Build a Monster

I joined a busy bag exchange group on Facebook.  I decided I wanted to finally start making the cloth quiet books for my kids that I've been planning, so I made pages for all my trades.  The first one I completed was for the preschool group.  The activity is a create-a-face monster made of felt.

I sewed the monster's head onto the page.  (I used muslin, but any cotton - any fabric, really - would work.)  I backed the page with a piece of felt and another piece of muslin.  I would like to have bound the edges, but the muslin I got was ridiculously thin and was trying to disintegrate.  Instead, I did a couple of messy zigzag stitches around the edge to hold it together and minimize fraying.  I made all the monster faces out of green or dark purple felt.  I used light purple thread for contrast.  I also did not take care placing the stitches because I wanted chaos to go with the monster theme.  (I apologize to the neat and orderly monsters out there.)

Since I was going for chaos, I picked a wacky, mustard-colored, animal-print fabric for the storage bag.  I put a button on the bag to keep the pieces in and attached it to the page with a sparkly orange ribbon.  The bag holds the three eyes (well, two sets and one single eyeball), three noses and three mouths I created to stick on the monster face.

Most of the members are not making cloth quiet books, so I added one or three buttonholes, whatever their preference, so that the page could be joined with other quiet book pages of other mediums on a ring or in a three-ring binder.

I also included directions:

In case you can't read that:

MONSTER FACES!

Includes: Monster Head, 3 Eyes, 3 Noses, 3 Mouths and Attached Storage Bag

Get creative and get scary!

Optional 2-person Game:

The first person designs a face with one of each part without telling the second person what it is.  The second person creates a face, trying to guess what the first person designed.  The first person tells the second person how many parts are correct and how many are wrong.  The second person tries to guess again, and the game continues until the second person guesses the correct combination of eyes, nose and mouth, counting how many tries it took.  The players switch roles, and the player who guessed with the fewest tries wins!