Kwig

Tralee and I have been working on a little craft project for a few weeks now. We finally finished it today!

It all started one rainy afternoon. Hunter was sleeping and I wanted to do something crafty with Tralee. I saw how they made paper mache on a Curious George episode, and thought that would be fun to do with Tralee. Since I'm into the whole couponing craze, I had TONS of Sunday papers laying around waiting to be utilized in some way other than getting thrown out or taken to the recycle center. We also had some balloons laying around (Grammy Char Char sends them in our birthday packages) so I thought, "Why not blow up a balloon and paper mache it?"

Out came the scissors, glue, flour, water, balloon, and newspaper. Tralee is really into playing in water/mixing things up so after cutting up the papers we mixed some flour, glue, and water together. Tralee stirred up the liquid mix and I showed her how to dunk the paper in the water mixture and stick it onto the balloon. We both had a good go at it until the balloon was sufficiently covered in wet newspaper. We cleaned up our mess (okay, I cleaned it up while Tralee played with the water in the sink) and anxiously waited for the balloon to dry. It took a few days, and when it was finally dry we were too busy to do anything with it. So it sat for a good week or so on our kitchen counter.

Last week Tralee took the mached balloon down from the counter and started playing with it. It was a nice day out, and since Hunter was napping again, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to paint our project. I put Tralee in an old t-shirt, layed an old towel out on our deck to paint on, and let Tralee pick which of my craft paints we should paint the balloon. She picked pink, or as she says it "onk." We had a blast covering the hardened newspaper in pink perfection. It was so fun to watch the look of concentration on Tralee's face. Every inch of it said, "Don't bug me, I'm painting!" She was so determined.

After the balloon was sufficiently slathered with paint, I wondered what we could transform it to. Certainly a pink balloon wasn't creative enough. Then it dawned on me, "Let's turn this into a pig Tralee!" She looked up at me, smiled, and I new when she answered back, "Kwig!" my idea was a knock-out.

The only problem was, we had no pig supplies. Our project would have to wait another day. . . or two. . . or three. Back to the kitchen counter our project patiently waited. I decided to paint Tralee's toenails while we waited for the next step of our project to be done. Cute huh? It was the first time we attempted this.


This last weekend I had a few 50% off coupons for Michaels. I knew exactly what I would use them for. Tralee and I marched right to the googly eye isle and picked out which ones would best complete our pink pig. We also discovered a few other things to complete our craft.

Today our pig was officially completed. After I layed Hunter down for his morning nap, out came the glue gun, googly eyes, felt, wire, and a few other items to help our project come to fruition. I applied the glue white Tralee pressed each individual item onto our friend. After the last glass stone was glued on as our pig's foot he was done!

"Look Tralee! Look! We finished our pig!" I exclaimed. I admit, I think I was more excited than Tralee was. "What should we name him? What is he called?"

"Kwig." Was the simple answer I got in return.

So here he is, our little pink Kwig.
Tralee spent the rest of the morning coloring with her new pink pal. Every once in a while she would look up from coloring to play with Kwig's tail. It's pretty springy. I also noticed that whenever I moved Kwig to get a picture, Tralee would get upset. She liked him right next to her so he could watch her draw pretty pictures. I call this one "Blue on Onk" Every few seconds Tralee would look up to make sure Kwig was exactly how she wanted him. It made me laugh.
I keep wondering what animal Tralee and I should make next. Any suggestions?