Penguins for Patricia

Monday again.  Julius’s daycare is still closed from water damage.  Patricia has been a monster – seems like a case of the terrible twos.   I’m really hopeful that Julius’s daycare will open next week at a temporary location because between the 7 days he missed while testing positive with covid, the two weather days, and the recent pipe burst, on Wednesday Julius will have been to school less days than he’s been out of school!  I’m having PTSD flashbacks to 2020.  At least he’s a bit more self sufficient than 2020 and in the mornings he makes crafts or plays with his toys, though this morning “crafts” was spraying water all over some papers he made (and also the table) and loudly blowing on the paper to dry it.  I had to offer an alternative option that he accepted gladly.

Patricia, despite the terrible-ness, still has her moments.  For instance every time you are holding your phone she’ll say “I see penguins?” She wants you to do a google image search for penguins so she can scroll through and admire them.  Sometimes she will question the penguin-ness of the penguins and say “that not penguin, that owl”.  The other day she asked me out of the blue “hedgehogs eat mushrooms? yes?  or no?”  (She usually adds the yes or no when I’m taking a long time to respond.)  Well, I had to google it!  Turns out they do!   She was pleased with the answer.  Several hours later she asked “Mice eat mushrooms?” (She might have said “mousies eat mushrooms?”)  Guess what?  They do too!

So for Valentine’s day this year I decided to make penguin Valentine’s for Julius & Patricia’s classmates (though Julius’ classmates may never get theirs…)  My mom found a crazy deal on pegdolls after Christmas from Lowe’s.  (I have no idea why Lowe’s sells peg dolls, but they were 20 pegdolls for $1!)  Julius wanted his Valentines to be DIY, so I’ll show you those next week.  For Patricia’s Valentines I made up a batch of pegdoll penguins in assembly line fashion (they took me no time at all compared to Julius’) and then tied them onto little cards I made with silly penguin puns on them.  They cost me less than a box of valentines with toys in them, even including the cost of paint…

Will and I joked that the generic “Happy Valentine’s Day” cards are for the bullies in the class…

Pegdoll Penguin Valentines

What you’ll need:

• pegdolls
• black acrylic paint
• white acrylic paint
• orange acrylic paint
• pink acrylic paint
• modge podge acrylic spray sealer 
• 65lb 8.5″x11″ cardstock (preferably white but I only had ivory)
• craft twine (I got mine in one of those mix packs from savers, so it was basically free!)
• needle with eye large enough for craft twine.
• Patricia Valentine PDF

Make penguins

1. Paint front of penguins white.
2. Paint back of penguins black, curving the black “hairline” at the top like a severe widow’s peak and curving in the black at the neck to define the belly and face.
3. Add black eyes.
4. Add small white dots to black eyes for a twinkle.
5. Add in little orange beaks.
6. With a very light pink (pink mixed with white) add small checks below the eyes.
7. After penguins have dried completely, spray coat them with mod podge sealer.

Assemble cards

1. Using the template above, print onto cardstock.  (4 will print per page).
2. Cut each page in half and then in half again to form 4 4.25″x5.5″ cards.
3. Use a needle threaded with craft twine to poke through the middle of the valentine (between the two penguins).  Leave a tail, then poke back thru the front of the card 1/2″ over from the first hole to form a horizontal line.  Trim tails so they are about 3″ each.
4. Place penguin between two tails of craft twine, and tie twine in a bow around the penguin’s neck, securing them to the card.
5. Hand out to all your friends!
   

   Patricia added the stickers herself.