Sewing

Christmas Pencil Toppers

Danya Banya December 20, 2016 2

These Christmas tree and Santa hat pencil toppers make really cute little class gifts for kids to give out at Christmas.

Eek, I’ve been knee deep in the pre-Christmas rush these past few weeks. There’s been so many end-of-year Christmas parties for this, that, and everything else. It’s been so fun! (And also so hectic, but I’m focusing on the fun part!)

Every Christmas, the girls and I like to make little hand-made gifts to give out to family, friends, classmates, teachers and special members of the community. In previous years we’ve made melted pony bead ornaments, mini pine cone Christmas trees, reindeer lollipops.

This year JJ’s school specifically asked for non-lolly gifts, as I guess the sugar-load gets a bit crazy if every child gives out candy canes! So I thought these Christmas pencil toppers would fit the bill – not only are they sugar-free, but they also encourage kids to write over their Christmas break! (Maybe that’s wishful thinking, but I can try!)

We made about 50 of these pencil toppers! I wanted JJ to have enough to give to all her Year 1 classmates, plus her friends in other classes, without anyone needing to feel awkward about missing out. (I was always that kid who missed out when I was little, so I have a thing about encouraging inclusivity).

JJ loved walking around with them all in a bucket, handing them out to her friends. At the end of the day there were still a few left over, so the girls were able to bring them along to some of their after-school activities too.

How to make Christmas pencil toppers

I used:

green or red felt
sewing machine
silver or white ribbon
sequins & stars or pom poms
craft glue

To make the Christmas tree pencil toppers:

Cut a paper triangle and use this as a template to cut dozens more out of green felt.
Using a simple straight stitch, sew two of the felt triangles together from one corner of the base, up around the tip of the tree, and back down to the other corner of the base. This should leave a gap in the middle of the base (which is where the pencil will eventually go).
Cut small pieces of thin ribbon, and glue on to look like tinsel.
Glue on sequins to look like baubles and a star on the top.
Once dry, add a pencil!

To make the Santa hat pencil toppers

Follow steps 1& 2 above.
Glue white ribbon around the base of the hat, and glue a pom pom on the top.
Once dry, add a pencil!

If you’re proficient with a sewing machine, and not too worried about things being precise, then this is actually not a difficult project. I timed it (using the 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi method) and it took me about 20 seconds to sew each set of triangles together (and I did most with my kids sitting on my lap ‘helping’.)

There is no need for the two triangles to line up perfectly – in fact, it looks kinda cute if you can see the corners of the one underneath poking out.

The two important things to check are that you’ve left a big enough gap at the base for a pencil, and that you’ve actually sewn the two triangles together at the top (otherwise the pencil will poke straight through).

I used a few different types of felt – all worked, but the thinner, stiffer felt was easier to handle.

While we’re on the subject of homemade non-candy Christmas gifts, I also made 30 x cute little Christmas tree play dough sets (inspired by these ones) for Bee to give out at her preschool – but I was so rushed I didn’t have time to take photos! Did I mention it’s been fun, but cray cray with pre-Christmas madness here?

We’ve still got a few things on our Christmas to-make list (umm, did someone say Christmas cards??), which we’ll hopefully get started on tomorrow. But if it doesn’t happen, we can always save those idea for next year. After all, Christmas is about making fun memories, not stressful ones. Right? 🙂

xx Danya

Categories Christmas, For the DIY Mum, Primary School Kids (Year 1-2) Tags Gifts, Sewing

How to make a Frangipani Lei

Danya Banya August 3, 2016 0

How to make a beautiful frangipani flower lei necklace – lovely nature craft idea for kids.

We’re lucky that we have several large frangipani trees in our neighbourhood, each dropping a carpet of white and yellow frangipani flowers towards the end of summer. I don’t let my kids pick flowers from these trees, but I’ll happily let them collect a few from the ground, as there are just so many! They usually hand them on to the next person they meet, as a little heart-felt gift. So sweet!

Sometimes we bring a few flowers home and put them in a glass of water (frangipani flowers float, and they stay fresher that way). Sometimes we use some for arts and crafts.

Here’s how we used some to make a frangipani lei necklace.

How kids can make a Frangipani Lei

We used:

a few dozen frangipani flowers
a wool needle (or hand sewing needle with a large eye)
kitchen twine

I threaded the needle with a long piece of twine, and showed my daughter JJ (who was 3 years & 9 months old when we did this) how she could push the needle through the stem of the flower and thread it onto the twine. A couple of the flowers did split, but most threaded on quite easily. She pushed each flower down toward the end of the twine, and then threaded on another.

Once we’d used up all the flowers, I tied off the ends of the twine, making sure the necklace was long enough that it could be easily put over someones head without having to untie it. (You could also tie the ends in a bow, but it’s easier for preschoolers if they can put the lei on and off themselves).

