When Allie brought home the latest school project I sighed at the prospect.  The task seemed daunting for a second grade project.  She had to choose a U.S. President to report on and create a “bottle buddy” replica of her president she chose.  We had two weeks to complete it. 

We were given a gentle suggestion from the teacher to choose a president that was not George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or Barrack Obama.  The teacher was looking to have some variety in the project.  We Began searching for a president that would spark our little scholar’s interest and search we did.  I suggested my favorite president—Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  We suggested Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Thomas Jefferson and Ulysses S. Grant.  Mr. Bear’s dad’s name is Grant, so we were really pushing for Grant or FDR.  Nothing seemed to suit her.

Finally, she saw the picture of Grover Cleveland and she was sold.  She loved that he was a big guy and she thought he would suit her needs.  Mr. Bear and I couldn’t think of anything concrete that we knew about Grover Cleveland, so we acquiesced.  Grover Cleveland it is!

On the following library day, Allie came home with her Grover Cleveland biography book and she eagerly began learning all she could, while taking notes.  Who is this kid?  She did a Great Job retelling all she could about our 22nd and 24th president, which left the bottle buddy.

According to the instructions, a bottle buddy is made out of a plastic bottle and is fashioned to look like the president of one’s choosing.  We knew right away it was going to be a big project.  I headed over to Michaels and got all the supplies to make our fancy guy.

• Black felt for the suit jacket and pants


• White felt for the white dress shirt


• Styrofoam like these round ones, but chose these egg-shaped ones instead


• Buttons


• Yarn for the hair


• Googly wiggle eyes and we found these creepy ones with a colored iris in green. AWESOME!

We came home with our loot and I immediately questioned how we were going to do this.  Mr. Bear had some great ideas for the head.  I had no ideas.  They began by fashioning yarn “hair” to the Styrofoam egg “head.”  I don’t know how Mr. Bear did it, but it turned out amazing!

I began trying to figure out how to make clothing out of felt to dress a 2 liter bottle.  To say it was a huge task is an understatement, especially since I really didn’t have an experience with making clothes for a beverage bottle.  Try as I might, I was able to come up with some pretty good ideas.  Allie wanted a hat of course and she got it!  I hand sewed all the felt and even made the hat by hand.  It was a lot of work, but it was a success and she loved working on it. 

So, yeah.  Allie’s project became our project.  She did a great job on her project and while my fingers were sore from poking myself with the sewing needle OVER and OVER, it was well-worthwhile!

This is basically what our kitchen island looked like every night for at least a week.

Here is what the outfit ended up looking like—well, before we added the final touch of buttons.

Here is how Mr. Cleveland travelled to school.  Yes, those are plastic shoes in the lower right, from a Halloween pumpkin Mr. Pumpkinhead (a spin-off from Mr. Potatohead).

My silly little girl giving Mr. President a kiss.  What a goof!

She was pretty happy with the finished product!