As I mentioned in my last post, yesterday I went to the flea market and one of the things I got was the Chicken Socks: How to Make Pompom Animals book/kit for $1. I thought it was new, but in reality it’d been used (though clearly gently), and there is only enough materials left to make perhaps half the animals depicted in the book. Too bad, because Camila (who slept so late this morning I didn’t send her to school) and I just spent about 45 minutes making 3 of those animals, and she had a great time.
The kit is aimed to the younger crowd (4+ yo) and the animals are simple enough to be able to be made by kids without any help. The kit basically consists of pompoms of four different sizes and a bunch of woogly eyes, as well as some cardboard die cuts for wings and things of the sort. All a child has to do is glue the things together. The kit comes with a glue stick, but, perhaps because the kit was used, we didn’t find the glue sticky enough for the pompoms. Regular glue didn’t do it either, so we resorted to using our glue gun – that works very well, though it gets a little messy with strings of glue going everywhere and there is always the risk of burns. I wouldn’t recommend it for kids younger than 5.
In all, Camila really enjoyed making the animals and she’s looking forward to playing with them (let’s see if she actually does so). Would I pay $10 for the kit, what it retails for? Maybe for a gift, it seems to expensive for a bunch of pompoms otherwise – but I’m got we got what we got.

Tomorrow is my birthday and I’m celebrating it today, Sunday. We started by going to La Note for breakfast, and followed it with a visit to the flea market. I was planning on giving myself a home spa in the afternoon, so I was very happy to find a Conair Body Benefits Bubbling Foot Spa for $5 (I didn’t bargain) – the model seems to be discontinued, but newer versions sell for around $18. So it wasn’t a bad deal. This foot spa doesn’t get particularly good reviews, as it fails to keep the water warm for longer, but in reality all I wanted was a bucket wide enough for my feet, so the vibration and bubbling actions, imperfect as they are, are just bonuses. I had my first soak today and it was quite relaxing – I put some peppermint oil in the water and my feet were quite soft when I was done. So I’m happy and it’s a good birthday present to me.
There is a lady at the flea market that sells fun toys very cheap – I mostly go to the flea market to check out what she has. This time I got a Chicken Socks: How to Make Pompom Animals book kit, completely new, for $1 (retails for $10), an Into The Forest – An Educational Food Chain Game, also for $1 (retails for at least $15), which also seems to be brand new, and an older model of the Tomy Mr. Mouth Game (paid $2, retails for $11.50). The box had been opened, and the previous owner had nicely provided us with a battery, but the plastic bag with the bees had never been opened, so the game clearly had never been played. Pretty cool. I really love that stall!