Something old and lots of NEW!

Wow! What a busy last few months it has been here at Felt Playground! In between fulfilling customer orders, I have been working on some new felt foods for the spring and upcoming summer months! I have also re-designed an old favorite to be more aesthetically pleasing. First off a new carrot top!

  

Long and leafy, like a real carrot!

And now for the NEW! These are some seriously cute play sets, if I may say so.

   

Felt Chicken Dinner and Felt Smoothie/Milk Shake Set

   

Felt Pineapple and Felt Lasagna Play Sets

 

Felt Ice Cream and Felt Pasta Salad Play Sets

I also have listed more individual vegetables, like cauliflower, broccoli florets, garlic, and even a larger than life-size felt olive! All are made with eco-friendly felt and stuffed with bamboo fiber fill.

What a fun and exciting spring it has been so far and more to come in the months ahead!

“More TeeToes!”

My baby girl is not such a baby anymore. And she loves potatoes. All kinds, and in any form. She could eat sweet potatoes until she’s orange and she still wouldn’t stop. My little 22 month old is definitely growing into a meat and potatoes kind of girl, minus the meat. She’s more like a ketchup and potatoes kind of girl. Or a cookies and potatoes kind of girl…

When thinking of how to make her some “teetoes” for her play kitchen, I came across this great tutorial on how to make potatoes using old pantyhose! How creative of Ikatbag to think of this awesome idea! To see the whole pantyhose potato tutorial, click here.

 

Now my little one can have her teetoes all of the time! I have to say my two little potatoes turned out great and the tutorial was as easy as can be. Just like the felt play foods in my shop, I stuffed baby girl’s with sustainable bamboo fiber fill (happened to just have some lying around   The result – she loves them almost as much as the real thing!

A Felt Playground Valentine

Wow! Where did the time go? The fall and early winter seasons flew by in a blur of felt and bamboo fiber at my house! Time for a new season – winter and all the love that Valentine’s Day brings!  I have added some new additions to my shop. Who can resist chocolate covered strawberries, especially ones made of felt? I make (real) heart-shaped brownies every year for my husband for Valentine’s Day, so I thought I would pay tribute to our tradition and make heart-shaped felt brownies! Enjoy!

Set of three chocolate covered strawberries, $14.25

Heart Brownie, strawberries, and whip cream, $14.

Felt Candy Corn Tutorial

    

For me, fall is the best time of the year! As part of my Felt Halloween Candy Play Food Set at Felt Playground, I created a fun, larger than life-size, candy corn! You can purchase this candy corn already made if you like from my shop,  or if you are feeling crafty, below is a tutorial. My gift to you to celebrate this wonderful time of year!

 

Felt Candy Corn Tutorial

Materials:

Felt in yellow, orange, and white

Sewing machine or needle and thread

Orange thread

Scissors, pins, ballpoint pen,

Iron

Bamboo fiberfill or polyfill

Wooden dowel

This pattern: FeltPlaygroundCandyCornPattern2010 

 

Step 1: Cut felt. Measuring and cutting precisely is the key to success!

- Cut two pieces of white felt 3 x 1 ½ inches

- Cut two pieces of orange felt 3 x 1 ¾ inches

- Cut two pieces of yellow felt 3 x 1 ½ inches

Step 2: Pin and Sew

- Pin the yellow felt rectangle on top of the orange felt rectangle with edges together on the right side.

- Sew ¼ inch from the edge of the fabric, reinforcing both the start and finish.

- Open up the two sewn pieces.

- Pin the white piece of felt to the other end of the orange felt rectangle. 

- Sew ¼ inch from the edge of the fabric, reinforcing the start and finish.

Step 3: Iron

- Iron the sewn material flat.

Step 4: Trace Candy Corn Pattern: FeltPlaygroundCandyCornPattern2010

-  With a ballpoint pen, trace the candy corn pattern on to the BACKSIDE of one of the sewn felt pieces. Allow appropriate yellow, orange, and white proportions to make it look like a real candy corn.

Step 5: Pin

- With finished sides facing in, line up the seams and pin the two pieces of sewn felt together.

Step 6: Sew

- Sew along the traced pattern line, reinforcing back and forth over the yellow/orange seems and the orange/white seams.

- Allow an opening at the top of the yellow portion to turn fabric inside out when finished. Reinforce these starting and stopping points by sewing back and forth two times.

Step 7: Trim excess fabric

- Trim fabric around the traced pattern line, allowing ¼ inch excess.

Step 8: Stuffing

- Carefully turn candy corn right-side out, making sure the corners are fully pushed out.

- Using a wooden dowel, stuff the candy corn with bamboo stuffing or poly-fill, filling the corners first, and then the inside.

Step 9: Finishing

- Using the ladder stitch, sew the opening closed.

Your candy corn is now finished! Try not to eat it!  Happy Fall!

