Close Your Clothes!

I made this activity book for Lara's birthday. It's made out of old clothes and some Freecycled fabric, and has pages of clothes-fastener activities with facing pages featuring poems about the fasteners. The pages are each stuffed with two layers of felt I had around the house. I cropped the poems (which I wrote) out the pictures, but I am transcribing them under each page. I'm so happy with how it came out! Good thing too, because it took fo-e-vah to make. Why is everything I do so laborious? I think I must just be a very laborious person. Anyway:







“Buttons are delightful doodads,”
Says a fishwife who reviews shads.
“They will last through any new fads,”
States a pair of kangaroo lads
To their neighbor, Marilou Gladds.

Adds famed button expert Clay Kee:
“If you snub them when you wakey,
Then you’re making a mistakey,
Coming to eat breakfast nakey!”



There are two sides to a zipper,
Each side full of little teeth –
As you pull the slider upward,
They’re connecting underneath!

These small teeth are not for chewing
(That your own teeth do with ease) –
These teeth keep you warm and toasty,
Even in a frosty breeze!



Let’s unwrap
The word “snap”:
It can be a beatnik clap,
Or a fish biting a scrap,
Or some sudden colder weather that requires a shoulder wrap,
Or a cookie made of ginger that can break in a mishap,
Or an angry little yap,
A quick photo of a chap,
Or a football hiked behind from beneath the center’s lap
Or a task so that is so easy it’s like taking a short nap!



Old MacDonald had a farm (E-I-E-I-O!)
And on his farm he worked quite hard (E-I-E-I-O!)
He herded his sheep, and he milked his cows,
Tended chickens, walked his dog,
Every night went for a jog!

Old MacDonald one fine day (E-I-E-I-O!)
Didn’t buckle his overalls all the way (E-I-E-I-O!)
How his animals laughed when his pants fell down
Cows said MOO-ha! Pigs said OINK-ha!
And his doggie barked a WOOF-WOOF-ha-ha!



They sent a new dress to the Duchess of Veldt,
A dress that was loose and too baggy, she felt.
To make it fit better and make her seem svelte,
The shrewd Duchess cinched up her waist with a belt!



A man and his dog were out walking one day
Through a field of dry grass that looked kind of like hay.
Then later he petted his doggie’s soft fur
Where a grass seed was stuck, a seed known as a burr.

He looked at the seed – it was covered in hooks
That held tight to the dog hair’s looped crannies and nooks.
Inspired, he made hook and loop strips to use
As buckles (called Velcro) for everyone’s shoes.



The silky curls and swirls in Lara’s hair
Are golden, hazel, auburn – scarcely brown –
When loose, they gleam in ribbons in midair,
Twisting themselves into a copper crown
Of knots and tangles that a comb despair;
It’s better in the wind to clip them down.