How to make a snake from Grandpa's old tie

My four grandkids from Arkansas visited us over the holidays. They all have their favorite projects to work on in the studio. Sarah loves, loves, loves to embroider, sew and crochet. Last time she visited she made a belt from one of grandpa's old ties...and boy does he have some funky old ties. This time she did another cool thing with an old tie, she made a snake. She does a lot of crafting and had seen someone make one. When she saw the idea she knew she had to do this with me 'cause ever since she has been around I have had snakes and she loves 'em.

Right now the only snake I have is a 9 ft. Red Tail Boa named Diana, at one time I had four, seems when people find out you like snakes they want to give you theirs, which have usually been housed in a little aquarium for a year or two. So guess you could say I adopt snakes. By the way Diana has spacious quarters, and is taken for a walk quite often.



This project is a great way to recycle grandpa's or dad's old ties and it is very simple.

All you need is stuffing material, we used polyester fiberfill ( same thing you use to stuff a pillow)...you could also try wads of old material, plastic bags or even sand.
I happen to have quite a collection of google eyes, you can get both the google eyes and the polyester fiberfill at any craft store, the eyes may also be painted on or sew on some button eyes.
For the forked tongue we used two different colors of felt which can be glued or sewn on .
Sarah also decided some silver net material I had was perfect for the tail of her snake so she used safety pins to attach it. She also cut some of the length off of her snake because she got tired of stuffing the darn thing. Smart kid!!!!

It never ceases to amaze me how creative kids can be. I mentioned brainstorming in an earlier post, but I would really like to stress how important I feel that is, not only do the kids feel good about themselves because they have such great ideas but it gives you, Rowdy Grandma, a little insight into how their little minds work.....fascinating!!