DIY Rainclouds and “Ivy and the Lonely Raincloud”

“Ivy and the Lonely Raincloud” by Katie Harnett

With her previous books of “Archie Snufflekins Oliver Valentine Cupcake Tiberous” and now this one Katie is fast becoming a personal favorite of mine.   I just adore everything about this book from the gorgeous color palatte, to the personality-filled characters, to the endearing story that pulls on your emotions.

It is the story of a little girl and a lonely raincloud who are both sad for different reasons.  In fact, her sorrow is what draws the little raincloud to her because he was on search for a friend to cure his loneliness and thought that maybe she was lonely too.  Although the cause of her frustration was not loneliness, the little raincloud was able to find a way to help her and through that they both became fast friends and both of them were able to find joy and be content again.  Seriously a charming book and one of my favorites released so far this year.

Click here to purchase “Ivy and the Lonely Raincloud” *affiliate link

DIY Rainclouds inspired by “Ivy and the Lonely Raincloud”

The little raincloud in this book was such a cute character that I just had to recreate our own version of him.  I love his painted “fluff” and his little black eyes, but my favorite feature is his little rain shower that follows him wherever he goes in the book.

The rainclouds we made are made of paper and also have painted “fluff”, black faces, and their own rain shower made of yarn fringe that follows them around everywhere.  They are super easy to make (following my true fashion) and I am even sharing the cloud template for them that I made below.  (Free for personal and educational use.)

supplies:

• white card stock with the cloud template printed on it (HERE: cloud template)
• scissors
• hole puncher
• colored yarn (Any colors really. We chose grey, white and blue.)
• paint brushes
• water color paints
• black marker

process:

1. Using the black marker draw a face on your cloud and then paint it however you’d like using watercolors.  (note: use low amounts of water so as to not warp your paper)
2. Cut out your cloud template (HERE:cloud template) and using a hole punch create a line of holes all along the straight bottom of the cloud.
3. Eyeball the length of the yarn for your cloud and then use that as a standard for all the yarn strands you cut.  (Ours was about a foot long.)  After you attach it to a hole by placing both ends of the yarn through the hole at the same time (but not pulling all the way) and then looping those ends down through the yarn left on the opposite side of the template.
4. Pull the ends taught through that loop and it should be secured with at the top with the two ends hanging down freely.  Continue this process until you have yarn in all your holes.
5. (optional) Lastly, free-cut the bottom of the yarn with scissors to make the rain shower come at a slant.  This results in a diagonal line finish at the end of your yarn with one side being longer than the other.  (See image below)

This was easily one of my toddler’s favorite book crafts that we have done to date.  My oldest one especially was enchanted.  He poured his heart and soul into the creation of his cloud and then when it was done he ran around our house excitedly waving around while exclaiming, “Look momma! It’s raining inside! It’s raining inside!”  SO cute!  You can display them by hanging them on the wall or anywhere really and they are sure to bring some rainy day fun into your lives.

If you give this Beyond the Book activity a try I’d love to hear how it goes! Share it on Instagram using hashtag #beyondthebook (I’m on Instagram as @book.nerd.mommy) or even just comment here with your thoughts. It would make my day! Or to simply save for later pin the image below.