Make Me - Halloween mask - Willow the owl

Twit-tooo-woooop de dooooo! Whilst walking to work the other day I frolicked amongst the leaves and 'bing!' it struck me. Fallen, autumnal leaves look a lot like an owl's feathers. So, dear readers here I have fashioned a Willow the owl from The Land of Me mask perfect for Halloween. Follow the easy peasy lemon squeezy tutorial below.



The Bits and Bobs you will need:

1. The Willow owl template from The Land of Me (above)
2. Leaves in all shades of autumn (brown, rust, yellow)
3. A tube o' glue (I used UHU)
4. Yellow and brown felt
5. Child friendly scissors
6. A nice, sharp, pencil
7. A sheet of card
8. Ribbon/elastic/string to attach the mask to a little person's head!

Step 1 - Snip, snip, snip
Click on the template above, print it out on some card (not too thick mind) and then cut out Willow's face and plume ONLY. Stick them together. You need to make the holes for the string/elastic now! So, mums and dads, gently make a hole where indicated on the template and secure your string.

Step 2 - Let's get leafy
This is where the fun starts! Take your leaves and start glueing them to the card. I started with the plume and worked down. Ripping the leaves instead of cutting them to size looks nicer as you get a more natural, ragged edge. Contine to do this until the card is covered.

Step 3 - Beaky beaky
Now cut out the beak from the template. Glue some brown felt to this small piece of card and then stick the tabs to the back of the mask. Now you should see your Willow coming to life!

Step 4 - Eye, eye
Cut out Willow's eye shapes from your yellow felt. Place on the mask then gently feel where the hole is and draw a small circle on the felt. Cut out these little holes and then stick to the mask.

Step 5 - Eh Voila!
You now have a canny owl mask that will be the envy of any Halloween party!

All treat, no tricks with this very special Halloween offer on The Land of Me!

Everyone seems to love a crazy deal these days, right? So, seeing as Halloween is hot on our heels we've decided to give you all a little...treat. For the next week we're offering a downright wicked 50% off The Land of Me. That means you can snag the DVD-ROM for £12.97 (normally £24.95) + P&P, or download for only £9.97 (normally £19.95). Nuts right?

So, if you know of any littl'uns in need of some adventure and fun head over to our shop and enter the code happyhalloween into the discount field at checkout.

Offer ends midnight GMT on 4th November 2011 and only applies to the Family edition.

The Land of Me has just been nominated for a BAFTA!

It's true peeps, Buddy Boo, Eric, Willow and their merry band of friends have been nominated for a British Academy Children's Award (Interactive Category). Needless to say we are utterly thrilled! Up against the fab Moshi Monsters as well as CBBC Hacker & Dodge Pup Stars and The Tate Movie Project, our fingers will be very much crossed from now until the 27th November when the winners will be announced.

In the meantime feel free to send some good luck vibes our way ;)

Does The Land of Me really support learning?

Six months ago Education Scotland introduced The Land of Me to three local authorities as part of a project to rigorously assess its impact on learning and explore the various ways it could be used in and out of the classroom. The results are in...

The following links each represent a blog post created over the course of the project with feedback and opinions from teachers and parents. The project was run by the Consolarium, a team at Education Scotland dedicated to exploring the use of games and technology to enrich and support learning.

1. Early feedback from teachers in Dundee
2. The project kicks off in Argyll & Bute
3. The journey begins
4. Building dens in Templeton Woods
5. Encouraging Outdoor Adventure
6. Planning for good learning
7. A visit from the King of The Land of Me
8. What the parents said
9. Gleeful Children lost in learning

Now that the pilot project has come to a close we'd like to say a big thank you to Derek Robertson at the Consolarium, the Local Authority representatives and everyone involved for all your energy and enthusiasm. What all the teachers, parents and children have done with The Land of Me is breath-taking, inspirational and humbling.

Eric the Raccoon - An early sketch from The Land of Me

We were digging through some old artwork and stumbled across this stunning sketch of Eric the raccoon as a baby, by the very talented Eric Lerner. It gives me the impression of a faint memory, perhaps a tiny piece of Eric's origin story. How did he end up with Granny Olive, an old turtle? Who knows?