This little cake can be all yours!
Yep I guess it makes me a bad blog mommy but our blog turned one with no acknowledgment on my part.
It’s been one year (and 9 days) since we started our little blog baby and my how it has grown. Our first month we had 820 page views and now we average 20,000+ per month! So to celebrate our blogs big milestone we want to give one of you a gift. This little felt cake hand sewn by yours truly will be sent free of charge to one lucky reader!
2 weeks from today on April 2nd we will randomly pick one name from our Facebook fan page so fan us now! Thank you all so much for your support, your kind comments, and your visits! Here’s to many more!
Click HERE for link … and good luck!
After the sixth or seventh time my daughter turned to me and said ‘We gotta get that!’ while watching cartoons this morning I had enough and suggested we head to the play kitchen. Spending the next hour or so playing with her large collection of felt food I realized what a respite homemade toys really are. In a world dominated by advertising where children are viewed as simple marketing opportunities, handmade toys don’t ask you to collect the whole set or sing along to their jazzy theme songs, all they ask is that you use some imagination and leave the batteries behind.
I feel comforted in knowing that my grandchildren will not have to ask “what’s that?” when they play with the wool felt carrots I have created as they will with the Teletubbies, Sponge Bobs, and Dora the Explorers. Don’t get me wrong these toys have their place but not every toy needs to have a logo or Television programs’ name slapped on its side.
In a world of mass machine production where our childrens’ toys are made thousands of miles away in foreign countries by unknown people under unknown conditions with unknown materials there is something wonderful about a handmade toy. A link to the past and a promise for the future. Well make playthings with lasting value that transcend fads and corporate marketing schemes.
Handmade toys have a unique character and story that can’t be said of mass-produced hunks of plastic. Each detail is a choice lovingly made, each stitch an act of love. I can’t promise that my daughter will treasure or even keep her handmade toys forever but I can be certain that looking at pictures of her childhood she will have a story to tell about the toys her mama made her.
These toys don’t come with stories they create them, they quietly sit back and let your child be the star of playtime, they don’t suggest you memorize all their names, instead they become part of lifelong memories.
I just thought I would share a little of my rumination with you in hopes that you all feel the same.
Lets hear it for handmade!
Margaux napping with the felt toy her older brother made years ago...a slug.
We get at least 5 or 6 emails a week asking about patterns and we are proud to say we listened!
We are beyond thrilled to announce the first of what we hope will be many new patterns available for instant download ( or paper via the mail, if your a traditionalist) at our webstore www.americanfeltandcraft.com. The Easter Collection, will allow you to make all your favorite Easter treats including, a chocolate bunny, Easter eggs, marshmallow bunnies, Chocolate egg, and adorable marshmallow chicks.
Our patterns are the same quality you have come to expect from our blog with over 30 full color step by step pictures and easy to understand templates. Don’t worry we will still continue to provide free felt food, as well as other felt crafting templates on the blog!
Because we are so excited our new Easter Collection downloadable pattern will be on sale until March 8th 2010 so snatch it at a discounted price and be ready for the big bunny arrives this year!
It was finally time…my daughter has been in her toddler bed for quite some time and has had the same bedding since before she was born, so if anything new bedding was overdue. I wasn’t quite ready to move her to a larger bed but her Glenna Jean bedding I “just had to have” was worn thin. I looked everywhere for quality toddler bedding with no luck everything seemed to have a negative thread count, rough, cheap and thin. And in today’s economy I wasn’t about to spend $400 on a nice crib set.
That’s when I decided to make my own, not the fitted sheet mind you I simply bought a new crib sheet, I am not insane enough to attempt such a sewing feat, not yet anyway. The blanket was super easy I just made a large pillow case shape out of 2 yards of fabric and filled it with batting and tied it down with cross stitch thread to prevent shifting. I then made a bed skirt out of tulle and ribbon, but something was still missing, that’s when I thought of the little felt rosettes I had been searching for an application for and made some lovely accent pillows. I am thrilled with how they turned out. You could really use these rosettes on anything but I think these little pillows are sweet and would make a lovely Valentines Day decoration or gift.
For one pillow you will need:
7 sheets felt (I used pink tutu)
Stuffing
Matching thread/Sewing needle
Sewing machine (ok that’s optional I guess, but making pillows can be a pain without it)
Step 1:
Cut as many small circles approx 2 inches in diameter as you can from one of your felt sheets.
