Mario Brothers Felt Board

It seems that Pokemon is slightly on the decline around here, apparently due to a new found interest in Mario Brothers. L has been spending his days building elaborate Lego sculptures of Mario characters, and drawing scenes from video games.
I remembered having seen some pretty awesome Mario projects on Craftster, and after finding this fantastically done Mario felt board, I was inspired to make one for L. My original intention was to pretty much make an exact duplicate of the one on Craftster, and give it to L for Christmas. 
Once he saw the pictures I printed for inspiration, he went crazy though, wanting one NOW. As such, I ended up using permanent markers instead of embroidery, and whatever colors of felt I had on hand, even if they weren't quite right. I also didn't have one large continuous piece of blue felt for the background, but L didn't seem to mind. He spent several happy hours playing with this set.

Pretty fun, right? I'm partial to Mario too.

Pokemon Psyduck Bag

As an afterthought, I realized I had previously forgotten to take pictures of this felt tote bag, which I made for L for his birthday. It's the right size to stash a couple of books and a snack in.

The Psyduck applique was machine stitched onto the bag.

I love the way this turned out, but I had a hard time getting a decent picture of it.






(By the way, most of my pictures have little fingers or toes in the way. Have you noticed?) :)

Felt Food Inspiration for Christmas

A couple of years ago, I spent several weeks laboriously hand sewing this set of felt food for L, who was then two. My husband thought I was weird, figuring that a kid who had a house full of toys probably wouldn't be that impressed. He was wrong.
When I gave L the set for Christmas, he loved it. In fact, while I can't remember much about what we bought him that year, I do remember that this stuff, and the felt finger puppets I sewed for him were very well received. A couple of months ago, I tossed most of theses pieces, because the kids had played with them, and chewed on them for several years, and the stuffing was starting to come out.
(This is totally a side note, but in the lead-contaminated-toy-fiasco a while back, I got uncharacteristically paranoid, and threw away all the kid's plastic toy food. The kids actually mouth on the toys, and that gave me the creeps...)
Anyway, this Christmas the kids will be getting some replacement food. I seem to have misplaced the patterns for most of this stuff, but they're pretty self explanatory. (If I was able to draw up the pattern for these, you surely can. I'm terrible at drawing.) These were sewn with plain old cheapie synthetic felt, and stuffed with polyfil. I packaged them in a little crocheted market bag.
(Wool felt would have been nicer, and maybe lasted longer, but it is expensive, and not as readily available. In hindsight, now that I see how much the kids actually played with the stuff, it might have been worth it. At the time I wasn't sure. )


Anyway, I'm currently in the middle of sewing up three sets of the Chicken and Salad Party Pattern, by JulyHobby, on Etsy. (One for L, one for V, and one for a niece. Because you know, they can't share...) The roasted chicken with removable appendages is too cute, even if I am a vegetarian. The pattern is easy to follow, and worth the $3.99 it costs.
For additional inspiration, I've been looking through all the great stuff in the Flickr Handmade Felt Food Pool.
There's also this cool thread on Craftster:
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=222947.0 .
Another cool Craftster post:
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=261887.0
This post on Snazzle Craft:
http://snazzlecraft.blogspot.com/2009/01/free-felt-food-pattern.html

I'll be posting pictures as I get things finished.

What are you making for the kids this year?

Fruit Feltboard PDF

I've mentioned before that L and I are using various aspects of the Boca Beth Program this year. I was lucky enough to win a Boca Beth Gift set last year, and we've been combining that, with all the freebies on the Boca Beth website and youtube. Lately, we've been learning the names of fruit via the song located here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5F78m_b3zo. Even baby V has been practicing along. Anyway, I drew up a pattern, and made a fruit feltboard set to go along with the song. Obviously, I'm no artist, but the fruit turned out cute and functional. My son had fun with it, and having something to do while he practiced the vocabulary seemed to help him stay on task.

Life cycle of a tree feltboard

I just thought I'd post a quick picture of one of one of the feltboard activities I printed yesterday for L. I used clipart from printshop, and printed the images on nonfusible pellon, as per my recent WFMW post.

It turned out great, and is a good visual aid, while explaining the life cycle of trees, as well as a nice sequencing activity for L to do independently.

WFMW Make your own feltboards

First of all, I cannot take credit for this idea, because it isn't mine. I had seen it discussed around the web several times, although I can't remember specifically where. Second of all, please don't blame me if your printer malfunctions as a result of this idea. Use your judgement, and if you have a fancy schmancy printer, think twice.

Having said all that, here's my tip. Did you know that you can use nonfusable interfacing to print your own feltboard pieces? You can pick up the interfacing just about anywhere that sells fabric. You'll want fairly thin interfacing, since it has to go through the printer. I purchased several types to experiment with. I found that the super thin, almost vellum like interfacing is too thin. The pictures don't end up very vibrant, and it didn't have enough nap to stick to the feltboard. The next thicker one was perfect. You'll need to cut the interfacing to printer sized sheets, and then go to town, printing clip art or whatever. You do have to watch the printer, to make sure it doesn't jam.

I went to the nickjr website, and printed some Yo Gabba Gabba feltboard pieces for the kids, and they love them. I've even had to wash them once because the baby got them icky, and they came out fine. (I didn't dry them though...)

Anyway think of the possibilities here...you could have feltboards of favorite storybooks, cartoons, or just about anything else. (The interfacing is cheap too!)

By the way, if you are a new visitor, go check out my baby onesie giveaway, which is ending soon!

Want to check out more WFMW tips? Go to http://www.wearethatfamily.com/2009/04/wfmw-favorite-blogging-tools.html