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Personalized Pencils

Personalized pencils and a pouch for dad to store them in are an easy Father's Day gift idea that even the littlest hands can help make.

Materials needed:

• Plain lead pencils
• Textured tape
• Alphabet rub-ons
• Scissors
• Popsicle stick
• Felt
• Embroidery thread and needle

To make:

Wrap the textured tape around the end of each pencil to add a little color.  Cut the end allowing a little overlap.

Next, using the popsicle stick, very carefully rub over the top of the rub-on letters.  There are lots of possibilities here.  You can send a message to dad, or have each of the children's names on each pencil, or rub small images of things dad loves onto each pencil.

To make the pouch, lay each pencil side by side on a piece of felt that has been doubled over.  Allow an extra 6-7mm  on each side and the bottom, as well as an extra 3-4cm for the length of the back piece only.  Cut your felt.  This is where mom needs to help, using the embroidery thread and needle sew the sides and bottom of the pencil pouch together.  Using the scissors round out or cut a triangle into the long back piece so that it can be tucked neatly inside the pouch to keep the pencils secure.  Or you can add a button, press stud or velcro so that the long piece secures on the outside of the pouch.

AS SEEN ON:

Spearmint Baby ... Coocachoo ... LeapFrog Community

Handmade Teddy Bear Ear Headband

Hmm, I think I promised to post the tutorial for the teddy bear ears from the twins birthday party a week ago.  Oops.

Without further ado.

Step 1:

Cut out the pieces of felt required:

• 1 long strip to make a sleeve for the headband - measure the width of the headband, double it and add an extra 5mm for stitching.  Measure the length and do the same.
• the large part of the ear - Cut a piece of paper to the correct shape and use that as a template.  You will need 4 of these per headband.
• the small inner section of the ear - as above, however you will only need 2 of these per headband.

Step 2:

Stitch the long sides of the sleeve together using an over-edge stitch (either using the sewing machine or by hand).   Pull the sleeve over the headband, fold the ends over and stitch by hand.

Step 3:

Stitch the inner ear to the outer ear.  Then stitch the back and front of each ear together.  Use a couple of strands of embroidery thread. 

Step 4:

Put a small amount of stuffing in each ear.  This is to help the ears stand up and fill them out a little so they don't flop over when stitched to the headband.

Step 5:

Stitch each ear to the sides of the headband.  Stitch as close to the edge of the headband as you can.  If you stitch the back and front of the headbands close together the ear will most likely flop.

And there you have it.

I purchased the plain white headbands from Amazon.  They are $17 for 50.  I found this to be the most cost effective way to do a large number of these, plus I have a lot of headbands left over for future craft projects.

These would make a great Halloween gift for your child to hand out to their classmates at school, or as party hats, which is what we did.

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As seen on:

Crescendoh ... The Crafty Crow

Teddy Bear Picnic Felt Creation

Inspired by the twins upcoming Bears and Bees Birthday Party I made this new felt creation for them.

Do your kids love felt creations as much as mine do?

Tip: draw around cookie cutters using a fabric marker to make your felt shapes - this works great if you have cookie cutters of dinosaurs, sea creatures, zoo animals, numbers and letters.

Teddy Bear Picnic Party Invitation

The twins are having a teddy bear picnic for their birthday party this year.  They also requested we have bees too.  I'm not quite sure where that request came from, but now they are having a bears and bees party ... picnic style.

The invitations are going out this week.  They would have gone out last week, but my initial idea of handmade jigsaw puzzles were ... let's just say ... thwarted by a pair of 3 year olds wielding paint brushes and a bowl of water.

I think these turned out much cuter than the handmade jigsaw puzzles anyway.

I had been carrying around these canvas book covers for years.  When I say years, I mean we've moved house 3 times.  I had initially purchased them to use as class gifts when Jay was in elementary school.

To use them as the cover for the invitations I hand drew and painted a bumble bee to match the one I did on the photo board and printed it on transfer paper to iron onto the front of the book cover.  Then using a fabric paint pen added the smaller details.  Inside I put a little felt bear peeking out of one side and the invitation with a map of the party location on the other side.

