My Star Mouse

Here for you today is another craft done by my very talented and dearly missed Grandma Lucy. This is a door stop dressed up to look like a mouse. My grandmother found this craft on a trip she and my mother took one summer. My grandmother copied the craft but improved upon the original design with a few minor modifications.

The original craft she found was about 2 ft tall. The body form and main weight of the object was made with a 2 liter bottle. My grandmother filled it about a little more than half way full with sand and then stuffed the top with plastic bags. She then covered it with a sock. To the bottom she applied a piece of felt. The top head piece is one large styrofoam bottle with a small hole on the bottom where it fits onto the bottle cap. The cheeks are made with smaller size styrofoam balls. My grandmother would then sew the dresses for the mice. She and my mother came up with all different kinds of themes for the mice. Sports teams, birthdays, easter, christmas, halloween theme material lined her closets. My mother enjoyed helping by applying all the facial features and accessories of the different mice. I still remember our trips to the craft store to find the tiny eyeglasses and hunt for more special trinkets for them to each hold. They held such things as footballs, basketballs, baskets, presents, teddy bears, and flowers.

The project I have pictured here was a special theme designed just for me. This version is quite a bit smaller than the original. It measures to just short of 12 inches, was made with a 32 oz plastic bottle and is more suited to being a decoration. My grandmother also made a smaller version using an 8 oz plastic bottle.