A CHRISTMAS HOOTY TALE

This is a little story about some of the residents who live on Hooty Street.

It is a fashionable street on the nice side of town and attracts many admiring glances from passers-by.

It is the kind of street where people move to raise their owlets and then never leave.

Here, at number sixteen, live Red and Ken.

They have recently married and this is the first house they have purchased together.  

Red loves kitsch vintage and Ken likes anything blue...they have very different tastes. Sometimes Red gets annoyed that Ken is sooo conservative in his decorating. Especially when she is the one who has to do it, as he is not very handy (or should that be wingy) at DIY. She hopes that with a little coaxing he can learn to love her 1950's plastic pineapple and retro cushions.

Ken hasn't told Red that he has already taken the pineapple to the charity shop!

However, given time to sort out the wrinkles, they will have a long and happy life together on Hooty Street.

Next, onto number Twelve. This is the house belonging to Daphne and Raymond McTooty, and their owlets Janey, George and baby Pickle.
 Janice is jealous of Red and Ken and their beautifully designed house. She remembers when she and Raymond were so excited to be moving into their own house together. They had a wonderful time buying second-hand furniture and up-cycling it into something gorgeous. But since her three owlets came along, there hasn't been time to scour the thrift shops, and what furniture they did have hasn't worn too well with three pairs of claws jumping up and down on it.

  She would love to be the kind of mother owl whose house is a monument to taste, but she can't help filling it with all the artwork her owlets are so excited to give her. And they are prolific painters!

Finally, I'd love to introduce you to Margaret and Barry at number Fourteen. Their owlets have grown up and left the nest some time ago.  They look at the other owls with a mixture of nostalgia and thankfulness that they were able to raise their family in such a lovely place.

Margaret always make mouse fudge for her neighbours at Christmas. She takes some to Red and admires her house. She drops off an extra large portion to the McTootys and sympathises with Daphne's problems: Pickle is teething ,and Janey has turned into a moody teenager overnight.

Then she flaps back to her house and settles down with Barry in front of the TV. They each have a large egg nog and watch 'Dancing With Owls'. They sigh with contentment.

And peace descends on Hooty Street.

HOLIDAY PROJECTS 3. Hooty owls

Now technically this isn't my craft project but Mr Lemon Drizzle's - he spent a few happy hours with the kidlets making these owls. So I can't really give you a complete tutorial, sorry (I was probably busy checking out the blogosphere...) but he says they are very easy and I did catch a few pointers.

The body of the owl is made from that old trusty piece of craft equipment, a toilet roll tube - what would we do without them? Each is cut to size (these owlets are half a tube high) then carefully pinched inwards from opposing sides at the top, before taping together to create the owl's tufts. (I was going to say 'ears' but I'm sure owls ears are flat to their heads...I could be wrong!)
He used cupcake cases for the tummys (each cupcake case was cut into quarters, and then the point of each quarter trimmed away before sticking on in layers) and then cut out two circles for eyes and a triangle of orange for a beak. It's then a half-circle of brown craft paper for the wings (or two halves of a cupcake cases for a snowy owl) and 'Hooty McTooty!' - we had a barnful of owls!

Big kidlet gets very excited when she makes things, and her first question is invariably: "Will you put it on your blog?" She kindly made name tags for them all so you wouldn't get confused as to who is who. ('Floot' rhymes with 'Toot').