 

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Colgate Invisible Nasties

Colgate have launched an Invisible Nasties campaign to let parents know why toothbrushes should be changed every 3 months - and of course we all want to encourage our kids to brush often to keep those invisible nasties at bay.  To help promote this campaign, some crafty bloggers (including myself) were asked to come up with invisible nasties craft projects with our kids.  You will be able to view all of the invisible nasties campaign projects here.

My kids absolutely love Felt Creations.  I had purchased them a few sets a couple of years ago when I was holidaying in Australia and ever since I've been itching to make some new pieces to add to their ever expanding pile of felt scenes and this gave me the perfect opportunity.   When I suggested this to the kids they were over the moon.

So with their help (which involved telling me what to do and what colors to use and how many items I required ... they're very pushy), we came up with these:

(All background images - board, pond, foliage, house, sun & clouds were part of their existing sets)

Marisol insists that I make more tooth family members to include Grandma and Grandpa for the above storyboard.

(All background images - board, bed, girl/boy, teddy bear and nighttime window were part of their existing sets)

I was so happy with how the invisible nasties pyjama set and the vanity with sink and bathroom items turned out.  Marisol and Flynn were thrilled with their look-alike felt dolls.

And it's not an invisible nasties project without a few nasties to play with.

This particular board I hand-made.  They are really easy to do.  Once it was made I painted a brick wall on the bottom section.  Here are the directions:

Materials:

Felt

Spray adhesive

Board - stiff cardboard from a packing box, ply-wood or in my case I used an off-cut from a framing mat

Directions:

These are the steps I used to create the new brushing teeth before bedtime scene, invisible nasties and the tooth family.

Items required:

Felt

Fabric paint - you can also use felt markers

paper and pencil - to make a stencil

To make:

Draw the images to be created on paper and cut out to use as a stencil on the felt.

Once the main image has been cut out, use a washable fabric marker or pencil to draw outlines on each item

Paint and let dry.

You can make all kinds of fabulous felt scenes for your kids and it's a great way to use up any scraps of felt you have laying around.

For information on encouraging your children to brush and for handy tips and advice, please visit  Colgate Kids.

How do you teach your kids about oral hygiene? Feel free to link back to your own blog posts in the comments below, I'd love to see them.

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As seen on:

Skimbaco Lifestyle  ...  My Delicious Ambiguity

 

Disclosure: This Invisible Nasties campaign was sponsored by Collective Bias

The Little Monster Puppet Show

Me: "Marisol can I have a kiss please"

Marisol: "a kiss for a craft project"

Yes, that's right I was being blackmailed by a 3 year old. 

Thankfully grandma in Australia came to the rescue and sent a special Easter parcel to the kids.  Inside was another Figtree Hollow Crafts and Homewares kit.  This time it contained some "Monstrous Fun".  So I popped out to Best Buy and picked up the Monsters Inc. DVD and we spent 3 days on and off (in between trips to the park because the weather was so fabulous this week) working on this special project.

The kit came with everything the kids needed to make these puppets:

Unfortunately though my kids are only 3 so these particular puppets were a little too hard for them to replicate so I delved into my stash of bits and pieces and put together a little pile of wool scraps, felt pieces (which I cut up to make hats, boots, hair etc) and more googly eyes and then let the kids decide how they wanted their puppets to look.  While they crafted they watched Monsters Inc for inspiration and occasionally told me that they wanted their monster to look like one they had seen in the movie so I cut out a few more bits and pieces along the way.

Their finished creations:

Of course I had to take over from this point to stitch the puppets together.

MARISOL'S PUPPETS:

 
FLYNN'S PUPPETS:

And what should one do once they've made such adorable little monster puppets?  One must put on a puppet show.

We have had this little cardboard puppet theater for a couple of years (thank you Shannon).  It's from Ikea.  The kids hadn't used it often.  I think they had forgotten it was there, hiding amongst their toys.  So we set it up on their lemonade stand outside (which apparently needs to be cleaned - see things aren't perfect around here).  They practiced singing their favorite songs with their puppets and they plan on putting on a show for daddy when he gets home.  Shhh, it's going to be a surprise.

