Doll nappy / diaper #2...quick 'n' easy project

So, you may remember that last year I blogged about a teeny weeny nappy (or diaper) for dolls...
As time goes by, I am acquiring a bit more experience with the sewing machine (as it is obvious) but also, I'm cutting corners to make the little time I have go a little further.
So, here it is a quicker and easier version of my tutorial to make a doll nappy.


Who would have said that the brave little mouse needed a nappy????

These are the materials you'll need, slightly different from my previous tutorial :

Materials:

• Old small bath towel (or a small piece of knitted fabric, easier to work with and less bulkier than towel. I've used an old baby bodysuit) - for the internal part of the nappy
• A little cotton fabric of your choice - for the external part of the nappy
• A strip of Velcro, 1 and a 1/2 time the length of the wider end of the nappy
• a doll / teddy to put it on (please note: I based this on one of Little Miss' doll, which is long 26 cm head to toe and has a 22 cm waistline; if your doll / teddy is bigger / smaller you'll need to scale the measurements given to suit)

Follow the instruction in my previous tutorial to measure and cut yourself a paper template, according to your doll's size.

Cut the cotton fabric (for the external part of the nappy) following the paper template you have made.

Now, the easy bit: cut roughly a square of the knitted fabric, a bit bigger than the cotton fabric piece. Lay the cotton fabric on top of the knitted fabric WRONG sides together. Pin in place.

Sew the two piece of fabric together following the shape of the cotton fabric, using a zig-zag stitch (that would allow some elasticity and stretch to the nappy), leaving one of the short sides open for turning inside out.

Cut the excess knitted fabric all around and turn the work inside out. Press and top stitch all around for a neater look, making sure you fold inwards the open end beforehand.

Sew a strip of Velcro (soft half) on the front, at the narrower end of the nappy (this will be the front of your nappy) as illustrated.

Then sew two small squares of Velcro (rough half) internally, at both ends of the wider side, as illustrated.

And that's it!!! How easy was that???

Happy playing! :)

 

 

Crafting with kids: magnetic paper dolls

Can you believe it's the end of March and today it snowed again?!
SO fed up with this weather...I'm not one to go out when the thermometer goes closer to zero, so what to do with my little one in an afternoon like this?
Paper dolls!
When I saw some cute paper dolls on Pinterest, a few days ago, it reminded me of when I was little and used to *LOVE* this simple game of dressing up bi-dimensional dollies with different dresses, which had tags to fold over the paper doll to stay in place.
So, here it is my family, paper doll-style:

Materials:

• Paper
• Pictures of your family members or friends or celebrities or whoever you like; you only need the face, alternatively, you could use a picture of the whole body, rather than drawing it as I did
• Magnetic photo paper (I use the Pound Shop's one = extremely cheap!)
• Scraps of fabric
• Other craft accessories / decorations (optional)
• Sharpie or other black fine tip marker
• Glue stick

So, first step is to cut the faces out of your pictures and stick them to a piece of paper. You can cut the individual figures but I wanted the family to be together. Then, draw the bodies under the faces.
Be creative: you can draw animal bodies or cartoon bodies or just, like I did, some sort of body that resembles reality - well, almost, I do have some more curves than this!
I also made a little mistake, as you can see, drawing Little Miss' body...never mind! I was rushing to get finished before making dinner :) You can obviously colour the bodies, and draw underwear if you wish, as I said, I didn't have much time for the details...

Next, lay another sheet of paper on the first one, and draw the templates for the clothes. You should be able to see through the paper because you used a dark sharpie...so it should be easy to trace the clothes' contour around the bodies.

Cut the clothes' paper templates and lay them on the fabric scraps to trace and cut the shape of the clothes. I haven't traced them, actually: I cut out the fabric straightaway using the paper template as an approximate indication. Be creative, again: I made an awful green stripey dress with sparkly yellow ruffle and a pair of cords for myself, and even a little beanie for Little Miss. My husband has a choice of two T-shirts and some jeans. If you have time, you could make different clothes for different occasions...or even little dress up clothes!

 

Here even the younger kids will be able to help: take the fabric clothes and glue them on the white side of the magnetic paper.

