Jo’s Easter Bonnet – Baaaaaaa!

I mentioned Jo's Easter bonnet yesterday.  Here it is in all it's glory!

I do think that it must have been 'bonnet wars' between the parents, who'd have thought of sticking a whole sheep on a bonnet though?!! I think it's both design and comedy genius and here is a note from Jo about how she did it:

The sheep idea for an Easter bonnet came to me whilst laying in bed one morning wondering how I was going to keep Beth entertained for the day, she was poorly enough not to be going to preschool but not poorly enough to not need some occupying. I had once before made a pig from papier mâché but admittedly that was during my last year at primary school so over 20 years ago!

Beth, Max and I took a trip to Hobbycraft and purchased some black paint, all other items I already had at home. I blew up a balloon and stood it in a glass tumbler, then mixed some pva glue with water to make the paste, and ripped up loads of newspaper. Beth and I dipped the paper into the paste and layered it on the balloon. It was very messy which 3 year old Beth loved.

It worked quite well as each layer took about 20 minutes to do which was long enough to keep Beth entertained without becoming bored, and then she could go and rest whilst it dried in the sun. We followed the newspaper layer with a layer of plain paper, then peppa pig magazine, another of newspaper, and then two of kitchen roll.

For the sheep ears I cut triangular shapes out of a paper cup then layered some kitchen roll over to mould the shape I needed. I used the base of the paper cup for the sheep face but after attaching it to the body I realised it made the animal look like a pig and later, once dried, had to saw it off with a steak knife. In the end I made the face of the sheep using the circle I had cut out the bottom of the balloon (to allow it to sit on the hat) by gluing it to the front of the animal, layering some kitchen roll over it then painting it black once it had dried. The legs were made from card painted black and glued onto the side of the hat, along with with egg box feet.

I painted the hat green to make it look like grass, then painted the body of the animal (the balloon) white and covered it in cotton wool balls. I then used some flowers from Beth's fuzzy felt box for decoration. Finally I added some pink ribbon to secure it to Beth's head.

The whole process probably took the length of one entire day but having two small children around it was stretched over two weeks and turned the kitchen into an art and craft centre. One day my husband returned from work and quizzed me over the gluey glass tumbler as it actually looked like the dregs of Baileys in the glass, he was concerned I'd had such a bad day I had taken to drink!

We didn't win the hat competition, most likely because the whole thing had become so heavy once all the glue and paint was added that Beth wasn't able to keep it on her head which rather defeated the object of it being a hat! But, we had great fun making the sheep which was a lot more satisfying than winning a competition.