Shaker!

Quick project--I should have taken pictures as I went to show the process, but alas, I threw this one together with my son in the 10 minutes we had before naptime.

1.  For the cylinder, I used an old roll from gift ribbon I had been holding onto, because it was similar to a TP roll but much sturdier.  We've made these out of TP rolls before, and it doesn't take long before they're crushed. They still rattle, though.

2.  I let The Boy choose a main felt color, and cut out a piece large enough to roll around the tube and hang over by about 2 inches on each end.

3.  I glued the felt to the tube with hot glue, then folded the overlap down on one end, gluing as I went.

4.  The Boy dumped in popcorn kernels out of our old crushed shakers (the inspiration for this project when he was cleaning out his music drawer yesterday) into the new shaker.

5.  I hot-glued the other end down.

6.  The Boy chose colors for the ends. I used the tube for a rough pattern and cut out the two circles, then glued them over the rough foldy-looking ends.

--You could totally stop here if you wanted to.--

7. He also decided he wanted "train track" decoration so I found some white rick rack in my kit and started by gluing to the seam.  The Boy made most of the design decisions here--he wanted the "track" to wrap all the way around the ends and then a train on top.

7.  I actually stitched the pieces of the train together, but you sure wouldn't have to do that.  Once you've cut out (and sewn, if desired) any decorative pieces, hot glue to the shaker.  All done!

It's Thomas, of course.  Face coming later.