Meet Cyril...

Cyril is our latest addition to the family. Rather a cute fella don't you think?

A while ago we volunteered to be Guinea-Pigs and offered to trial run the fab Itsy Bitsy Spider DIY kits from Cheerymishmash. The store already sells ready made Itsy Bitsys, but they are soon to be sold in kit form so budding spider creators can create their own. Cheerymishmash also sell some fab Home-Ed motif bags and t-shirts, so if glove puppet spiders aren't your thing, the link is still worth checking out :)

Yesterday we finally got a chance to have a go and make our own. Tiegan (aged 8), Joseph (aged 12) and Chelsea (aged 14) all decided that they would give it a go, so I pretty much left them to it...

Callum (aged 5) showed initial interest, but soon decided that sticking pins in the glove section (my poor table!)...

and playing a game of hide and seek whilst sat at the same (poor) table...

was much more entertaining :)

The others got on with the 'hard' work.

Sewing first...

*Note to self* Don't let Joseph near any safety eyes. We discovered that safety eyes are very 'safe' once the backing is on them *sigh*

Finally after fighting with a safety eye, a screwdriver, a knife, and some very hot water (thanks to my son trying to be helpful), we were able to put the eyes where they were meant to go, and the little chap looked like this...

We added the plentiful stuffing and put it to one side.  Sewing the glove section was next.   Using the pins provided in the kit, Chelsea tacked the two glove pieces together and began the backstitching.

Sewing the 'head' section onto the glove was a little bit tricky, but with a joint effort we managed it and ended up with a new member of the family :)

Thank you to Mandy at Cheerymishmash for allowing us to be trial testers for your fab kit.  We all enjoyed putting Cyril together.  The instructions were easy to follow, the contents of the kit well thought out, and the finished result is much loved.