September's Rudolph Day

Suddenly it's September 25 -- Rudolph Day! 

I'm still trying to figure out where the year has gone, and September has flown by even more quickly than the previous 8 months.  It's crazy!  Still, here we are, and the few months remaining before Christmas must be used wisely. 

I'm planning to take my Christmas notebook along on an upcoming vacation, and will hope for some good planning time and for inspiration to strike. 

Some shopping has been done,  and I have the gifts for two grandchildren completely taken care of.  That helps a lot, but there are still quite a few to figure out. 

My Nevada daughter gave me the idea of making some felt food for the youngest grandchildren.  She mentioned that although there is plenty of felt food in their house, their youngest (soon to be 4) has no felt food of her own.  Which reminded me that my second youngest granddaughter (soon to be 5) has no felt food of her own either. 

So I'm going to do a few simple things, probably like these Felt Cinnamon Rolls ,

Crocheted Donuts,

and maybe some Christmas Cookies as well.

 All of these are very easy and are ones I've made before. 


When I went looking for some fresh ideas, I turned first to my Fun with Felt Pinterest board.

From there, I ended up at this new-to-me Etsy shop, Treehouse Patterns.  What amazing felt food patterns she has created!  These are downloadable pdf files, and I think they are very reasonably priced.  I bought 2, and am excited about making some of these felt goodies for my youngest granddaughters!

So, for our upcoming vacation, you can be sure some felt, thread, and patterns will be in my crafting bag.  Since I already have 1 other gift each purchased for these little ones, the felt food will finish off what's needed for their gifts.

I'm thinking that, other than some Shutterfly gifts already completed, and a few others planned, that the felt food will be the extent of my handmade gifts this year.  We will see!

How are you coming with your Christmas planning?  Are you making any handmade gifts?  Comment and let me know!

From the July archives, Part 2

Here are a few posts of interest (at least, I hope they will be of interest!) from the more recent July archives.  I know that not everyone has browsed around in the archives or even visited here much, so wanted to share just a few more of my archived July posts.  Here goes:

From 2012, Fantastic Felt Food shares some of the fun food items that can be made of felt.   The chocolates below and the foods at top are a couple of examples.  Kids love felt food!  The photo at top was taken at the county fair when my grandkids entered their collection of felt food.

How to Make a Christmas Memory Book, from 2013, is a clear tutorial on how to make a memory book for your family.  I have never regretted taking the time to make these for family!

From 2014, Nurturing kids’ creativity with Christmas in July shares how you can get your kids involved right now with preparing for Christmas gifts.  I found it inspiring.

Linked, but not baked, in 2015, Chocolate Mint Sugar Cookie Bars is a recipe I want to try for the cookie trays this Christmas.

 And last year I encouraged readers to Peruse my Pinterest boards!  I have a bunch of Pinterest boards specifically for Christmas and have even added another since this was posted: Bringing Home the Tree.

 You will find loads of inspiration here.  Pinterest is so much fun!

So there are a few archive posts.  Enjoy!

Links to the felt campfire and s'mores patterns

This little guy looks so at home!

For those who didn't catch it on my regular blog, here are the links to the tutorials I used for the felt campfire and s'mores:

I will start with the roasting sticks and the marshmallows.  There are all kinds of ideas out there, including using dowels for the sticks (not a good idea, I thought) but this is the one I settled on:  Felt Marshmallows and Roasting Sticks.  The sticks are actually chenille stems (pipe cleaners) wrapped in felt casings.

All of the photos below are by grandson Sam, age 11:

The kids set up the campfire surrounded by stuffed animals who are toasting marshmallows.

This shows the drawback of using chenille stems -- maybe a little too much bendability.

But, on the upside, they do look like real sticks.

Just like around a real campfire, some are toasting marshmallows ...

And some are munching s'mores.  Others are just waiting their turn!

The campfire, logs, graham crackers, chocolate bars, and melted marshmallows all came from this tutorial: Felt Campfire and S’mores. As you can see, the campfire is in two pieces so it will be two-sided and three-dimensional.

The only part I had to sort of figure out on my own was the campfire ring of felt "stones".  In retrospect, I sort of wish I had attached the stones together into a ring shape, but I felt it would be more fun for the kids to "build" the fire ring for themselves.

A snail and turtle share a s'more

A Dalmatian munches a s'more

Hope you have enjoyed this look at the felt campfire and accessories.  It does make a great group gift for siblings.  For more felt ideas, check out my Fun with Felt Pinterest board!

Felt campfire and s'mores!

Animals around the campfire!

This will be a pretty short post.  I just want to share a few pictures of the felt campfire and s'mores I made for the grandkids.  I plan to write a longer, more involved post about it, complete with links to the patterns I used, on my regular blog. 

The kids were nice enough to set up the campfire, complete with stuffed animals toasting marshmallows and enjoying s'mores.  Then Sam (11) took photos!  (Only the next two are mine.  You can easily tell the difference in photo quality!)

I took this pic of a s'more without the lid on, back when I made them.

My marshmallow/stick photo was blurry, but I wanted you to have a closer look at them.

Animals busy toasting their mallows

He looks right at home in this woodsy scene!

So cute.  This guy must be a puppet.

A turtle and snail enjoy their s'mores!

