Build a Monster

I joined a busy bag exchange group on Facebook.  I decided I wanted to finally start making the cloth quiet books for my kids that I've been planning, so I made pages for all my trades.  The first one I completed was for the preschool group.  The activity is a create-a-face monster made of felt.

I sewed the monster's head onto the page.  (I used muslin, but any cotton - any fabric, really - would work.)  I backed the page with a piece of felt and another piece of muslin.  I would like to have bound the edges, but the muslin I got was ridiculously thin and was trying to disintegrate.  Instead, I did a couple of messy zigzag stitches around the edge to hold it together and minimize fraying.  I made all the monster faces out of green or dark purple felt.  I used light purple thread for contrast.  I also did not take care placing the stitches because I wanted chaos to go with the monster theme.  (I apologize to the neat and orderly monsters out there.)

Since I was going for chaos, I picked a wacky, mustard-colored, animal-print fabric for the storage bag.  I put a button on the bag to keep the pieces in and attached it to the page with a sparkly orange ribbon.  The bag holds the three eyes (well, two sets and one single eyeball), three noses and three mouths I created to stick on the monster face.

Most of the members are not making cloth quiet books, so I added one or three buttonholes, whatever their preference, so that the page could be joined with other quiet book pages of other mediums on a ring or in a three-ring binder.

I also included directions:

In case you can't read that:

MONSTER FACES!

Includes: Monster Head, 3 Eyes, 3 Noses, 3 Mouths and Attached Storage Bag

Get creative and get scary!

Optional 2-person Game:

The first person designs a face with one of each part without telling the second person what it is.  The second person creates a face, trying to guess what the first person designed.  The first person tells the second person how many parts are correct and how many are wrong.  The second person tries to guess again, and the game continues until the second person guesses the correct combination of eyes, nose and mouth, counting how many tries it took.  The players switch roles, and the player who guessed with the fewest tries wins!

Felt Board Food

After being served some mighty chewy dinosaurs repeatedly over the last few days...

...I decided to cook up something more appetizing for Ellie's pretend play.  In a half hour, I whipped up some tasty pizza and a few chocolate chip cookies.  I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures; I had small hands quickly advancing on my handiwork.

Pineapple, cheese, sausage, onions, bell peppers and olives

This is why three-year-olds don't make pizza

She's baking it in her "oven"

She spent all afternoon playing with it...toppings on...bake...toppings off...toppings on...bake...toppings off...

She wasn't impressed by my cookies, but I think they're cute

Caterpillar Cuddly

Okay, so he's not that cuddly, but he is a plush toy, and the name went with "Butterfly Buddy."

I actually thought through my stuffing process before starting this time.  I also had the sense to attach my colored pieces to a single backer instead of trying to assemble them midair.  Both sides are the same, and other than the slightly fish-like head resulting from after-market eyes, he's slightly reminiscent of Eric Carle.  I had to add eyes to the original design because Ellie was disturbed by the lack of eyes on the dinosaurs.  After seeing them on the caterpillar, she asked me to put them on the butterfly.

Butterfly Buddy

Tonight Ellie brought me the dinosaurs I made her yesterday and asked me to make them into something else, Elmo.  (Now, I feel I should clarify that she was not saying she didn't like the dinosaurs but rather she didn't realize I have more materials from which to make other things.)

Well, I don't have any red felt, so I asked her what else she'd like.  She said, "green Elmo."  I asked for another idea, and she said, "red Elmo."  So Daddy interjected with, "What about a butterfly?"  Ellie: "Yeah!"  Then he felt the need to tack on, "and a caterpillar...The Very Hungry Caterpillar."  Thanks, Daddy.

I let Ellie pick the colors, right down to the floss, and she did a pretty good job.  I, on the other hand, should have gotten off my behind and gotten the pins I was too lazy to get.  Eh...Ellie won't care that he's lopsided.

As for the caterpillar?  Not tonight.  Three hours on a butterfly that should've taken about an hour is enough for one night.

Oh My Oh My Oh DINOSAURS!

My kids LOVE dinosaurs.  I saw a tutorial on a craft blog about some cute MYO fleece dinosaurs.  Well, I don't have any fleece, and I wasn't about to take two children to the craft store.  What I do have is gobs of felt and floss.  So...

I drew up a form of a dinosaur and went to town.  I decided to make a set of two dinosaurs with contrasting embellishments.  Drawing the form wasn't too difficult for me.  (Sketching patterns freehand is the only type of drawing I do halfway decently.  Do not ask me to try to draw something that won't be cut out and traced.)  Cutting the felt proved a little harder because there were some tight corners in my design.  Assembling the dinosaurs was nothing.

The first dinosaur, a sort of stegosaurus, was just two forms and four triangles cut from the scraps.  I pinned the forms together and inserted the triangles about 3/16" in between the forms, pinning each triangle.  Then I sewed all the way around the form except for the belly, for stuffing.  DO NOT DO THIS.  I don't know what I was thinking.  Leave the back open, please please.  Not only did I have a bear of a time stuffing all the tight areas, I had to stuff the legs AS I WAS SEWING THEM.  Plus, I had to go back and reinforce all the sharp corners because I pulled them open while stuffing.  All the sharp corners are around the legs, of course.

The second dinosaur is a brontosaurus with his head down, or that's what I'm telling myself.  He required a bit more work because his embellishments, spots, had to be sewn onto each side individually.  (Then, when you make two right sides, which you will inevitably do if you try to multitask, you have to rip off the spots and reattach them the other way, and it will look nowhere as good as it did the first time.)  Since I hadn't learned of my stuffing error yet, I sewed all the way around except the belly.  DO NOT DO THIS.  That is worth repeating.  Please, please, leave the back open for stuffing.

I could have thrown these dinosaurs together in a couple of hours if I'd paid attention to what I was doing.  They are a great little set to accompany one of my daughter's favorite books, Oh My Oh My Oh DINOSAURS! by Sandra Boynton.