Monday, April 11, 2011

Lets go fly a kite....

up to the highest height and send it soaring. That song has been stuck in my head since yesterday! Why you ask? Well my daughter's science project is to make a homemade kite. This was exciting! I do love a fun project ya know. So we set out on Saturday and bought the supplies:

 Two dowels
 a yard of fabric
 half a yard of coordinating fabric
 ribbon
 yarn
 twine

 First we crossed the two dowels together to form the "bones" of the kite:
 now make sure they are perfectly aligned (meaning they are the same length on all sides). Hold together by wrapping the yarn around the center.

 Now onto the pretty part of the kite. Make a diamond and fold the edges over to hem:
 You NEED to make sure all sides are symmetrical! This is a must apparently. Ours doesn't fly very good because one side is slightly different from the other. Darn!!

 After we hemmed the sides. We made a bunch of ruffles to go around the edges. See ruffle making HERE.
Then we added a tail with some bows on it. Then we took four pieces of ribbon and sewed them on the four corners of the kite to hold the dowels in place. We also added some ribbon trim all around the edges of the front and back.


 She sure is pretty! Too bad her flying is limited!

Up in the air for about three seconds before she crashes down. Lesson we learned: all sides NEED to be symmetrical, we probably used too many decorations, thus making it too heavy, and finally all sides need to be equally balanced. Good thing it doesn't need to fly for her project grade. Well at least it was a good learning lesson and she sure does look purty!! Maybe we will hang it on the wall of her bedroom as decor. See the kite has some use!



Michelle
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4 comments:

Sarah, Three Boys said...

Oh I love it!! Gorgeous!

An Oasis in the Desert said...

That is really cool. You almost never see anyone flying kites anymore, at least not around here. When my kiddoes (now married adults with kiddoes of their own) were, well kiddoes, their grade school had a kite building contest every year. They had rules & regs, like they could only be made with paper & wood or tubing & string. Our son won the most innovative when he was in 3rd grade. He designed his kite in the shape of glasses & painted it to look like those googly-eyed comic glasses. That hung on his bedroom wall for a number of years. Sadly (or maybe not), it wouldn't fly. Oh such memories.
CAS

Shirley Fachilla said...

My daughter loved kites for awhile. I would love to paint some children flying kites. And your kite is, of course, as the saying goes, "as pretty as a picture!"

Unknown said...

Very cute! My kids love kites and they are such an inexpensive from of entertainment. Found you at the Tip Junkie.

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