Bored Kid Bags

We’ve got an idea for the wedding reception. Something nifty and simple that’ll (hopefully) keep any little kids entertained while all of the grownups are milling about being boring. We’ve been calling them “Bored Kid Bags”, but they may turn out better as little boxes or something. We figure there’ll be less than a dozen kids there, so we put together twelve simple little activity kits. Each one has washable crayons and blank paper, a little matchbox car, instructions on how to fold an origami cicada…

And a sock puppet.

So, on Sunday we headed over to my sister’s house and made sock puppets. A quick stop off at Jo-Ann’s Fabric got us felt and buttons for eyes, fabric glue, some feathers and a swath of fake fur for details. With some yarn from home and my sister’s scrap fabric archives we put together a small troupe of puppets.

We’ve got quite a menagerie. I can’t imagine what kind of play would require a pirate, a goofy-looking king, a dog, a wizard, a girl with braids, a guy with a moustache and a couple of others. We could call it the “Former Footwear Follies.” It’s not entirely an accurate name, since the socks were brand new, but it’s got alliteration going for it.

I think I managed to make the ugliest one. It started as a critter with jinglebell eyes, which stuck out a bit too far. So I tucked the fabric in around them and sewed an eyebrow ridge into it, which gave it a bit of character. Someone commented that it looked like “an angry duck” so I decided to emphasize that. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any white feathers, so I just gave it a yellow felt bill…

It’s absolutely hideous. I don’t think we should even put it into possible circulation. It should set aside, or possibly set up on a display rack in the laundry area as a warning to all other socks, cautioning them to not get lost in the wash. “You better buddy up!” it would quack, “Or this might happen to you!”