Fabulous Felt Food

Just like a lot of you, my Thanksgiving weekend was spent preparing a lot of food too. My food was a little different though. And inedible. It was made out of felt. 

A few of my granddaughters are getting a play kitchen for Christmas, and their mom asked if I would make some felt food to go along with it.  I knew it would take a while to make these items and since I had to ship them to her, I worked all Thanksgiving weekend to crate these delectable but non edible treats.

Click on the description under each photo for a link to my personal favorite free patterns which I used to make these felt food delicacies.

 Ice cream cones, Circus animal cookies.....

Strawberries, Donuts....

Carrots.....

Birthday cupcakes complete with little candles.

Slices of cake....(This kit came from a 100 yen store.  If you're lucky enough to visit Japan, make sure you visit these stores.)

Bananas with real stickers....

and oranges. 

I think my food turned out pretty fun looking. Hopefully my little granddaughters will enjoy playing with it as much as I enjoyed making it. 

Happy gift making.  xoxo Grandma

Felt Carrots for Easter

Looking for a cute Easter decoration? Below is a tutorial for making super easy and versatile felt carrots.  To start this project, you'll need one piece of orange felt.  (FYI: one piece of felt creates 7 carrots of various sizes). You'll also need a scrap of green felt or green ribbon no wider than 1/4".  These carrots make super cute accents to any Easter project.  And, children also like to play with felt food, so this is fun for kids too. If you want a felt carrot, download this pattern and let's get started making your carrots:

Add to the top of your carrot a little greenery cut from felt.  Roll the felt into a circle and stitch the end to hold it in place.  Now add it to the middle of the opening.  Stitch the opening of the carrot closed making sure you stitch through the greenery several times.

This is how your carrot should look with the felt greenery. 

Pattern variation: you can also add ribbon for the greenery by folding ribbon into thirds and stitching it in place, as seen in the first photo on this post. 

*I'd like to publicly announce the winner of the American Girl Doll outfit.  The winner is Cheryl Bush of Michigan.  Once again, thank you to all of your who entered and left such sweet comments. xoxo Grandma

Felt Food Bag

My two-and-a-half year-old granddaughter loves to pretend she's eating. So, for part of her Christmas gift, I've been making her felt food. There are a bunch of felt food patterns out there and if you want to see where I found all the patterns, you can check out my Pinterest board called "Felt Food".

After I finished making orange slices, donuts, ice cream cones, Swiss cheese, strawberries, bananas, carrots, and her favorite cookies (to see the cookies go to this post), I decided she needed something to keep all her food in one place, thus the creation of this "FOOD" bag. It's a simple rectangular red and white checked bag (the fabric reminded me of a picnic blanket) with a black ribbon drawstring. The front of the bag features a slice of watermelon with two leaves and the word "FOOD," which were machine appliqued onto the bag. The leaves are silk leaves leftover from a daughter's wedding, and were machine stitched onto the bag. The leaves are velvety feeling and add texture to the design.

On Wednesday, this bag of play food left on a plane with my son, who flew home for a few days for a friend's wedding. He asked if he could give this bag to his daughter when he got home. He thinks she'll really like this gift. I told him he could - I really don't think I can waituntil Christmas for her to enjoy this gift either.  xoxo Grandma

Felt Food - Circus Animal Cookies

These little frosted animal cookies happen to be two of my grandchildren's favorite cookies. They call them "pink and whites." They can't get these cookies where they live overseas and they often ask me to send some to them. Who can blame them? They really are a bite of deliciousness, and the inspiration behind my next creation.

As an early Christmas gift, I've been making these two grandchildren felt food. My husband commented that I should make them their favorite cookies too...."why not," I thought?  So that is what I created - felt Circus Animal Cookies.

In case you're now in the mood for a few cookies too, here's a pattern I created so you can have a night of fun making some felt cookies! 

Supplies:

• 1 piece of 8 1/2" x 11" bright pink felt - makes 9 cookies
• 1 piece of 8 1/2" x 11" white felt - makes 9 cookies
• pink thread
• white thread
• embroidery thread: royal blue, yellow, green, pink, red, white
• a little bit of batting for each cookie
• a needle

For the Circus Animal Cookies pattern click here.

1. Cut out the cookies, using the provided pattern. (You'll need two pieces per cookie.)
2. Randomly make French knots using 3 skeins of thread, twisting the thread around the needle twice.  Make a lot of French knots with a variety of colors.  It's easiest to do all one color of thread and then another color of thread. 
   
3. With a sewing machine, right sides together, sew around the edges of the cookies with as small a seam as possible, leaving a 1" opening at the bottom or side of each cookie.
4. Clip the corners.
5. Turn the cookie right side out. (This is not easy to do but they will eventually turn, I used the eraser part of a pencil and carefully pushed using dull tipped scissors. Good luck!)
6. Slightly stuff the cookies.
   
7. Sew closed the opening.
8. Add your finished cookies into a clear sandwich bag.
   

Don't they look so delicious? Hopefully my grandchildren will think it's fun to pretend that they're delicious too. If you're now craving cookies and milk, then I'll declare my work here done for the day!   xoxo Grandma