Turning love into felt– felt coffee!

Those of you who know me know that I truly cannot live without Starbucks. An obsession that started in college with Heather of Chickabug, we would skip Biology lecture to go to the Union for Starbucks. That was over 10 years ago, and there has been no looking back. Who knows how much money I have spent there, a little sad actually, but you only live once.

So, when I was recently asked by a customer to create a custom felt coffee-house play set for her children, I said yes immediately! Talk about taking an obsession of mine, turning it into felt, and making a customer happy all at the same time – this was like a dream job!

 The coffee-house set is now complete and available in my shop, Felt Playground. It includes one coffee up with a customizable cozy (you can pick the color and what you would like embroidered on it – ie, coffee, tea, hot cocoa, left blank, or add a name (ex- Cora’s Coffee). Also included in the set are 1 dollop of whip cream, 4 marshmallows, a chocolate and caramel swirl, 1 creamer, 1 embroidered sugar packet and 1 spoon. Perfect for making a coffee-house treat just the way you like it!  And how cute would this complement the felt donuts play set also available in my shop? Too perfect!

Happy, happy, yum!

Felt Playground GIVEAWAY at Dear Dr.MOZ!

Felt Playground is being featured on the Dear Dr.MOZ baby blog in a giveaway! Dear Dr.Moz is an online parenting resource which features its own adorable Dr.MOZ gear for the daddy-to-be. Felt Playground via Dear Dr.MOZ will be giving away one FREE felt play set to one very lucky winner! Check out the Dear Dr.MOZ blog posting for rules on entering the giveaway. Make sure you enter by Thursday, September 2nd at 6:00 pm PST. I would love for one of my lucky blog readers to win this fun giveaway! 

Play Kitchen Favorites

Since starting Felt Playground and having a  toddler of my own at home, I have become just a little bit obsessed with children’s play kitchens. When your making felt food all day, you can’t help but imagine the little kitchen it’s going into in its new home. And what is not to love about an adorable play kitchen? Here are just a few of my favorite kitchens and accessories that can be found on Etsy.

Adorable play kitchens by Everyday Child’s Play and PlayDayToys

Apron by Sugar Chic Baby and Key 2 Life‘s matching apron and chef’s hat.

Too cute baking dishes and canned goods crochet patterns from CraftyAnna.

I can just picture little ones everywhere using these wonderful finds along with my felt play food from Felt Playground!

Eat Your Veggies!

Here are some adorable additions to my Etsy shop Felt Playground - felt veggies!! Now mom always said to eat your veggies, but who knew they could be so fun (and cute!)? I think my favorite is the corn on the cob because I designed it myself and it comes out of the husk! Some of the others are created using patterns from Umecrafts. All are adorable and perfect for your little one’s play kitchen! See more fun veggies here

 

 

 

 

 

 

Light Box Saves the Day/Month/Year

A few months ago I was super frustrated in trying to take my Felt Playground photos outside on my deck. The weather was awful– raining for days, and I was growing more and more impatient with each drop! I had new items to list!I decided it was time to investigate making a light box for taking my photos. This couldn’t be that hard, right? And all the Etsy forums about taking photos recommended it.

So I started researching online and found a great set of instructions by Digital Photography School which is a great site that includes tips, tricks and detailed instructions on how to take great digital pictures.

I started gathering my materials: cardboard box, Exacto knife, pencil, some fabric, and tape. A quick trip to Lowes for lights and the right kind of bulbs and I was off! This is so easy! And it was actually.

It took me a couple of hours to get all the measuring done (I like to be precise!), and then the cutting. But in the end, it went really smooth. You can see this whole tutorial from Digital Photography School here and I highly recommend this site to anyone who is interested in photography.

And for the pictures? They turned out fantastic!! Oh light box, where have you been my whole life? (Or at least the last few months). No more freezing cold weather, or waiting for the rain to stop. If the deck is covered in three feet of snow (which it was last winter), it’s no problem now. So exciting!

Here is a picture of how my light box turned out and also a few examples of the pictures I have taken of my Felt Playground goods using it.

My little light box with my Granny’s red plaid picnic blanket as the backdrop.

Felt Bunny Finger Puppet

Felt Donuts – so delicious and calorie free!

Felt Breakfast – mmmmm, yummy!

Back to my roots

2/20/10

Lately I have been back to designing and creating finger puppets (my first and original love!) for my shop Felt Playground.  Last week I worked hard on my Three Little Pigs and Big Bad Wolf play set. I love how the wolf turned out sweet looking and not scary. I wanted to make him nice, but didn’t really know if it was going to turn out good, but he turned out awesome (my opinion, of course!) The pigs have 3-D snouts and tails, and each one is four layers of felt, so they are super strong! These little guys also got great reviews on my Facebook fan page. What do you think?