Our lei only stayed looking fresh for a day or two. (You could probably extend it’s life by spraying it with water, but we forgot to). But that’s OK – it was only ever supposed to be a transient flower craft, and it’s a good introduction to basic sewing skills. Plus, it’s pretty!

Have you ever made a lei?

You can find more nature-based art, craft and play ideas here.

We also have a pinterest board packed full of foraged nature ideas. Are you following us over there?

xx Danya

Categories Art & Crafts For Kids, Kindergarteners, Nature, Preschoolers Tags Flowers, Sewing, Summer

Paper Plate Panda

Danya Banya June 22, 2014 14

These cute paper plate panda decorations make a great introduction to hand sewing for preschoolers.One of the book series that I’ve been loving lately is the National Geographic Kids early reader books. These are designed for kids to read themselves, and JJ isn’t quite up to that yet (she is starting to recognise some letters and can occasionally guess a word, but I wouldn’t say she is ‘reading’), but I think these books are great for young kids even before they can actually read. JJ loves facts, and has always been fascinated with nature. These National Geographic books have amazing photos (of course) and cover all areas of the natural world. They make a great non-fiction addition to balance out our reading time.

A few months back we borrowed Pandas by Ann Schreiber, and JJ was (and is still) enthralled with this fascinating species. (Incidentally “red panda” was one of her first words, several years ago after watching them play at Taronga Zoo one day). Often after reading about a particular animal, I will try to incorporate it into our play, but in this case I realised that we didn’t have a panda in our animal figurine collection. However I did remember that we had a Tim & Tess panda felt sewing kit (now discontinued stock sorry) in my craft/emergency present stash…

JJ just LOVED making this mini panda. To be honest I was a bit taken aback by how enthusiastic she was about making such a ‘product orientated’ craft. When she finished, I asked if she wanted to make another one.

“Yes please Mummy!”

I didn’t have another panda kit in my stash. So I improvised.

And I made one as well, so that we could have a little panda family. Here they all are, amongst the faux “bamboo forest”.

To make them, we used:

paper plates x 2
googly eyes x 2
black felt, cut into 2 x oval shapes for the eyes and 2 x long semi-circle (semi-oval?) shapes for the ears
large white pom pom and small black pom pom for the nose
long piece of white yarn
large blunt hand-sewing needle with a large eye
a piece of ribbon for hanging
red marker
low temperature hot glue gun (or craft glue)
single holepunch

With both plates together, hole punch evenly around the edge of the plates.

Flip one of the plates over so that the bottom of both plates are on the outside. Thread the yarn onto the needle, thread through the first hole and tie off. And then ask your preschooler to thread or hand sew the two plates together around the circle.

Technically this stitch is called a whip stitch, and is a basic first stitch that is easy enough for preschoolers. It’s actually easier than sewing a straight stitch as the needle only needs to enter from one side. But don’t worry if your preschooler prefers to sew a straight stitch, or does a combination of the two as JJ has done. A little bit of creative sewing adds character.

All this ‘work’ is great for their fine motor skills. Even a large blunt needle is still fiddly to pick up and thread through the plates. It requires concentration, hand-eye coordination, and persistence (as a large paper plate has quite a big circumference for little hands).

We stuck the rest of the elements on with our low temperature mini glue gun (which I’m just a little bit in love with by the way). Even though the glue from these guns is hot if you accidentally touch it, it doesn’t get hot enough to seriously burn. It is small enough for little hands, and I’ve let JJ help me use it a few times now (under very close supervision), and she loves the sense of empowerment that she can use such an adult tool. If you don’t have a low temperature glue gun like this, you could use a traditional hot glue gun (without the kids help), or you could use craft glue (but I’m way too impatient for that…)

Last but not least, we drew a mouth on each panda using red markers. And that’s all there is to it!

Aren’t they cute! Now I’m daydreaming what other animals we could do next… Any suggestions?

xx Danya

Categories Art & Crafts For Kids, Kindergarteners, Preschoolers Tags Animals, Sewing

Appliqueing the ‘2’ Tee

Danya Banya January 20, 2014 0

Here’s another applique sewing project. This little ‘2’ T-Shirt was made for my friend’s daughter’s second birthday.

Technically I bought the plain black T-shirt, and then I appliqued the design on the front. But I still think that counts as a unique hand-made gift, don’t you?

To make it, I zigzagged on some scrap demin first to create a frame. Then I appliqued on the hand, cuff and 2 using bits and pieces of scrap fabric. (Word has gotten out that I collect old clothes that are too damaged to go to charity for upcycling projects – so my collection is becoming quite large!)

I googled a cartoon two fingers design. (I’d love to link back to the image, but it was a year ago now, and for the life of me I can’t find it again to give credit. But it was something similar to this one.)

