how to have a crafty christmas and also not murder anyone.

we're having a crafty little christmas this year, mostly because in october todd took his car in for maintenance and it cost us over nine hundred dollars.  (yes, you read that right, and yes, i felt nauseous when i heard the news, too.)  so the budget for the kids' gifts is $10.  total.  combined.

so...ramshackle crafts it is.

one thing i have yet to consistently remember about myself is that, deep down, i usually really hate crafting.  i always forget and i look at pinterest and am like, oh i could do that/sew that/glue gun that!  how hard can it be? and i drop down and get my crafty on grrrl and it starts out actually really great.  i ride this wave of 'i am woman, watch me handstitch' for a while and feel pretty invincible.

but then something goes wrong.  my bobbin runs out of thread.  the tension gets all wonky.  i glue gun my fingers together.  and then i start cussing under my breath, but try to fix the problem and power through.

but then the problem is unfixable and something else goes wrong.  the freaking ruffle isn't ruffling.  the mesh is getting stuck in the sewing machine gears.  the machine stops working altogether shortly after the (last) needle (i have on hand) breaks.  and then, oh honey.  i go ape crap.

no more under-the-breath cussing for me.  i'm calling down curses from heaven on my sewing machine.  i'm threatening to rip the handmade doll (or, the unfinished parts of the handmade doll) limb from limb.  and then i storm out of the room and start to blog instead.

which is why i'm considering printing out a transcript of my blog for each of the kids, putting it in their stockings, and considering them christmas'd.  i think they'll like it.  at the very least, they'll appreciate that their gifts didn't come at the cost of me murdering someone in my craft-rage and spending christmas in prison.

merry handmade christmas, kiddies.

felt food and tutorials

i had so much fun making felt food for atticus for christmas!  it's not super time-consuming (as far as crafting goes) - and it's so stinkin' cute that the whole process is just really fun.  for some, i used tutorials and others i just looked at pictures and tried my best to replicate them.  the only materials you need are felt, a sewing machine with coordinating thread, coordinating embroidery floss and a needle, and some stuffing (one small/medium stuffed animal yielded PLENTY of stuffing for all of these projects).  and i'm not super great at sewing or crafting, so it doesn't take a ton of skill, just an ability to read directions and use a basic sewing machine.

i made a felt paper bag to put all the food in and hand-stitched the obvious. (click on the links to be taken to the tutorials or examples i used.)

here's all the food i made. (no, i did not make the barilla box - i just put the bowtie pasta i made into it for a little more fun.)

the first food item i made was the banana.  not the greatest - it's pretty pointy and quite obviously hand-stitched by an amateur.  and the peel doesn't cover the whole banana. but atticus knows what it is, and penelope is pretty indiscriminate when it comes to toys (pointy or not, she'll chew on it) so it works.  plus, the banana itself comes out of the peel, which is funny to me.

the pizza was...well...a 'wing it' effort and the most difficult one i made.  i just looked at a picture.  i have copies of the pattern i created for the 'body' of the pizza, if you're interested.

 here's the bowtie pasta.  by far the EASIEST one i made.

again, super easy.  i didn't find a picture for this one, but it's pretty self-explanatory from the picture here.

the bread is pretty wonky.  it was harder than it looked, plus i didn't have the right color of embroidery floss for the edges.  i probably wouldn't make this one again...

unless i just made one more so atticus could make a sandwich. :)

i LOVE how this carrot turned out - and it seriously took like 10 minutes from start to finish.  if even.  (this one actually had a tutorial, which i found made a HUGE difference.  who'd have thought?)

same concept with the strawberries as the carrot - basically the same technique to make them, and i made 4 in probably 5-10 minutes.

um, how funny is this?!

and this is hilarious, too, i think.  and again, took 5 minutes from start to finish.

i had some, ahem, help photographing these.

here are a BUNCH of ideas - some i've already linked to on here, some i want to try yet.

here's a cute idea for popcorn and a chocolate bar that i'll be trying.

and here's some broccoli that might acclimate atticus to the idea of vegetables (like how playing 'doctor' makes it easier for kids to get their real checkups).  here's to hoping.

and here's a whole flickr group with even more ideas (i think i saw a baked potato in there- funny!) although some of these are like felt food made for royalty.  if i spent that much time making a felt cake, there is no way on earth i'd let my kid play with it.  it would go in some kind of glass case in my living room for guests to ogle at.

i'm thinking about making more sometime in the near or distant future - anybody up for a felt-fooding party?