Clutter craft to the rescue

So we were supposed to make puppets for Colleen’s religious education class on Sunday, and as usual we didn’t have all the supplies we needed. But I really hate to go buy craft materials when there are so many things you can make out of crap hanging around the house.

The lesson was based on “The Big Brag,” a little known Dr. Seuss story in which wisdom is dispensed from a worm’s point of view. We had googly eyes and socks for the worm, but the eyes were way too small. So we either needed to make larger eyeballs or smaller worms. 

We decided to make smaller worms, by cutting strips from an old T-shirt and braiding them together. The end of each strip included a piece from the bottom hem of the shirt, and so when we tied those ends together it made a natural mouth flap. The googly eyes fit perfectly on top of the mouth flap.

The nice thing about this technique, which I learned from some long-forgotten book on making rag rugs, is that it requires no sewing whatsoever. You just tie the strips together at both ends.

As it turns out, we didn’t wind up doing the lesson or the craft due to a scheduling glitch. But Colleen loves her worm. And we’ve got a ready-made project for some other day.