Monday, January 28th, 2013
Make simple, cheery rings and things for Valentine’s Day! Children can help turn wooden and felt hearts into rings, hair ties, and bracelets.
Begin with a pile of felt hearts and freshly painted wooden hearts. (You can find wooden hearts at your local craft store.) Children can help paint, cut, and organize the piles of hearts.
How to:
Materials: paint, wooden hearts (wood section in your local craft store), black 1/4″ flat elastic, scissors, thread, wool felt, elastic hair ties, and a drill.
After painting the wooden hearts, drill holes in them to make them into heart shaped buttons. The size of the holes depends on what you wish to do with them. Tiny holes are perfect for sewing them onto a black elastic ring, and larger holes are better for threading with hair tie elastics.
Trace hearts onto felt and cut them out.
Make the elastic rings. Measure little fingers and snip off a piece of flat elastic. While sewing the elastic into a ring, use a slightly larger piece with some overlap, and then snip off any part that hangs over.
Once you have a bunch of black elastic rings, sew wooden hearts, felt hearts, or whatever you want onto the rings.
**Children will need adult help and supervision with drilling and sewing.
Have fun!
xo emily
Categories: Crafts, Everyday Fun, Fun, Group Activities, Holiday, Must Read | Tags: bracelets, bright, cheer, cheery, cute, felt, festive, fun, heart, hearts, little, paint, pink, red, rings, sew, sewing, shape, soft, sort, valentine's day, wood
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013
I had my two children in mind when I designed this little fabric heart necklace for Valentine’s Day, but after I threw one around my neck, I was kind of feeling the vibe. They make perfect lovey gifts for sharing with friends, don’t you think? Plus, it is a fantastic way to use up those beautiful bits of leftover fabric.
Materials:
fabric
cereal box panels
sewing machine OR embroidery needle and floss
scissors
hole punch
pen
yarn
How To:
1. Ask a child to draw a heart shape on the back of some favorite fabric. Cut out the shape, and place it right side up onto a piece of cereal box panel. I didn’t affix the fabric to the panel with anything, but you could use a dab of a glue stick to keep it in place.
2. Put a denim needle in your sewing machine and sew around the heart. You could also use a big embroidery needle and floss. Once the sewing is completed, trim away the excess cereal box panel.
3. Use the hole punch to make holes in the two tips of the heart. The punch will go through the fabric and cardboard, but you’ll probably need to trim a bit of the fabric out of the hole to clean it up.
4. There are two different ways to string the yarn (both techniques shown below). You can simply thread it through the back and then use a bit of glue to affix the yarn to the back of the heart (so it doesn’t show when you turn it over). Or, you can thread the ends of a piece of yarn through the holes and then tie big, big, big knots so they don’t slip off.
Happy heart making!
xo emily
Categories: Crafts, Everyday Fun, Fun, Group Activities, Holiday, Must Read, Seasonal | Tags: children, cut, cute, fabric, gift, heart, love, necklace, pink, red, sew, sweet, valentine's
