During the school closure, over the last few months, I have continued to repair and make new things for the Myatt Garden School Storysacks Library. ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon‘ by Crockett Johnson is such a lovely story – I made the original Storysack and toy Harold back in 2005, it had a crayon activities book and crayons instead of a game and non-fiction book – but the Storysack had been out of action for a while because most of the crayons had gone… so time for an upgrade!

To make the game board I re-drew some of the pictures from the story book in a smaller scale, divided two A4 pieces of card into sections and traced the drawings into the sections using my lightbox. I chose cream card and a ‘Purple violet 136’ Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen Brush to mimic the illustration style of the book. The two pieces of card were then laminated and joined at the back with carpet tape. The crayon counters were made in using stock images as a base.

I love the challenge of finding really interesting non-fiction information books to complement stories… ‘Me on the Map’ by Joan Sweeney was perfect! Introducing children to maps and geography, the little girl shows readers herself on the map of her room, her room on the map of her house, her house on the map of her street, her street on the map of her town, her town on the map of her country, her country (USA) on the map of the world (here I’ve added labelling for UK) and then she explains how to use maps in different ways.

To finish off the sack I made a scenery setting using the same fabric as Harold, painting with fabric paint Pébéo Setacolor Opaque Parma Violet 29. I made a ‘bedsheet’ and sewed it on leaving a gap to slip the Harold doll inside! I also made a ‘crayon’ by painting a piece of fabric sewing it into a tube, stuffing it and then sewing in place in Harolds hand.