn't funny. I recently bought a dressy top in there for $13 and a dress for $14!!! I also bought a bra recently in there reduced to $19 only to find that it scanned at $7!!! Love a good Target bargain. Yay for you.

    nutmeg said...

    See, with my wide feet, I just can't even get shoes like that anywhere near them. V. jealous. It also doesn't help when I attempt to wear a small heel then proceed to twist my ankle and fracture a bone on the outside of my foot. Pure woe in the shoe department at my joint.

    You do such lovely, creative things with your son. The bead threading is a big hit here too :-)

    I wouldn't mind daughter #1 taking up that Scoobidou habit though - much time and concentration required I hear!

    Tracey Petersen said...

    At the same age my son progressed quickly from a lacer to a knotter. We found all of our shoes with massive, endless knots in the laces. That made sure that we put them away!

    Fabulous fine motor activity for little fingers. What a study of concentration in your photo. Love it!

    caramaena said...

    Noice shoes. I got a pair of cheap but cute sandals at Target recently too. Not as good as $13 though!

    Such a cute pic of your little one. He's concentrating so hard!

    Damselfly said...

    Oh, perfect solution to a string-obsessed boy!

    And I love those shoes! I would have bought them too if I had seen them on the shelf begging to be taken home.

    verniciousknids said...

    $13?! That's only 1100 yen which is what I spent on my lunch / coffee today...I've gotta move back home ;)

    Anonymous said...

    How cool, the cheap ass shoes - I have some Target blue little slip ons from a while back, god even if you wear them once you get your moneys worth!! Even if your feet sweat and dont breath in them....

    And Im going to make your crafty lace business also, Lola is a laces-up laces-out kinda lady, especially in the car. Damn converse, should have got the slip on versions.

    Gina said...

    Those shoes!! Fabbo!
    Love the beautiful bronzy-ness.
    (AND $13!!!)
    Okay, I love the lace-card idea. Took me straight back to my childhood too. You are incredibly talented. To think up something just like that and carry it out. That is something. Very cool.

    muser said...

    Wow. What a great idea re. the lacing. ANd I *do* recall that activity from my youth.

    Muzbot said...

    How cool. My mum used to do this sort of stuff with us as kids too. As we got older the activities evolved into us designing, stenciling and printing our own pillow cases. We were all very proud to sleep on these (I think this was Mum's cunning way of making us enjoy going to bed). I have always admired my mum's creativity and often think that these sort of activities as a kid sparked my interest in a career as a graphic designer.
    You are such a cool creative mum.

    My float said...

    Wow. I am so stealing that idea. I nearly spat out my tea when I read the bit about the less than happy fish. Please, don't be so funny - I could have electrocuted myself on my laptop!

    Shoes look very nice. A grade synthetic is the best grade you can get. You did well.

    Michelle said...

    Love your shoes!! i love Target too!! I bought two pairs same price back in June. Also A-grade synthetic - Look fabulous and hurt like hell!!! I hope yours are more comfy!!

    So you grew up in the town I went camping!! Nice town - we really like it. Have just been checking out the internet for suitable holiday houses to maybe buy - that would be one house not plural houses!!

    Anonymous said...

    Had a lovely Target experience myself today, airconditioning and the amount at the checkout was less than I thought I was spending on just a skirt. And I bought heaps. I had to get them to check even. Now that I'm wearing black again I so feel like I need new clothes...

    Now I think I saw those lacing things somewhere. Early learning centre? Not a reliable sighting though because that was when meltdown occured (every trip to highpoint with child has meltdown at some point). Don't even know why I'm saying this because yours are better anyways.

    Anonymous said...

    Fab shoes I wouldn't have been able to leave them on the shelf at that price either.

    Lynne@Oberon said...

    These are great! My kids love threading to and I have lots of 'lovely' jewllery made out of all sorts of things .. like leaves and plastic buttons.

    Nice shoes!

    phoeberae said...

    Thanks for commenting on Chloe's new blog, she's bouncing off the walls.

    Zee has just started drawing consciously rather than accidentally and although it's lots of scribbles so far I look forward to borrowing your amazing ideas to help her progress.

    velcro said...

    what a fantastic idea! The FB is going through the whole lacing thing too and the beads as well. We keep finding little plastic things all over the place

    lazy cow said...

    Great idea to make your own. I found some cheap Thomas the Tank ones that the Boy has almost grown out of...

    Blue Moon Girl said...

    I love the lacing cards and the beads! That's so cool! When I taught preschool, we used to occasionally take their drawings to make into the lacing cards. They thought that was very cool!

    I love the deal you managed to get on the shoes! I love a really good deal on shoes!

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