By the way, I got my kiss.

This is a great idea to save for a monster themed birthday party or for a Halloween party.  

Here is a Figtree Hollow Crafts and Homewares kit we have done previously: Mask-arade Kit

Preschool Christmas Fun

School is out for the year ... preschool that is.  The kids finished the year with a party, of course.

A few of the parents (including myself) contributed supplies for a fun Christmas project.  Ice-cream cones Christmas trees decorated in icing, marshmallows and teddy's.  Apparently my kids were not interested in doing this activity, instead choosing to fill their ice-cream cone with icing and dig it out with their fingers

And they gave us gifts:

ornaments for our tree.

Of course we had gifts for everyone too.

Gift cards for the teachers in handmade (yes by me) felt envelopes

and for the children in their class I put together a 'Winter Wonderland' craft kit - after all I didn't want to do anything specific to Christmas because there are families of different faiths.

My kids had a great time making theirs today.

(Marisol's, mine and Flynn's)

As seen on:

Tip Junkie

Handmade Play Room Banner

I absolutely adore all of the fun birthday and holiday banners I've seen floating around the internet.  Shouldn't every day be a celebration though?

I decided to make a banner for the kids play room.

This banner is very simple to make, but seeing as it was all hand-stitched it took a lot of time too. Thank goodness for DVR'd movies.

What you will need:

• Felt board
• Felt
• Patterned fabric
• Patterned-edge and straight scissors
• Fabric marker
• Embroidery thread and needle
• Hooks
• Rope

To make:

Cut large triangles out of the felt board (the board is much larger and more stiff than the regular felt sheets you can purchase).

I used a simple word document to make the letters the size I wanted, printed them and cut them out to make the stencils.

Lay the stencil on felt and very carefully draw around it using a fabric marker. Cut it out.

Wash, dry and iron your fabric.  Using jagged-edge scissors cut a triangle a little smaller than the one you cut using the felt board.

Hand stitch the fabric to the felt board and the felt letters on top of that.

The banner I made is double-sided so once each individual triangle was finished I stitched a triangle to the back of it - just make sure you don't stitch a 'P' to a 'P' or the reverse side will be backwards.

Use a hole punch to make holes in the top corners of each triangle.  Thread the rope through and attach them to the hooks.

Handmade Felt Vase

As most of you know (who read my blog regularly), I have a 3 year old girlie girl.  She loves flowers, pink, butterflies, dancing, hosting tea parties for her toys and dressing up as a princess.

Whilst Halloween shopping last month I found some green Daisy Reeds at Pier 1 Imports and thought they would look beautiful in her bedroom.  The only problem, I didn't want to put a glass vase in her room because undoubtedly it would be smashed in no time ... either by her carrying her vase of flowers up and down the stairs repeatedly or by her brother hitting it with his hammer.

My solution. To make a vase.

So using sheets of felt, fabric scraps, a button and embroidery thread I started cutting and sewing.

To keep the vase sturdy .. afterall it is felt ... I placed an empty 8.75oz plastic herb container inside.  That not only keeps her Daisy Reeds from falling over, but if she has some fresh flowers to put in her vase, we can put a little water in it too.

As seen on:

One Pretty Thing / 10marifet.org / Craft Gossip

THE BIRDIE BAG

While the kids are at school, mummy gets her craft on.

I picked up the plain green, ready-made felt bag in the clearance section of (I think it was) Michaels quite a few months ago for 50 cents. 

Marisol is an avid collector of bags (a trait she obtained from me) … something that daddy is not happy about, especially when she goes from 50 cent bags to $500 bags in the years to come.

The plain green bag needed to be prettied up a little.

So armed with:

• the green bag
• a pink fat quarter
• white felt
• embroidery thread
• a needle
• black fabric paint
• and a paintbrush

I set to work.

I did a rough sketch of what I wanted to put on the bag.

I cut out a template and then used a fabric pen to draw the outline onto the fat quarter and felt before cutting.

Then I hand stitched the bird and her pretty wing onto the bag. 

Done!