Rattitude

I’ve complained often how hard it is to find cute rat and mouse “stuff”.  Well, I can usually find things online, but I’ve pretty much never just walked into a random store and saw a cute rat or mouse thing that I just had to have.

Halloween always gets me in a tizzy at work, going through all our halloween decorations, trying to find a rat in there somewhere.

Sadly, when I do find rats they are usually skeezy rats, not cute ones.

Well, yesterday I was flipping through some gel clings at work.  Skull.  Bat.  Pumpkin, cat, mouse, skull, bat.

WAIT!  Did I just see a mouse?

I did see a mouse.  I found 2 of them actually.  And they are even cute in their own way.  Not adorable cute, but not skeezy at all.  I just HAD to buy them.

They were only $1 a piece, and with my employee discount I got them both for $1.61.

I had no idea where I was going to stick them, since I don’t have any glass in the rat room, and was worried that if I stuck them to the wall they might damage the paint.

Well, before I had left work yesterday I had decided they are going to live in my bedroom with me.  Two cute mice living on my bedroom mirror.

Suziblu recently posted the video Project Suzi: Ornaments asking you to make a “Fur Baby Tree.”

While she decorated a lovely small tree with handmade ornaments and flowers, I did something a little different.

I call it my Christmouse Tree.

Supplies:
Christmas Tree Cutout (I used wood)
Heart shapes (I used wood)
Acrylic paint (crayon can be used for children.)
Stickers and/or rub ons

You can’t really tell from the bad scan, but the green of the tree and the gold of the trunk are both shimmery metallic paints.  The mice are wooden hearts painted with acrylic paint, a pom-pom nose and sharpie for the eyes and whiskers.  The christmas lights are stickers, and the little mouse sitting at the bottom of the tree waiting for Santa Paws to come is a rub on.

Drusilla on Rat Space and The Art of the Illustrated Rat shared some squeaky cute rat coloring pages for halloween.  She said I could share them here as well, and I meant to share them sooner, but didn’t get around to it until now.

I’ve also added them to my Free Rat Craft Patterns page.

I would LOVE to see some finished products from the things I have shared there.  If you (or your little ones) make or color anything from that page feel free to e-mail me a picture of the finished project at mail4rats@gmail.com and I’ll even share it on the blog!

But…halloween rat coloring pages are:

There is a definite wrongness to this yet oddly enough I still kind of want one.

You can purchase the Pattern or the Finished Product at The Crafty Hedghogs Etsy shop.

The #1 search that brings people to my blog is Giant Rats.  The second one is Rat Crafts so I thought I’d share another rat craft with you today.

This one is a Rat or Mouse head made out of a wooden heart and other simple craft things.  A cute craft for kids, it can be made into a pin or a magnet to stick on your fridge.  Here is the one I made:

Want ot make one?  Here are the instructions that I found at familycorner.com

You can see where I’ve added a few comments of my own.

What You Need

wooden heart
1 black skinny chenille stem
2 small wiggle eyes
1 miniature pink pom pom
gray and pink paint
hot glue gun (I used Aleene’s tacky glue instead, though the glue gun would have been quicker)
pin back or magnet
scissors

What you do

Paint the wooden heart gray and let dry. (I painted mine black, and of course you can paint yours whatever color you see fit, even if you want a purple rat with green polka dots) Repeat for a second coat if needed.

Cut the chenille stem into six 1.5″ pieces.

Glue the pink pom pom to the point of the heart for the nose.

Glue three of the chenille whiskers to the left side of the nose and the other three on the right. (My heart must have been smaller than theirs cause there was no way I was getting that many whiskers on that mouse)

Glue the two wiggle eyes around the middle of the heart, above the nose.

Use pink paint to add the pink in the ears (in the humps of the heart).

Glue either a magnet or a pin back to the back of your rodent.

Editor’s note: You can use a foam heart instead of wood, try brown, black or white as gray is difficult to locate.

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If you liked this craft, check out the others I have shared at my Free Rat Craft Patterns page.  Its a collection of links I’ve found on the web for rat and mouse related crafts.

If you (or your children) do one of them e-mail me the finished product and any comments to mail4rats@gmail.com and I will share it here on my blog!

Mary Redford, a friend from the yahoo group Blind Swap ATCS, Shared this adorable jointed paper doll rat with us.

She made this adorable jointed paper doll rat from a pattern for a stuffed rat for the yahoo group Making Dollz.

Aren’t they both adorable?

If you would like to make a stuffed rat doll of your own, the pattern for this fellow called “ROLAND LE RATTE” can be found at THIS LINK.

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If you make a cloth (or paper) rat doll of your own, we would love to see it!  Send any rattie arts/crafts pictures to me at mail4rats@gmail.com and I will share them in future entries.