Cut out the little clothes.

Now, fix the paper dolls to your fridge door or other magnetic board, and let the fun begin!

Sunday morning crafting with kids: homemade fishing game

Since my life has turned much more crafty (and I have a toddler to experiment with!), I make a point of doing some simple crafting on a Sunday morning, especially since this is the time I'm on duty with my little Miss, while daddy catches up on sleep. So silent games are the best at this time of the week.
This morning I didn't know what to come up with, though. Last week we did a giant butterfly collage, the week before we did a poster with all Christmas cards she received as a keepsake (you'll know if you are following me on Facebook...), but this week my tired mind really didn't have a clue... So, I picked up a book I bought in a charity shop ages ago called "365 things to make and do" by Vivienne Bolton. It's an old 1990s edition, but still a useful reference for parents when they run out of ideas to entertain their kids.
In this book, I came across a game I *LOVED* to do with my little brother when we were kids, the "fishing game". At that time we had a "sophisticated" version, it was a set of little fishes which had a magnet inside their mouth, in a rotating plastic pond; the scope of the game was to catch the fishes with little plastic rods with a piece of metal at the end of the rope. If you are about my age you'll know what I mean!
The one I saw in the book was the homemade version, using cardboard to make the fishes and paper clips to do the hooks. I happened to have some cheap Pound Shop materials that keep on turning very useful these days: magnetic paper and coloured foam sheets. These seemed perfect for what I had in mind.

So, if you want to do the same, this is what you need:

• Crafting foam sheets (you can substitute with cardboard, but this way the fishes are a little more resistant)
• Magnetic paper (you can use simple paper clips to do the hooks, but this way it's so much better!)
• Scissors
• String
• Sticky tape
• Two pencils or pens or chopsticks or any safe sticks you have handy
• Colours to decorate your fishes
• All purpose glue (this is slightly more toxic than kids' paper glue, but more effective in this case, so I suggest an adult does the glueing, rather than a child)

All you need to do is to cut the foam in little fish shapes (I cut a couple of special pieces as well, a sea star and an octopus: if you are playing with points, these could be worth more); I didn't follow a template or drawn the fish on the foam first, I just quickly cut the shapes, but of course you could download some templates off the Internet and do a much more professional job. I was after "quick-fun-who cares lets be quick so we can play with it". The limitation with foam is that you can't really decorate the fish (although my little Miss has drawn eyes on all of them; older kids could also do the cutting, glueing and assembling), but if you decide to use cardboard you can let your creativity go wild!

Once the fishes are all cut and decorated (I made an odd number of fishes so that there will be always one winner) you can cut little pieces of magnetic paper and glue them on the fishes, with the non-magnetic side to be glued on the fishes.

Now, the last part: making the fishing rods. Just cut two pieces of string of the same length, then tie each one to the end of each of your sticks (or pencils). At the other end of the string, glue or fix with sticky tape a piece of magnetic paper, slightly larger than the pieces you used for the fishes (the string should be stuck on the non-magnetic side of the paper).

That's it! Now put your fishes in a plate or tray and start playing by catching with the magnets at the end of the fishing rods as many fishes as you can in a minute. At the end of the minute, wins the player who caught most fishes. If you want to add another educational element (apart from the eye / hand coordination needed to play this simple game), number the fishes or write a letter on each and for example pick the fishes in numerical order or so that you form meaningful words.
Happy playing and happy Sunday! X

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More upcycling: Mr Tango the Sock Monkey

Still on the theme of toys made with simple household materials, let me introduce you to a new friend for my (not so) little sister...Mr Tango, the sock monkey!