Cut as many circles approx 3 inches in diameter from another 2 felt sheets
Cut as many circles approx 4 inches in diameter as you can from your 4th and 5th felt sheet
You can free hand these they do not need to be exact.
Step 2:
Cut all circles into whirls as shown below, the less cutting you do the better your rose will look. I know it seems like the opposite would be true but too many whirls in the circle make for a very small tight rose.
Step 3:
Thread and knot your needle.
Starting from the small end roll your cut circle until you reach the fat middle piece, wrap around the outside and sew through your rose on each side to hold into place knot and begin the next one. After about two this becomes very easy and can be done while watching your favorite movie.
Step :4
Hand stitch all of your roses onto one half of your pillow leaving a 1/4″ seam allowance around the edges.
Step 5
Place your pillow pieces right sides together and sew around outer edges leaving space to stuff. Turn right side out stuff and sew closed.
Variations on the theme:
Try making a shape or a letter from the roses as I have shown on the center pillow.
If sewing pillows is too daunting you can always make small drawer sachet by scaling down the project and making only small roses and stuffing with potpourri.
I think this would also make a great wall hanging using your childs initial.
Happy Valentine’s day!
There will be a wait! You know the drill you go to a crowded mall at some point in December and there it is… the Santa line and whether it’s 9am or 9pm the line is mindbogglingly long. You can hear the other parents curse under their breath at the time of the wait and grumble when Santa needs a 10 minute break . Which is shocking only because unless you have a newborn in tow you should know Santa sitting is an all day event.
Kids whine, need to pee, need to eat, mess up their hair and inevitably want to reach out and ruin small parts of the carefully coiffed Santa land your local mall has worked so hard to put together. And at the end of it all what do you have to show for an entire day spent in line other than a bad $30 5×7 and aching feet…a candy cane of course! At least thats the way it used to be…I know, I know I am aging myself here but now they give out cardboard reindeer hats, or small plastic bouncy balls, but to me candy canes always remind me of a long day waiting for Santa. These felt candy canes are amazingly simple and in the time it takes to wait for Santa you could make 40 or 50 of them. Besides being an adorable addition to your felt food collection they also look stunning on a Christmas tree!
To make 3 You will need:
1 sheet white wool blend felt *
1 sheet lipstick or key lime colored felt (or really any color we have 130 to choose from)
White thread, colored thread to match the color of stripes
A dowel or pencil to help stuff the cane.
Stuffing.
* Attempting to use acrylic felt will result in your stitches tearing
Step 1:
Cut 2 candy cane shapes from the white felt using the template below:
Step 2:
Sew along sides only using white thread and a whip stitch (shown here in purple for clarity.) You’ll want to leave both ends open for stuffing. The trick to making your cane look 3D is stuffing very tightly.
Step three:
Stuff when you are satisfied with the look of your felt candy cane tuck cane tip inward and sew up.
Stop by the Store
Step 4:
Cut your stripe color from desired color of wool blend felt. Stripes should measure around 12″ long x 1/2 ” wide, if using 9″x 12″ squares of felt you will find these very easy to cut to the right dimensions. Wrap around your candy cane a few times until you get the spacing a look you want. Pin into place if needed.
Step 5: Using matching thread color sew stripe into place. And enjoy your candy cane while remembering all those long-suffering mall parents!
Happy Holidays!
Andie & Sheila
You too can make this adorable Thanksgiving garland for your get together this year. It’s a great family project!*
Time to complete: 1.5 hour or less depending on your garlands size and number of helpers.
*Time to complete if one of your helpers is a 3 year old who thinks she may have swallowed a wooden bead and it is stuck in her throat so you have to go to the ER during Swine Flu season: 7.5 hours
Supplies:
1 large container of wooden beads
1 skein of good quality yarn or twine
Felt in various fall colors I used, Monkey, Oatmeal, Gingerbread, Sweet Potato, Alburn, Mud Puddle, Cilantro, Red Rock, Wedding Ring, Chocolate Moose and Red Wagon
6 felt balls in Valentine (opt, if you use felt balls you will need a large needle to string them)
A wide eyed needle (opt but helps move things along much faster)
Your insurance card (opt)
Directions to the nearest ER (opt)
Your pediatrician’s phone number (opt)
A full tank of gas (opt)
A great excuse for the cops (opt.)
