Hares on the March

MMH event was fun

Nice weather (hurrah) and not too busy (mixed feelings about that).
We made a lot of very mad hares – some were even pink!

It was a bit of a challenge to get the paper engineering simplified for them to just get on and make it work. At first some needed one to one help but then I got into my stride with the prep work, once I saw what they needed to do it themselves.

I was really pleased how many quite young children got the concept and were very definite about which of the three movements they wanted.

None chose the easy one I prepared ( ! ) and most did opt for the hidden mechanism – although my colleagues, and most parents, liked it visible !

I really must be a child at heart because I wanted it hidden too! It did put in another step/concept to explain but I liked the effect.
The visible one was needed though, to show what was going on. If it had all been hidden in the device I think it would have seemed too daunting. Here are two with it visible.

And in these two it is hidden behind.
What do you think ?
I wish I had more pictures because some of the background scenes were fab.

Meanwhile – whilst all that was going on at one end, the other was filling up with little folded hares. They looked quite a wistful group “en mass” I hope some made it to a nice window with a view.

I wish I had a picture of them all scattered around the room. My camera went flat – a fault I think as it was charged… technology

So I only have a few snaps – but they were some great little hare chaps made, including a lot more finger puppets and stick puppets like this one:-.

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Making Mad March Hares

I’ve been making paper mad March hares for next weekend’s event; I love this kind of experimenting and creating.

But…it EATS time!

I started off early, over breakfast! it was a beautiful sunny day and I had a clear(ish) table to work on. Double pleasure; so I got started straightaway with the sun pouring in.

As you can see by the pictures it got to afternoon and I was still at it. To be fair the ideas and scissor chopping, quick sketching bit is quick and fun. Then trying to make the actual templates and instruction sheets takes ages. I don’t mind doing it but you can find you’ve been an hour on one teeny page (I timed it!). Typing and tweaking and cropping and then redrawing.

This process is not my best bit of a project!

I am – apparently- a “starter instigator” according one of those work teambuilding profile things!

Who knew?

Well anyone who knows me lol!

Don’t get me wrong – I DO finish things- but it is not “my best”.
(Love that quote phrase from The Dollhouse- a weird TV drama, stumbled upon a while ago)

Anyhow I now have a couple of Hare finger puppets, a mad ‘revolving eye’ hare head picture, and an animated boxing hare scene (my favourite). Plus of course (being me) some interesting side diversions too maybe work on later.

My clear desk now looks like this;

where I pushed it all back like the tide so I could take the ‘how to’ photos for the publisher instruction pages.
Also, I’m wondering if I can rescale the side profile finger puppet to fit the page better; but without a tiny pair of hands to try it on, I’m a bit stuck with that.

However, quite pleased with this little guy.

His head probably could do with a ‘sink fold’ but I’ve tried to get it a simple as possible, otherwise I will end up making them all instead- not the point and no fun for the children ( or me ).

Simple is hard to get to sometimes; people have no idea when they see a couple of folds and cuts, how much you have to actually leave out!

These are just some of the casualties, ( and why I do most of my trials in scrap paper ) poor little paper people;

time to tidy up, but….
… just for fun; this little chap looked quite like he would love to escape his paper world…

look little hare wants to get out into that sunny hillside..

there he goes

off up the hill!

Sorry about the laundry, but it was the first sunny day a while…

and yes, I do use one of my own pegbags, he is just on the end of the line that you can’t see.

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