Mouse + Paper + Clay

The weekend gone presented an interesting turn of events. There was an impromptu crafternoon, which led to the creation of Giuseppe, a needle felted mouse. Having wanted to make a little creature like this for quite some time. And the time never feeling quite right, until now. 

© Melissa Gaggiano

Since Giuseppe turned out as well as he did. I went at it again, and made another little mouse... even smaller.

After a tidy up one of the kids was on the verge of throwing out their recent paper sculpture. Before the paper was recycled, I took a photo of it, for a remembrance. This image makes you want to go on a holiday, does it not?

The kids make things with minimal input from me. Occasionally I show them techniques that I've figured out, but for the most part I give them the space to freestyle it. Yesterday though, we had a situation which required a collaboration between mama and child. The result was this Princess Peach statue.

Ragamuffin Mousie

    Several years ago I contributed a cloth mouse pattern to Mixtape zine. The pattern appeared in issue 10.  I've been combing through my library as part of a spring clean, and I found a copy of this sweet lil' magazine.

    I now share this mouse pattern [aka Ragamuffin Mousie] with you as a free DIY craft project. All the information you would need is provided below, for print out.

Ragamuffin Mousie instructions
© Melissa Gaggiano

Ragamuffin Mousie pattern
© Melissa Gaggiano

Little Mouse

Image by Melissa Gaggiano

    When I was a little girl my Lego collection began with this one little mouse. I only know for certain that I was given this mouse way before I was seven. This being because I was seven when I received my first bucket of assorted Lego bits, which happened much later.
    I remember how this mouse came with house cleaning tools, though these have long since disappeared into a black hole [probably turned up in an episode of Star Trek]. This mouse was certainly well loved. On closer inspection I can see the ears were also particularly well chewed. I must have been hungry.
    A little internet research tells me that this little mouse was part of a Lego division known as Fabuland. Isn't that a fabulous name?

Image by Melissa Gaggiano

Image by Melissa Gaggiano
[My photography assistant]

The First Puppet

Following yesterday's project entry... Meet the first finger puppet, which I had designed and sewn yesterday afternoon (as modeled in the above photo).