First you will need to cut your leaves out of various colors of felt. The number you will need depends on the look you are going for and how long your garland will be. Here are the leaf templates I used:
After cutting out the desired number of leaves begin the stringing process by creating a loop for hanging and creating a series of knots large enough to keep the beads from sliding off. When making this project with multiple children you may want to make a few smaller strings and tie them together when they are complete.
You can then begin the stringing process by adding a few beads followed by leaves and an occasional felt ball for color be sure to clip a small slit in the leaves so that they string easily. Repeat stringing process creating another loop at the end to easily hang.
* Please note this is where the instructions end and my harrowing journey begins read on…if you dare!
On a lovely fall evening I sat down with my brood to start the fall garland project I have been meaning to begin for about a month now, having already cut out my fall leaves we were ready to stringing. Normally one might assume this to be a quick and fun family project, however my older boys quickly got into a fight and disappeared presumably to find their light sabers and finish each other off. So my darling daughter and I continued to string and talk (mainly about princess movies).
My adorable daughter’s throat must have been getting dry from the amount of talking only three-year old girls and micromachine men can sustain so she said she was going to go drink her juice in the kitchen.
I then heard the universal mom equivalent to the nuclear button being pushed CHOKING…ok ok so it was more of a slight coughing… but come on she’s the only one in this house who shares my adoration for eyeshadow so I tend to panic easily. I fly into the kitchen with my superhuman mom speed to rival that of a True Blood vampire, to find my daughter calmly sipping her juice. “Are you OK?” I ask she says yes and we head back to the family room and proceed with the stringing.
Then my beautiful blue-eyed daughter looks over at me and makes little throat clearing noises. I ask again if she is ok and she replies, “Yeah I just have bead stuck in my throat and I can’t get it out…” “WHAT?” THIS IS CODE RED! THIS IS NOT A TEST REPEAT THIS IS NOT A TEST!!!…What do I do…I look, she’s not blue at all..so I lift her shirt (ok so I realize this maneuver will give me not actual usable information but hey at least I was pro-active) seeing nothing abnormal I then look back up at her face and I notice she is a little blue mainly around the eyes and a little…sparkley?? I then realize that I am looking at the aforementioned eyeshadow.
So what do I do? I think about attempting the hymlic manuever but I am not sure I can remember it…then visions of my arms around her chest and the bead popping slowly out of her throat only to land further in completely wedging itself and cutting off her air supply irrevocably nearly make me have a stroke…besides she can still breathe I don’t want that to change. I think about calling 911 but then decide that “bead stuck in my daughters throat” might not be taken for the kind of life threatening emergency I am now positive this is…AHH HA I will call my AFC business partner a registered nurse and she will be able to tell me some magic nurse voo doo which will remove the bead causing no harm to either my baby girls windpipe or my psyche. She doesn’t answer, turns out she is working at the ICU that night, probably nursing sick little ones who swallowed beads because their negligent mothers sent them in to the big kitchen unsupervised thus allowing them to enter a life threatening situation…tisk tisk. I tell her to sit very still in her chair positive that even the slightest jostling will cause her to lose conciousness.
I call the pediatrician and am asked a series of ridiculous questions like, what is her date of birth, and what is a phone number the doc on call can reach you at…DON’T THEY GET THIS IS AN EMERGENCY??? I wait for a return call and figure we will need to rush her to the ER… my cave girl gathering instincts kick in I gather one of every different kind of bead we have been using and a few leaves, cause you never know maybe one of those is in there too, some books and insurance information, a bottle of water, and extra pair of socks…I am debating on bringing blankets and my laptop when the phone rings…10 minutes what kind of service is that she could have died waiting!?
