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Embroidery Hoop Ornaments

With both children sick last weekend, we’ve had some down time for quiet projects (and lots of television, unfortunately).  Anyway, my older daughter made the ornament above using a small embroidery hoop.  She has pretty much learned how to sew at her Montessori school, although we work on it occasionally at home.  I asked her to draw a snowflake (convincing her that simple was better) directly onto this linen fabric with a disappearing ink fabric marker.  Then she did the rest on her own.

I am also working with my younger daughter on one, though I drew the design for her.  We haven’t finished yet.  You can see in the photo below that I shouldn’t have put that embroidery hoop on my lap while she was putting the needle through it.  Ouch.

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Potato Print Paper

We made some potato printed gift wrap the other day.  We used tempera paint on butcher paper.  Obviously, the simple shapes are easier to cut.  This was a quick and easy project that the kids enjoyed.

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Handmade Toy of the Week

Felt Cupcake from Cheryl A Smith, $15.  She also has some adorable felt finger puppets in her shop that would be great stocking stuffers.

This felt cupcake is in honor of my daughter’s fourth birthday today!  I intended to make some felt cakes, but since my other daughter has a birthday coming in ten days I suppose I’ll get another chance.  Whew!  Two December babies.

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Woodland Felt Scene

Here’s a woodland felt scene that I made for my daughter’s birthday.  This is simply a red felt background with moveable pieces.  It started as a memory game, then a felt board, but since I’m having a hard time controlling the clutter around here, I wanted something that could roll up and be put away on a shelf.  Here are the templates:

woodland-felt-scene-page-1

woodland-felt-scene-page-2

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The felt mat is made from two contrasting pieces of wool felt 9 1/2″ x 30″ and sewn with a ribbon in between the layers. I sewed some extra stitching around the figures and sewed the background together, but since felt glues easily, you could do this project without a sewing machine.  You could even make these shapes from paper for a rainy day coloring project.

A quick note about felt:  Always use wool felt or a good quality wool blend.  I buy my large pieces at a big box fabric store by the yard.  The smaller colored pieces I order from various places.  You can’t always get a wide selection of colors by the yard.  If you have a dressmaker’s fabric store, they will also have wool used for suiting that would work well, but might be more expensive.  Acrylic felt will fall apart, so if you care about your project, use wool!

As always, projects shown here are for personal use only.  If you make this, please post a photo in the Make it Monday Flickr pool here.  Thanks!