So there are just a few pictures.  For more information, stay tuned and I will soon be putting a post with links and more photos on my regular blog.  If you have grandkids who enjoy campfires and s'mores, this might make a nifty idea for them for Christmas!

Happy Valentine's Day to you!

I hope that each of you reading this will have a wonderful Valentine's Day!  May you spend some time reflecting on God's incredible love for you.  I hope that you will have some quality time with those you love, as well.

Today I am just going to share some Valentine-related photos, many of which are older family photos or of Valentine crafts.  Enjoy!

Baby Sam makes Valentine cookies!

Some of the felt Valentine cookies I've made

Handmade by my daughter Joanna many years ago

Little Sarah shows off pressed Valentine cookies!

I bought this and the one below at a consignment shop in Nevada

I display them every February

I made this tag some years ago

The reverse of the tag; I designed it to feature this photo (below) of Joanna and my dad.

Skating on the old mill pond

Mackenzie shows off a heart banner we made in 2013

I made this "love" banner many years ago

Happy Valentine's Day!   Hope it's love-ly!

Fantabulous Felt Food!

Kids love felt food!

 For many weeks and months (maybe years)  now, I have been wanting to put all of my links to various felt food projects in one place.  Here on my Christmas blog, I'm posting today with all of the links I can find.  These are all felt foods I have made over the past three or four years or so.  I have other links and projects saved, but only want to share links for the items I have actually made.

If you think you might like to make some felt food for children in your life for Christmas, birthdays, or just for fun, now is a great time to get started.  Felt food is easy, small, and portable, making it an ideal craft to work on during a road trip, at the beach, etc. 

So let the linkage begin!

I think that these Felt Cheez-It® Crackers were the first felt food I attempted.  Very, very easy.

You can see the cheese crackers toward the right back of the table.  We recycled a cracker box to present them in.

Unfortunately, I can no longer access the blog where I got the pattern for bacon and eggs; it has become a private blog.  This  pattern looks like a good one: Felt Fried Eggs and Bacon.  The bacon I made has a wavy, realistic look because one stitches along the edges using a wired floss in a tan color.

Bacon and Eggs

 These Felt Cinnamon Rolls are probably the easiest felt food I've ever made, but they sure do look delicious!

Cinnamon Rolls

These Felt popsicles are also very easy to make.

Grape, lime, and orange popsicles

Orange, cherry and lime popsicles

Felt Toaster Pastries might be a great starter project.  They are so quick and easy!  If your grandchildren are very little or if there are babies in the house, you might prefer to make colorful french knot "sprinkles" rather than attaching beads. 

Pop-tarts®

Pop-tarts® in packaging

 I think I failed to take pictures of the Felt Coffee & Mini Donut set I made for these two.  (Maybe because I was somewhat disappointed in how the coffee cups came out.)  Their uncle owns a coffee shop, which is why I made these.  They are drinking from the coffee cups, which have sleeves from their uncle's shop.  The large donuts in the picture are the crocheted ones.  I think the pink and chocolate frosted mini donuts from this tutorial are in between the valentine cookies and the cheese crackers, in front of Emily.  (You can actually see these mini donuts better in the very top photo, where they are in the foreground.)

This pattern for Felt sandwiches and bags of chips has directions for potato chips, bags, and two kinds of sandwiches.

Sandwiches -- ham, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes on burger buns

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich

Bags of chips

Another look at the potato chips

I tried several tutorials for felt strawberries, but one came out as big as tomatoes!  I salvaged them by putting them in a tomato box and calling them tomatoes, but they weren't all that easy to make, so I've scrapped that pattern.  These Felt strawberries are the best pattern I've found.  I like to package them in plastic berry boxes.

A basket of strawberries

This Felt pumpkin pie with whipped cream is truly amazing.  I've made lemon, chocolate, and cheesecake pie slices as well.  A good bit of the sewing on this is done by machine, so it's not as complicated as it looks.

Pumpkin pie

Lemon pie

Chocolate cream pie

Strawberry cheesecake

Pumpkin, lemon and chocolate pie

And here is the link for pancakes:Felt Pancakes.  Again, very easy.  Partly sewed by machine.

Pancakes with butter pat

And here is one for Christmas cookies -- these are also very easy!  Christmas Cookies.  Obviously, you can make these into plain sugar cookies or into Valentine cookies -- or just cut-out cookies for any occasion!

Christmas cookies

Christmas cookies in their packaging

Frosted sugar cookies with sprinkles

Valentine cookies

More Valentine cookies

This Fabric Bow-Tie Pasta is not made of felt, but is still very easy.

Fabric bow tie pasta

A package of pasta

Not all play food is made of fabric.  Here are a couple of links for foods I've crocheted:  Crochet Sandwich Cookies

Crocheted chocolate sandwich cookies

and Crocheted Donut, which I've made in varying "flavors".  Again, if you suspect these or the felt cookies (really, any play food with "sprinkles") will go into a tiny child's mouth, then please use french knots rather than beads.

A pink-frosted doughnut

Chocolate frosted donut

A packaged chocolate donut

So there are all my links! 

My grandkids are always happy to get more felt food!

Have fun cooking up some felt food!  A word of warning, though -- it's addictive!