The frighteningly calm almost the point of being bored by my plight doc asks me how big the beads are I tell her they are smaller than a grape but bigger than a pea, kind of like an olive the klamata kind not the black kind but round and some have ridges I am just about the tell her the wood composition when she stops me and tells me just to go to the ER. I knew it! This is an emergency! I tell my 13 year old he is in charge of his brother until dad gets home in 20 minutes, hoping another intergalatic battle doesn’t break out. I then remember my cars tags have expired… too bad I’ll have to break the law to save my daughters life! I plan my succinct version of events to share with the cops should it become necessary as I carefully put her little UGGS over her tights sure that the choking will begin in earnest any minute and load her into my illegal crime mobile. We drive to the nearest ER. with the gas light on the whole way. I try to get her to talk all the way there to ensure that she can still breathe, apparently having grown tired of mommies freak out she tells me she just wants to rest because she is tired. NO NO NO I scream…in her defense it is 8:00 and she missed her nap that day but to me this is a further sign of her slip towards the white light. I think about getting her to sing but I am sure that this will in fact force into her airway more (especially the way my little broadway star can belt them out) and once again the image of the bead lodging itself in her tiny trachea makes me feel like I am the one with beads in my throat.
We arrive at the packed ER and fill out our form while I try not to yell out various words I have heard on ER (like STAT, CODE BLUE, and CBC BLOOD CHEM) to get my daughter more attention in her obviously life threatening situation.
The rest of the night involved a long wait followed by series of X-rays where I valiantly risked exposure to radio waves to save the life of my only daughter followed by an even longer wait dealing with the girl in the curtain next to me tell the doc she is having a panic attack (She probably heard my story and is panicking at the mere thought) reading princess story books, using the restrooms touching as few swine flu infected surfaces and my balance and their supply of paper towels would allow… more waiting.
Finally a doctor with the creepiest blue eyes I have ever seen (I think he may have been some kind of supernatural creature that can only work nights) arrives to tell us that “things don’t actually get stuck in windpipes and allow a person to still breathe…and the esophagus is amazing lined with muscles which move swallowed things into the stomach…blah blah blah… should pass on it’s own…only should have worried if she was vomiting, losing conciousness blah blah blah..to big to go into a lung….blah blah blah free to go.” At this point I feel as though I may lose consciousness and vomit.
We arrive home and my business partner calls and says “That’s no big deal…things don’t actually get stuck in windpipes if a person can still breathe, really the esophagus is an amazing thing…” Her cavalier attitude towards what I am still not entirely certain wasn’t a near death experience forces me to tell her I have to go.
We’re giving our garland away…or maybe bronzing it.
FELT MONEY:
It’s inevitable that once your child collects enough felt food he or she will want to make an imaginary store or restaurant. Since no little grocer or waiter wants to work for free little shoppers will need to cough up some cash and what better way to pay for felt food than felt money. This is also a great way to teach your child math by helping them to make change for their purchases and you can be sure your wool blend money will last through thousands of mini transactions.
This pattern is super easy to follow for every 10 bills you will need:
1 sheet Cilantro colored wool blend felt
2 sheets Buttercream colored wool blend felt
1-2 sheets Fresh Cut Grass colored wool blend felt depending of the size and amount of numbers you are making
Cream thread, green thread, and or felt glue.
First cut your Cilanto or money colored felt into ten bills. Since our felt is sold in 9″ x 12″ pieces just cut as shown into a little larger than 2″ x 4.5″ inch pieces.
Or if your cutting from yardage use this template
Next you will need to cut 2 buttercream circles for EACH bill so if your only making 4 bills you will need 8 circles, for 10, 20 circles and so on. Each circle is about 2″ in diameter.
Circle Template:
Lastly you will need to cut numbers in whatever denomination you like from the Fresh cut grass, or darker green color, don’t forget little circles for the inside of the 0’s. For each bill you will need a set (2) of matching numbers.
Step 1 : Sew numbers to circle as shown,using green thread to match your numbers you’ll obviously want to do these in matching sets. You may want to use felt glue to speed things along. Felt glue is wonderful and your numbers will stay on indefinitely however your bills may be a little stiff. I like the homespun look of sewing but if time is of the essence nothing is faster than felt glue.
Step 2: Pin circles to both side of the money making sure your numbers match, for clarity I have left off the number in the example picture.
Step 3: Stitch around the circle using cream colored thread and a running stitch, watch to make sure that each stroke looks nice from both sides. Finish hiding your knot along the ridge of your circle. Again I have left the numbers off the example for clarity.
And VIOLA! Felt money…if only making real money were this easy!
Enjoy and please remember our patterns are for personal use only!
