Recycling and Blog Surfing = New Work for Little Bro

Ribbons tied to a piece of shelving for weaving work...
Little Bro practicing his weaving...for some reason, he turned the shelving around so that he worked from right to left...think he preferred it this way, as he seemed to find it easier to pull the ribbons through...




A few days ago, I was getting caught up with reading various blogs.

Was getting pumped for the Continents Swap - FABRICS that Jo Ebisujima set up for us...so, after reading her most recent A Bit of This and a Bit of That posts, I did a little surfing on her blog and happened to stumble upon a weaving work she had set up for her son a while back.

Here is her post to which I am referring:
http://jojoebi.blogspot.com/2008/03/ribbon-weaving-and-coloured-box-walk.html

Well, recently, I had decided to try to make some new work out of materials that we have laying around the house...

My Dear Hubby had some leftover white wire shelving laying in the garage and all of a sudden, it hit me that I could use these for the weaving work!

So, if on the off chance you have some shelving laying around, you can either do the work like Jo set it up for her son, using a level piece of the shelving, clothes pins, and a basket of ribbons of different lengths. Her son was able to sit on the floor with a mat underneath , and the shelving sat at a perfect height for him to work comfortably on the floor.

Or, if you have an uneven shelf piece like what we have, you can adapt this work a bit:
Directions to make the work:
1. Cut all of the ribbons to be the same length.
I used ribbon from the dollar section at Target. They were already pre-cut to be the same length, and the length just happened to work out perfectly for the size shelving we had.
2. Before you start using the shelving, make sure that you have rubber safety caps at the ends, as the cut edges are sharp and need to be covered. You may wish to Super Glue these caps onto the shelving.
In addition, if there are any rough edges anywhere else on the shelving, you should be sure to have those covered with either masking tape or electrical tape.
3. Tie the ribbons to one end of the wire shelving.
4. If you had presented weaving to your child, you could then set the work out and let them get right to it...
If not, you may want to do a brief presentation to your child so that they get how to weave.
5. When they have completed their work, Give your child a flexible ruler and have them take the ruler and run it under all of the ribbons, by the base of the shelving, near where they are tied to the shelving.
6. Then, have them flip all of the ribbons so that the work is all ready for another day or for another user.

Little Bro loved doing this work!

Actually, Big Bro, who had been very focused on his own work, stopped and did a few double takes at Little Bro's work. I have a feeling that he will be taking this off the shelf soon, too.

So, thanks to Jojo Ebi and all of her creativity! My sons thank you, too!