Hamming it up

Patricia called herself “Shasha” several times this weekend. She is fearless and curious and constantly exploring. The other day a spider walked across the floor and she was so excited she chased it and despite me trying to dissuade her, she eventually picked it up… Julius and I were slightly horrified. She did the same thing to a dead wasp a few days later, but we thankfully got it away from her before she touched the stinger. I can’t remember if Julius was always more cautious than Patricia or if he learned it at some age post toddler.

Julius recently has become afraid of ghosts and monsters and sleeps with a unicorn night light that he made himself (it is an awesome little kit, I got it at a thrift shop for basically nothing!) Julius likes to watch Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, but there is one very short episode about ghost trains. It didn’t bother him the first time he watched it but the other day he said to me, “Thomas has ghost trains in it now, so I will have to watch it when I’m an adult”. I had to try really hard to stop myself from laughing.

Julius has a really good imagination and I always want to make all sorts of little toys for him. I’ve had lots of ideas for homemade toys, but family members buy us lots of stuff which makes me feel kind of bad that I’m always giving him homemade or secondhand stuff. Luckily Julius is a sweetie and seems to appreciate my homemade items. Since I’ve been felting I had ideas to make little animals and make them homes inside mint tins. I got a bunch of mint tins from someone on my buy nothing group and created a couple little playsets! I gave them both to Julius for Christmas. Here’s my mini-hamster playset

Mini Hamster Playset

I first felted a little hamster about 1″ long and 1/2″ wide

My tiny felted hamster

I made a log house out of oven bake clay. To make it fit in the mint tin I used hot glue to attach the two halves of the house with a strip of felt.

Making “logs” from sculpey

I used some scrap felt and hot glue to make a little nest for the hamster.

I used oven bake clay (and a toothpick hidden inside the spout of the water bottle for support) to make a hamster water bottle. I used a paper clip to bend into a water bottle holder, so the water bottle can perch on the side of the play set.

Bending the paper clip into a holder for the water bottle.

For the hamster’s food bowl I made a short cylinder of clay and gently pressed an indent in the center using the back of a pen. I filled the bowl with “pellets” I made by cutting tiny slices of a very narrow cylinder of brown clay.

The hamster wheel was just a flat disk that I surrounded by a thin wall of clay. It made it just small enough to fit inside the mint tin with the lid shut. It sits nicely up against the side of the habitat.