Jun 30, 2010

Guest blogging for the first time

I was invited by Isabel over at Alpha Mom to write a post for them with a FIFA World Cup theme. We decided to try hacking together some stadium horns from dollar store hollow plastic bats. The kids are super impressed and are still making a tremendous noise with them, even though the US and England are out of the tournament at this point. So if this sounds interesting to you, and you either have a pair of ear defenders, or can deal with the noise, then pop over to Alpha Mom and see how we made them. Here's the link.




It was very cheap and easy! Plus there's a funny little bonus craft at the end, made from the left overs. I'm sure people that know me in the offline world will find it hilarious that I, with my yoghurt splattered walls am writing for a site called Alpha Mom! One of my mate's kids actually said about our place last week "Can we go round to the messy house?"

I want to take this opportunity to link to a number of people that have tried the projects posted on Filth Wizardry and blogged about it themselves. So many lovely new versions of our crafts springing up around the world makes me a very happy bunny. Thank you to anyone that got in touch to either show me their own versions, or point me to other people's versions that they had seen.


  • Over at Historias de Iraides they had a go at our print out and colour fairy wings from last year. You can see them here.

  • Ali at "found in the Ali" made her own no sew top, and used our iron on plastic bag decals to adorn it. Pretty darn cute!

  • Bea's crowd over at "All join in" had a go at our Lego hole punch dioramas here. The Sir Topham Hat is by far my favourite! Kid drawings rule!

  • Sari's little girls did a cracking job on our tin foil toadstool ring, here at her blog "Two Little Girls". Love the black and white photos with the coloured toadstools!

  • Crystal's family over at "Easy Stay at Home Fun", used our print, colour and cut reef creatures to make their own version of our coral reef livingroom wall, here.

  • Wonder Mom and "The Fantastic Five" had a go at our balloon and torch lightsabers for a bit of light painting photography here.

  • Over at Sternchen Design, they made the cutest little tshirt using our iron on plastic bag method, here.

  • The crew over at "This girl love to talk" made their own version of our stained glass tissue paper and glue window, here.
  • Jean over at The Artful Parent got her crew making several versions of the leaf rubbing and paint mural we did last autumn, only with lovely summer colours. Here is the first one.

  • Regina at "Harmony Blog" asked me to write her a little message for the kids she was teaching at a community Lego class, to inspire them when trying the hole punching card and Lego project. She writes about the class here, and shows some of the other cool Lego projects they did as well as the hole punching, like using rubber bands and making marble mazes! Very cool!

  • Dinorah and her little chap got stuck in making our Wall-E out of recycling together. I've only seen two people attempt this craft so far, and both have come out wonderfully! You can see Dinorah's version here.

If you want to see our projects that inspired these folks then I think each of the posts they have written point back to the specific projects on Filth Wizardry. I didn't want to link to our own posts in here and clutter up the whole thing with links when it's supposed to be about what others have done :)

If you have done your own version of any of our projects and would like me to link to them, or if you don't have a blog but would like to share a photo of a project from Filth Wizardry that you've done then please do let me know in the comments or email me :) I love seeing others trying our projects out, and I'm sure that seeing these other versions around the web will inspire other readers to jump in too!

One last thing...


Not really enough for it's own post, but I thought a few of you might like a heads up that OSH (Orchard Supply and Hardware) have bags of kindling for about $6 that are perfect for little builders. Just like mini planks of wood! My crew have had great fun with a bag of kindling from there this week and a box of nails. They made swords, shields, beds for carebears, some kind of weird crate and pulley device for trapping imaginary things. Lots of fun! and cheap! and reusable! Then you can pull the nails out and have a camp fire ;)

12 comments:

  1. love your vuvuzelas!! where are you based? i am in vuvuzela land and can post to you if you want!!! uksa@telkomsa.net

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  2. only in American could you buy such beautiful kindling ...

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  3. That's very sweet of you to offer to post us a vuvuzela, but honestly, the kids are perfectly content with their fakes. Thank you so much for such a generous offer though!

    Lynmcf, I know, right? I was amazed that such perfect little pieces of wood were bagged up with the intension of being used for nowt but burning! They really are perfect little planks of kid sized lumber that are easy to handle and almost impossible to get splinters from. Seeing the kids have so much fun with them has been awesome, and you can't beat the price for the quantity! I've had eight kids building with just the one six buck bag and they were all thrilled to take home what they had made :)

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  4. The vuvuzelas as the reason I can't watch the WC! They drive me crazy, although I had one as a boy, which I loved very much.

    I find the kindling thing ridiculous too, but I think the idea is that so much of our processed wood is treated with toxic chemicals, the kind you wouldn't want to burn in a campfire. I think it's about peace of mind and for those too lazy to bend down to pick up a stick, heh!

    We're still working on our version of your giant "stained glass." I'll post about it when we're finished.

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  5. I love your vuvuzela. You are so brilliant, always. I love the bag of kindling too... my sons would love that. And I'm glad you and I share a love of mess! :)

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  6. oh my goodness!!! you linked me!! Gah! *bows down to the queen* We have done quiet a few of your projects. We did the fairy wings on small dolls, the playdough volcano world for our dino's and several others. Thanks for all the wonderful ideas!!

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  7. We have done your outside wall painting, at the beginning of April. We're in to July now and it is still there!

    I've also tried the plastic bag decal, but didn't post about this because so far, it's only gone horribly wrong (I blame my cheap ironing board) and I am holding out until I get it to work!

    I only wish I could get some of your craft stuff here - we have pound shops but honestly, they aren't any where near as good as your dollar stores :(

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  8. Love the vuvuzelas! We have a constant noise of vuvuzelas in the air. The SA people just love their vuvu's!

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  9. I LOVE this idea and am going to have to try my hand at making a few before the semi-finals :)

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  10. I feel so honored that you mentioned me on your blog! *blush* I've done quite a bit more of your projects too. We love your fun ideas!

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  11. I can't believe we've never thought of buying a bag of kindling for kinder before! Usually we beg, borrow and steal from our builder dads but we don't often get lovely long symmetrical pieces ... that's it ... off to the petrol station today for some kindling I go.
    Donna :) :)

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  12. As a South African I love your vuvuzela activity!
    I also wanted to pass along an award for you and your blog:
    http://practicalpages.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/blogs-with-substance-passing-it-along/
    Thanks for all your inspirational posts!

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Thank you for your comments.