Props: Chimney Sweep

This year we decided to be “old school” characters from Mary Poppins for the Oscars party. Most of the pieces were just assembling items from our closet. But there were two key things we needed — the Chimney Sweep prop that Bert carries, and the hat that Mary wears. Here’s how I made the chimney sweep.

I saw this post on Instructables: https://www.instructables.com/id/Chimney-Sweeper-Prop-Like-in-Mary-Poppins/

So off I went to my local Joann Fabrics, to see what I could find that would work. The key find was chenille stems in black (think long pipe-cleaners). No need for paint. The second find was in the garage — black cardboard from a wine carrier. Maybe some touch up paint or even just a sharpie on the edges. The third key piece was a replacement shovel handle at Home Depot.

The wine carrier box had convenient pre-cut rounds (I guess for a tall bottle to stick out), which just popped out to use as the centers. They are about 1.5″ in diameter, so not too big. I colored the edges with a sharpie.

Then I glued down a total of 16 stems to each of the two rounds. Once the glue was set, I then glued them together.

Since the circles were just slightly larger than the end of the shovel handle, I opted to screw the assembly into the handle. This not only makes it easier to keep together, it makes it easy to undo for packing.

The final prop: