Up up and away!

I have to share this activity, I saw it in a magazine and just knew it was written with my boys in mind.

If you want to see the original article, it's in the latest Donna Hay kids magazine, which also has many other things in it worth drooling over. In fact, I no longer have a subscription to Donna Hay mag (which I was gifted by a good friend) but I may just have to order this issue specially.

We all know kids want to fly, don't we? 

I'm sure it's not just mine, fairy wings and super hero capes lurk in many a dress-up box.

Well, check THIS one out:

The Coolest Rocket Pack In The Whole World

(and maybe in the whole Universe too)

Very easy to make, let me run you through it.

You will need:

2 x soft drink type bottles

(don't drink the stuff yourself, it's rotten for your health! Scrounge them from someone else, as I did ;)

mirrored cardboard

(I bought mine at a major office supplies store but really, any large sheet of cardboard will do, it does not need to be mirrored) 

masking or gaffa tape

crepe paper

elastic

(for shoulder straps)

sticky tape

 Trim your cardboard so that when you wrap it round your bottle, it will come past the bottom of the bottle.

Wrap it round the bottle, leaving the cap end of the bottle sticking out slightly. 

Like so.

Fasten the card to the bottle with double-sided tape. 

Or with whatever you have, we tried the glue gun but found that regular tape folded back over itself to make double sided tape worked better.

Now, lay out a decent sized length of gaffa or masking tape, sticky side up. Or any other wide sticky tape.

Cut differing lengths of yellow/orange/red and blue (blue for super speed!) crepe paper and fix end of each piece of crepe paper to the tape.

Like this.

Now roll the tape around the cap end of your bottle.

Then you have this.

(Mr 2 takes modelling very seriously)

Now do the other bottle in the same fashion, and fix the two together, side by side. 

Regular sticky tape was good for this.

Lastly, attach some thinnish elastic at the top of each silver tube and attach the other end of the elastic to the bottom of the silver tube. We used staples for this. 

This makes the straps for holding the rocket on the back of the Rocketeer.

You can see the straps here.

Then, go outside and take off!

If you like, you can go for the stream lined model, as per Mr 5. 

So fast, you can't even see the flames!

And when your little Rocketeers are tired out and tucked up in their beds, you might even sneak in to give them a kiss and find this. I'm sure I didn't tuck him in with his rocket pack on...

(Just so you know, they don't sleep with the light on, I was able to turn it on and they didn't even stir)

Flying is hard work...

 I wonder what they dreamed about?

To infinity, and beyond! or, The Great things about cardboard

My 5 year old is an inventive type kid.

I struggle to keep up with his "Mum, lets make a....." and "Mum, I want to be a ....." and "Mum, how can I....." and "Mum, lets do....." and so on and so forth.

His ideas are waaaay ahead of his (and my) abilities usually, although my hubby often manages to come up with the goods, or at least a good approximation of them.

So perhaps I should say hubby and myself are inventive types. 

So, presenting, Buzz Lightyear: 

Cardboard boxes to the rescue again.

(Although his wings will not actually fly through the air, which was what he wanted....every small boy's wish of course, but he was temporarily distracted from that fact by his wings being an exact replica of Buzz's. They have now been painted to that effect. 
What started off this latest "Must fly!" obsession was watching a documentary on Rocket Man, who has since flown across the English Channel on his jet wings. Refer to the above ideas/abilities comment...) 

The wings even come in size 2... 

The cardboard was from some old packing boxes hubby had folded down and stashed in the garage, knowing that at some time, we'd wish we had some large sheets of sturdy cardboard.


The wings are held on by being threaded through the straps of a backpack, before the backpack goes on the back.


Don't forget the value of cardboard when it comes to kids, it's good for many things.

Even if you can't attach jet engines to it and fly it across actual, physical bodies of water... 


 

2010 already?!

Another year, in which I plan to be always completely organised with birthdays, anniversaries, Easter, Christmas, day care, pre-school, overseas posting cut off dates, dinners, swim lessons, house keeping, baking, sewing..............................phew, did I leave anything out?

Can you guess what my New Year's resolution is? Yep, to work on my organisational skills.

My thought is, apart from keeping me sane, being supremely organised (well, as much as I can be) will save us money.

Hmmm, I have some work to do.

Here's a money saver - who needs toys when you have cardboard boxes?