Paper Moments (1)

P spent quite a bit of time on the guillotine this morning.

3rd January 1989

How fortunate we are to have so much paper in our ‘paperless society’.  It’s difficult to imagine what it must have been like during the 2^nd World War when there was a paper shortage and anything that could be turned into paper was collected up – rags, string, straw and even stinging nettles.

We have always had an abundance of paper, and yet I’ve very rarely had to buy it.  It comes into the house uninvited and when my children were young, any good bits were used for drawing, modelling, cutting up and the thousand and one other uses they had for it.  Any fancy bits were put into the making drawer, but for everyday use they reused printer paper, the backs of letters, envelopes, cereal packets and other packaging and greetings cards.

I once managed to acquire some discarded wallpaper sample books.  These lasted for years and provided material for card making, collages and long paper chain decorations at Christmas (P once spent a whole day making them).

Wallpaper samples

I made sure they had access to paper, pencils and pens from a very early age, which they could use at any time of day or night, though I preferred them to be in bed at this time.As long as you give them what they need, children will make up their own paper activities, but sometimes they need a spark of an idea.  It doesn’t need to be complicated – paper is a simple thing. This one is top of my list:

Paper Doily

Cut out your basic shape.

Fold in half three times and cut out a few holes.  You might need to practice this a little to make sure it doesn’t fall to pieces once you’ve opened it up.

And here is the doily!

If you glue some coloured pieces of tissue over the holes, you create a stained glass window (or something like).

Woolgathering

As shears are sprung to the open position, they were shut for ease of carrying with a piece of wool tied tightly round the end of the blades. When he reached home the shearer’s wife stripped the wool from the shears, substituting a piece of rag or cord, then washed it and put it away.  When she had saved enough wool she used it for filling a pillow or a cushion.

(Ask the Fellows who Cut the Hay by George Ewart Evans,1956)

This originates from WWI. I found it in the family history collection.

I like the idea of collecting something unwanted until you have enough of it to make something useful.  I definitely like the idea of collecting the little pieces of fleece that a sheep leaves hanging on bushes or fences.  There are so many things you can do with it, apart from using it to stuff a cushion.  You could spin it into actual wool, make it into felt, use it for all sorts of crafts and if you get enough, even insulate the loft!  I have a very old friend who told me that he collected it as a child so his mother could make soft padding for his father’s artificial legs.  That would have been nearly 100 years’ago.

The fleece will need to be washed (in cool soapy water) and carded (combed) to get the bits of twig and other plant matter out.  You don’t need to buy special carders – little dog brushes will do.

I was fortunate enough to get hold of some whole fleeces fresh off the sheep, still with mud and sheep droppings attached.  One of them was from the first shearing of Dingledrop, a lamb that happened to belong to L.  I had a plan to spin the fleece into wool and then weave it into a blanket for her.  Unfortunately, this turned out to be rather ambitious and I didn’t get very far.  After many years, I found the festering fleeces in the loft and they were given their final resting place on the compost  heap.

Beautiful Bottles

Ships in bottles, messages in bottles, genies in bottles (when they are not in lamps…).  Bottles are the stuff of mystery and legend, as well as being extremely useful containers that we use every day.

We saw some children playing with a water bottle when we were in Algeria last week.

Used water bottles can be amazing toys for shaking, rolling, spinning or floating.  Add soap, glitter, shells, stones, beads, colour to some water to bring them to life.

Pots of Gold

Grandson E is a star pot stirrer. He shakes them, he bangs them, he empties them and he even throws them. What he doesn’t do is put things into them. At only ten months old, this is understandable. He hasn’t as yet reached that level of skill – but it will soon come. While watching E with his pots last week, it occurred to me that a pot is one of the essentials of life, possessing a multitude of purposes. An empty pot can provide hours of occupation and entertainment for a baby or older child and what’s especially good is you don’t even have to buy them! When handing out pots to young children, they really need to be clean, unbreakable and safe. If they also have lids, then that’s a bonus.

Lovely Body Shop pots

There’s no need to buy special bath time toys. Just throw in the pots. If the young child can sit and play, they will watch the pot float, carry water, turn upside down. They can pour water from one to another and also see what happens when a pot has holes in. Psychologists have described these sorts of activities as being important for a child’s early development: http://www.simplypsychology.org/concrete-operational.html

The need to put things in and out of pots doesn’t wear off with maturity – older children love to keep collections and treasures in pots, adults store all sorts of things in old pots, I have pots full of pots…

Another thing babies like to do is to make a noise. A way to help them do this is to put rice, beans, beads or even stones into pots with a lid to make a variety of things they can shake. Seal the lid well and tape it if necessary. At a later date I might write about older children making percussion instruments, so if you have any pots leftover, save them for that.

Finally, a tribute to poor Eeyore, who for his birthday was given a pot of honey by Winnie the Pooh, who had eaten the honey himself, and a balloon from Piglet that had burst on the way.

“I’m very glad,” said Pooh happily, “that I thought of giving you a Useful Pot to put things in.”
“I’m very glad,” said Piglet happily, “that thought of giving you something to put in a Useful Pot.”
But Eeyore wasn’t listening. He was taking the balloon out, and putting it back again, as happy as could be….