I pinned the sock monkey tutorial ages ago, but never made any sock monkeys because for some reason I didn't think they were cute enough for toddlers to be interested in them. Wrong, obviously. You should have seen my Little Miss playing with the body BEFORE I added ears, eyes and mouth...she was basically playing with a stuffed sock with legs...but, for once, the finished toy didn't end up in kids' hands. Instead, Mr Tango bravely flew a few thousands miles today to reach my little sis as a birthday present. :)
If you want to make your own sock monkey, good, step-by-step instructions can be found on Craft Passion's blog here.
This is a fun, one-evening project that can be easily done with used or new socks (I used new, Pound Shop socks, simply because my husband's socks are all block coloured and I was looking for stripy ones). I had fun deciding the expression of the monkey, all really down to the eyes, so I suggest you try a few eye types / styles (buttons, felt, big round, small embroidered...) and experiment a bit, until you are happy with it.
I also added a touch of femininity with the scarf, made out of a piece of particularly fancy ribbon. Another slight change from the tutorial I followed was not stuffing the tail; I just couldn't face stitching along the whole length of the tail and then turning the tail inside out...I think it turned out pretty sweet anyway.
Happy birthday Cele, love you loads... I know you'll make Mr Tango happy! X

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Bye Bye 2012...and a Happy Sun Handmade Soft Toy

Bye bye 2012...thank you for having seen the blossoming of my creativity, and the birth of this blog. Thank you for allowing me to feel myself again and express my crafty side...
And thanks to the hundreds (or thousands!) of people that have visited the blog so far (last count, 8,600 and something visits...thank you!), I do hope 2013 will bring to you all (and my loved ones, of course)

"PANE, AMORE E FANTASIA"!!!

(i.e. bread, love and creativity)

Now, down to our favourite business...I shall close this year with a post that I hope will inspire you to use your hands a little more and create simple (but lovely), environmentally friendly things for yourselves and your loved ones.

This one is a cute Happy Sun soft toy I made for my new little niece, Ingrid.

Young babies really love staring at faces, so I thought I'd make a happy face for her. My own daughter, when she was a baby, loved also pulling and chewing tags, so I decided to give life to a "Happy Sun" soft toy, using several scraps of fabric to make the tags and, for the face, a soft cotton muslin that had been my daughter's (washed and washed time and time again, so really soft and environmentally friendly).
I added the blue cheeks cutting them out of a piece of microfibre cloth (but you could use any material, I like the microfibre because it's soft and has texture). I stuffed this soft toy with the usual cushion stuffing. However, for my next toys, I'll use pure wool. I have a lovely colleague at work who buys sheep wool and spins it, before knitting her knitwear. She very kindly agreed to give me some of her leftover bits of wool, so on Christmas Eve I decided to clean my first batch of smelly wool in my kitchen. Not much difference with a barn, but in the end I had a bag full of lovely, natural stuffing made out of Jacob wool.


The construction of the Happy Sun soft toy is super-simple.
You'll need scraps of fabric, ribbon, toy stuffing of your choice, and a little bell (optional).
I started with cutting my bits of fabric:

• Two circles out of the muslin cloth (I used a small side dish plate as a guide);
• A number of rectangular pieces from the scraps of cotton to make the tags, which I then folded in half. I also used a few pieces of ribbon. The tags will all need to be positioned snugly around the circles, so make sure you take into account their seam allowance when counting how many you'll need. You can always add more as you go if you need, though;
• Two small circles for the Happy Sun cheeks.

Next step, I embroidered my happy face by machine (but you could do this by hand if you wanted to) and stitched the cheeks on the right side of one of the two muslin cloth circles. See picture at the beginning of the post for an idea of how to do that (sorry, I forgot to take a picture of this step!).

Then, I sewed a small seam all around three sides of each tag (not the ribbons), and turned the tags inside out to reveal their right sides.
I took my tags, I arranged them and pinned them all around the right side of the soft toy embroidered circle as shown below, so that they would fit snugly, with their open sides one next to the other, and the rest of the tags overlapping as needed.

Then, I sewed all around the edge of the happy face circle to secure the tags to it.

I then put the other muslin circle on top of the first one, right sides facing each other, and sewed a seam all around, leaving a couple of inches gap to allow the toy to be turned inside out and stuffed.

Lastly, after I stuffed the soft toy firmly (and inserted a little bell inside to make a soft jingly sound), I sewed the gap by hand.

Ta-dah!  Soft toy finished and ready to be gifted to a lucky baby!

Happy 2013 everyone!!!