Once all the sewing was done, I traced the outline using laundry marker. The marker will gradually fade, but you can go over it again to keep it looking bright.

xx
Danya

PS: You might also like to check out the three different Trashy T-Shirts that I also made using this method.

Categories For the DIY Mum, Toddlers Tags Sewing

DIY Appliqué

Danya Banya January 16, 2014 4

I can’t believe this post has been sitting in my drafts for fourteen (14) months! In the midst of moving house and juggling two little munchkins, somehow my sewing (and my sewing posts) have been very neglected. So to all my creative sewing buddies, sorry ’bout that. I’ve inherited my Nana’s spanking sewing machine, and Santa (aka my mum) bought me a new overlocker for Christmas, so I’m excited to get sewing again in 2014.

But first let’s get up to date. For those who have been waiting with baited breath (lol), you might recall that I was trying out appliquéing. I made a ‘B’ onesie, a Christmas Tree onesie, a Big Sister top and a ‘1’ singlet using the pin and sew method – all of which all turned out OK. But the JJ top stretched and was a bit of a fail.

And then I discovered the appliquér’s secret.

(Said in a whisper) Iron-on sewable adhesive.

I bought mine on eBay, but I’m sure you could get it in any good haberdashery store.

The hard part of this process is that you have to trace the outline of what you want to appliqué in reverse. On this occasion, I was making a 2 singlet to mark Bee’s second month birthday. Since I was using the 2 that I’d already cut out as the stencil from my fabric letters and numbers, I was able to just flip it over and trace it. (Tip: If you want to print out a number or image and trace without actually cutting it out first, then look for a printer setting that will flip things horizontally.)

After you’ve traced it in reverse, the next step is to roughly cut it out (leaving a small edge), place it adhesive side down onto the back of the fabric, and iron it on.

You then cut it out again, this time making sure to cut precisely along the lines. Peel off the backing paper, and iron it fabric side up onto the singlet.

(If you accidentally iron the adhesive side, then you can clean it off the iron with vinegar once the iron cools. Don’t ask me how I know this.)

How to use iron-on sewable adhesive for appliques

You can then sew around the edges of the appliqué and you won’t have to worry about pins, or the fabric stretching or anything like that. And because you’ve used iron-on sewable adhesive, it won’t gunk up your sewing machine needle. The results are much more professional than the pin and sew method – in my humble opinion anyway.

If you’d prefer a no-sew method (cause I know there are some sew-phobic folks out there!) then choose an iron-on no-sew adhesive, as the glue on the sewable variety won’t hold after washing.

And here is little Bee on her two month birthday proudly showing off her new kicking moves! She was so dark back then. It’s hard to believe that she’s now a blonde haired blue eyed sixteen month old toddler!.

Create monthly appliqued singlets to record your baby's age

I also used this appliqué method to sew JJ’s 2 1/2 singlet, and Bee’s 3, 4 & 5 month singlets. (I sewed fabric stripes together to make rough stripes for the 4 month singlet, but the rest of the process remained the same.)

Appliqued t-shirts and singlets to show a child's age

xx
Danya

Make your own appliques to record your baby's age

Categories Babies, For the DIY Mum Tags Sewing

Festive Felt Garland

Danya Banya December 17, 2013 0

Only eight days until Christmas! Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of time to make this cute and festive DIY felt garland.

I made this last year, or was it the year before? I can’t remember where I first saw the idea, but there are quite of few similar to these over the Interwebs and Etsy nowadays.

It’s quite simple to make. First, cut out a bunch of little circles from felt. I made my bunting from red, green and white felt for Christmas, but you could use any colour combination for any occasion.

I made my circles the same size as the lid of a juice bottle – the same size as the ones that I used for my crib mobile back when Bee was first born.

Once you have all your felt circles cut and ready to go, pick up one and start sewing a straight stitch through the middle. I used a metallic silver thread to add to the festive feel, but you could use any colour that matched the colour theme of your felt pieces.

Keep sewing along the diameter until you reach the edge of the circle, feed a second felt circle under your sewing machine foot until it is touching the edge of the first one, and keep sewing from one circle to the other. Now you have two circles joined together. Start adding a third circle and your garland is beginning to grow. Keep going until your garland is as long or short as you like.

And there! Now you have a new decorative garland.

I’ve attached it to the wall using double-sided sticky tape. The big question is, how long do you think it will stay up there with 15 month old Bee toddling around?

Not long you say? That would have been my guess as well. But it’s been up for five days now (and counting)…

xx Danya

Categories Christmas, For the DIY Mum Tags Sewing

Christmas Onesie (that even beginner sewers can make)

Danya Banya November 28, 2013 0

I was unpacking my Christmas box this week, and I pulled it this cute little Christmas onesie that I made for Bee when she was a baby, and fell in love with it all over again.

