Oh Yes! We Have Bananas!

For those of you who wince each time you visit buzzville and find another monkey party related post, I promise that the monkey content will subside in one week! T-minus 5 days and counting until the big party.

For the rest of you who either have genuine interest in the monkey shindig, or are feigning interest for some unknown reason, I have more fun for you today. Stephanie was the genius who suggested we have a bean bag toss for the little tikes at the party, and we were happy to follow her suggestion. So, this weekend I made banana bean bags for the bean bag toss, and Jerry was assigned with making the monkey. Here is Jerry's beautiful monkey holding a hoop, painted on a large piece of cardboard using tempera paints:

and here are the bananas I made, using yellow ripstop nylon fabric and brown rayon thread for the satin-stitch detailing:

The ripstop nylon is pretty sheer, so I had to fill them with something white. I found Thai-style sticky rice that has grains that are almost round (rather than a long grain rice), and this worked out perfectly. I recommend a very silky thread (like machine embroidery thread) for the satin stitch detailing. All in all, I'm thrilled with how these came out, especially given that I totally made up the 3D pattern and just forced it to work! We've decided that rather than a toss competition (since toddlers can't really be told where to stand and be expected to stay there!), we'll do a timed competition. They will have 60 seconds to get as many bananas through the hoop as they can; parents can encourage and root, but can't help out. This should be pretty entertaining to watch!

As an unrelated side note, I thought I would let you know that saveoncrafts has these wonderful little birds on sale for $11.99. I don't have any yet, but I've heard they're quite amazing and realistic - the songs are actual high quality birdsong recordings from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and apparently the movements are quite realistic as well.

Comments

[Mariko]

Very nice bananas!

[myra]

Cuuute! Your party is going to be awesome!

[Stephanie]

The bananas (and monkey) turned out great! What fun for little ones.

[Martha]

Really cute bananas and monkey! The kids are going to have such a great time.

[amy k.]

great bananas!-who thought I'd ever that that to anyone?:)

[kristen]

those banana bean bags are the cutest -- way to persevere! it's been fun to see how the party is shaping up...i'll look forward to seeing pictures!

[Sandy]

Those bananas are great - you really did a wonderful job on them! And I love the painting of the monkey, I don't think I could have gotten anything close to resembling a monkey.

[kimc]

I have some of those birds, and sometimes i get them all out, place them aroung the house, get some pretty music....and after an hour my family is begging me to put the birds away. I love them!