How to make a soft octopus out of an old glove: upcycling while watching TV

I really couldn't resist today, I had to post immediately about my little un-winding activity from last night: making a little soft octupus from an old glove!

We will be moving to a bigger house next week, so this week is all about packing and decluttering (and working 9 to 5, of course).

Yesterday was my wardrobe's turn to be emptied and decluttered. Mountains of old woolly hats and gloves and scarves attacked me as soon as I opened the door...half of them ended up in the charity shop bag as I haven't worn them for so long (can you picture me with a pink, sparkly scarf? Brrr...me neither), but while I was closing the bag I noticed a spare, holed wool glove...mmmm...the eco-warrior in me rebelled...and a lightning bolt of an idea hit me (well, almost...)!
Anyway, I sat on the sofa in front of the telly (you can see the glare from it below) and placed next to me my sewing box.



 

I started stuffing the glove's fingers with stuffing stuff :) - from a cushion's interior material

(Yes, I'm wearing yellow Crocs, so what?!)

 



 

With stuffed fingers, it was easier to mend the holes (there were a few of them)

 

Once the fingers were mended and firmly stuffed, I started sewing right at the top of the fingers, all around the glove, with the purpose of narrowing the "neck" of the octopus. The fingers are its tentacles.

It's important to try and sew the thumb at the same level as the other fingers (as illustrated below), so there won't be difference between arms, when the octopus is finished.

Then I simply pulled the thread at both ends, made a knot and stitched a few more times across to secure the "neck".

A bit more stuffing...A LOT more, actually, to make a round, firm octopus head

I sewed around the base of the glove (at the wrist), then pulled and knotted the thread to close the head.

 

Ta-dah! it does look like an octopus, doesn't it? But let's make it cuter...

 

 

Using some felt, I cut white circles (and blue coloured for the pupils) and hand-sewed the eyes on the head.

 

 

...and the extra fancy bit: I applied a felt star I previously made by dry felting

(a technique I've just learnt, using felted wool and cookie cutters as forms - really liberating activity, with all that furious pricking the felt with a needle!), but you can use normal felt or any other decoration/material that tickles your fancy

 

 

What about some buttons (just a bunch of old, mismatched ones did the job) as tentacles' suction cups?

 

 

And there it is, a cute little octupus ready to be played with (...after Christmas Eve, that is!)

 

 

Mini Mei Tai baby carrier for a doll

About a year ago I was introduced to the beauty of the Mei Tai, an oriental-style baby carrier that can carry comfortably newborns as well as toddlers.
I was always a fan of baby carriers (as you can learn from my post on the Mei Tai baby carrier I made myself a while ago). But I learn a lot more about them through a fellow Italian eco-mum, Tiz (she has four little monkeys though!). She makes lovely Mei Tai's, which she sells, and has also a blog worth following, My Mei Tai, which contains much information about ecoparenting, natural birth, baby-wearing, the lot.
Tiz is a generous type too, so from her blog you can download free instructions for making your own Mei Tai and even a mini version of it for carrying dolls (here; instructions are in Italian, I should add).
So, using her instructions I sewed my own mini Mei Tai for Little Miss' birthday (it only took a couple of hours...), and she has been sporting it quite a bit in town ever since: imagine people's faces when they saw my little girl trotting along with her dollie in her cute mini carrier.
Somebody the other day asked her:
"Aw, is that your baby you are carrying?"
to which she answered:
"It's not a baby, it's a DOLL".
She is quite an old lady into a little body, sometimes!
You can see I've added to Tiz' basic model a front pocket for all those little Lego bits, toy cars and animals, and minuscule pieces of paper Little Monkey LOVES carrying around. I've quickly cut and hand-sewn a felt strawberry on the pocket to match the fabric she chose for the front panel. The back panel, the pocket and the straps are in denim.

 

You can see how this can be a great way of involving a child when there is a new arrival in the family, and how children can learn to be caring through play and imitation of their parents.
You can find other  types of baby carrier for dolls on the Internet, including these you can find on:
Seven Thirty Three
A popular version by Oliver + S on Little Things to Sew
And patterns available on Etsy to buy, like this by 3Bean Studio.

Happy baby wearing!