Duck and Cover Star Mobile Craft

In addition to writing, I also love to craft.

I decided to make a craft to go along with my MG book, Duck and Cover.

The book is about The Cuban Missile Crisis, but it is also about a boy and his dreams. His mom tells him to "Hang your dreams on a star, and you'll go far." So that's what he does. He hangs his dreams on the North Star.

I'm going to show you how you and/or your child can make a star mobile.

And, as always with crafts, if you need to make a few changes, do so. That is why crafts are so unique. They are all different.

I used a 9" Styrofoam form.

I tore 1 1/2" strips of material. It took around 9 feet.

 

Wrap it around the form. I pinned the ends with straight pins. You could glue the ends if you wanted to.

Then I got three pieces of craft wire 18" long. I stuck the ends into the Styrofoam (you could put a little Elmer glue onto the wire before sticking it into the foam), brought them together at the top, twisted the last couple of inches of the wire around each other and bent it over into a hook. I tied a ribbon around the wires at the bottom of the hook.

   

Go here and run off on card stock the PDF of Stars. Cut them out. 

Punch a hole into the large stars. Cut different lengths of fishing line. Tie into the holes and then tie around the Styrofoam ring. Let them hang at different lengths. Then get a glue stick and glue the small blue stars onto the hanging ribbon. If you want, you can color the backs of the stars to match the front.

Now have your child write his or her dreams or wishes on the individual stars.

Hang it in their room.

 I hope you enjoyed this craft and I hope you enjoy my book.

Between The Pages

If your life was a book, what would be between the pages?

Most of the readers of my blog are writers, but what else makes up your life? What would be between the pages of your book?

I am a writer, but I started on this journey just recently. I have been writing for only a few years.

Because of my mother, I was interested in crafts and sewing from an early age. I remember her getting craft kits in the mail and I helped her make Christmas decorations with them. . . a Styrofoam Noel sign, tubular plastic Christmas ornaments with scenes inside them. We also made Santas from Readers Digest magazines. We made necklaces from the pages of magazines. We cut the long strips into a triangle shape and rolled them up. We shellacked them and put them on a string for a long necklace.

I remember Mom's treadle Singer sewing machine. She was a very talented seamstress. I started sewing when in Home Economics class in junior high school. I made dresses, swim suits, pant suits, ponchos and eventually my wedding dress. After getting married and having kids, I spent many hours behind the sewing machine making Halloween outfits. My boys enjoyed being Popeye, dinosaurs, clowns, pumpkins and Frankenstein. I have also tried my hand at quilting. I am not that good at it, but that is okay. If I don't hand quilt it, I tie the finished product. I am an impatient person and like to see quick results.

So that is a small peek at what I like to do.

In looking at my list of interests, I find that they are not all that different than writing.

My interests all require an imagination.
They require patience.
They require persistence.
They require a little bit of God given talent.

Put that all together, though, and you can succeed at what you like to do, and that includes writing!

What are your other interests?