This onesie was one of my first (successful) attempts at appliqueing. It is made from scrap corduroy, various other scrap fabrics, some ribbon and a store-bought plain onesie, in size 000.

Using my very basic sewing machine, I just zigzaged all the pieces onto the onesie, starting with the tree, then adding the ribbon ‘tinsel’, and finally adding the scrap fabric circle ‘baubles’ and ‘star’.

And then, as an after thought, I flipped it over and zigzagged some holly onto the onesie’s bottom area. I’m so glad I did, because I think it turned out really cute!

I’ve since discovered that you see more of a newborn baby’s bottom than their front, especially when they are still a bit young and squidgy.

The only tricky bits are making sure that you don’t accidentally sew the two sides of the onesie together (you can unpick as long as you catch it quickly) and learning how to sew in tight circles (by lifting the foot quite a bit).

The beauty of this style of onesie is that it’s not supposed to be perfect, or neat, or anything like that. So you can oversew a few stitches here, cut a corner short there, and it will just add to the charm of the finished product. (And I’ll admit to sewing the two sides of the onesie together by a few stitches at one point, and you can’t tell at all.)

Here’s Bee modelling her onesie last Christmas, when she was almost 3 months old. Here’s the front…

And the back…

Oh how I miss those newborn snuggles!

Here’s a few more shots where Bee is showing off how much she liked tummy time. (She was such a pro, whereas poor JJ couldn’t keep her head up at all…)

Alas, it doesn’t fit her any more. But I found someone who can wear it for the next month or so – meet our ‘Little Ted’…

I’m pleased as punch that this onesie came out of the Christmas box in one piece. It’s been worn, vomited on and washed at least half a dozen times, yet has remained relatively stain-free and the stitching has held. It’s now become one of our personalised Christmas decorations to enjoy for years to come.

You can find more sewing and appliqueing ideas here.

And you can can find all our Christmas activities here, including:

Baby footprint Rudolph Christmas cards
DIY footprint “Mistletoes” – cute keepsake for babies, todders, or both!
How to make a felt garland for Christmas
DIY “Reinbeers” – great gift for beer lovers

xx Danya

Categories Babies, Christmas, For the DIY Mum Tags Recycled or Upcycled, Sewing

S is for Satellite

Danya Banya February 28, 2013 0

How to make a baby satellite appliqué T-shirt

What do you wear to an “S” themed party?

Why Space Outfits of course!

S is for Space, Sun, Stars, Saturn, Satellite, Solar System

Original image by Megan Webb Photography

Earlier this week I showed you how to make the Sun and Saturn facemasks, and here is how to make my Stars headband. And now I’ll show you how I made little Baby Bee’s Satellite T-Shirt.

But first up. Awwww. Isn’t she the cutest little Satellite you ever did see? She’s was only 2.5 months old at this party, and despite my headband, she was definitely the star of the show. Cluck cluck cluck.

I chose a T-Shirt appliqué for her outfit, because at that tender young age, I needed something comfortable. Something soft. Something she could nurse in and sleep in.

Here’s how.

First I bought a cheap little plain black T-Shirt and shorts (to represent the black space) in the smallest size I could find, and then took them here, there and everywhere to convert them into a newborn size.

Then I googled satellites, and discovered there are some really tricky images of satellites that I would have no hope of replicating in fabric. I chose this one, which seemed remotely do-able, and copied the design onto the back of some iron-on sewable adhesive.

Drawing of a satellite on iron-on sewable adhesive

I chose some four shades of grey fabric from my mammoth fabric stash (I keep getting donations of old clothes that are no-longer wearable but the fabric is still salvageable – it’s awesome!) and ironed on the adhesive, cut out the shapes, and then ironed them onto the T-Shirt. The design becomes reversed, but that doesn’t matter for a design like this where there is no right or wrong way round.

By now we were running behind schedule, and I had Mr Banya breathing down my neck to finish the damn outfits. So I wizzed this around the sewing machine at lightning speed. Luckily I like little flaws.

And here’s how it turned out.

Baby satellite T-Shirt fancy dress outfit

BUT, once we got to the party, Bee decided to do what newborns do best, and that was nurse, cry and sleep, and repeat. So the family shot above is the only one of her actually awake and happy. For the rest of the night, all you could see of her outfit was this.

Image by Megan Webb Photography

Oh well, at least I knew that she was in theme. 🙂

xxx

Danya

PS: Just in case you are interested, Bee’s satellite also makes a star appearance (lol, space humour) when JJ and I were playing outside with chalk one afternoon.

Categories Babies, For the DIY Mum Tags Megan Webb Photography, Recycled or Upcycled, Sewing