Easy DIY Educational toys for 0-1 year olds

I knew before our little Annabelle arrived that I didn't want to fill my house with shiny, loud plastic toys that flashed and sang at the touch of the button, they have their place and Annabelle does enjoy them,  but primarily I wanted her toys to be fun and educational, teaching her fine and gross motor skills and teaching her to enjoy learning to work things out and allow her to experience a variety of different materials and textures along the way. Below are a selection of the home made toys I have made her, super easy and cheap to make and she really enjoys playing with them and they have taught her a lot along the way! The cotton reel tub below and the milk bottle top posting box have been her firm favourites for ages now, they keep her happy for ages.

At around 9 months Annabelle developed a LOVE of posting things, I looked it up and kids often have urges to do certain things like posting, or hanging upside down (!) or climbing etc and they are called development schema, you can read more about them on the Nature Play blog here. This toy definitely fed her desire to post and was also very easy to make. All you need are empty cotton reels from ebay or something (ours were painted by her great Grandma when she was in the WI) , and an empty tub with a removable lid (mine was a candy floss tub from Warwick Castle), cut two holes with a scalpel, one so they can go in round end first, and a rectangle hole so they can go in sideways. If I tip these out, she will happily sit there until she has patiently "posted" them all back into the tub. Genius! I stuck the pink coloured card on the lid to give the holes more definition.

Click read more to see the other easy to make toys....

How to use Bondaweb - Photo tutorial

This tutorial is for my friend Esther! Bondaweb is amazing stuff and enables you to do appliqué so crisp and neatly. So this is a very quick tutorial just to show you how to use it correctly, but the possibilities are endless and can give you such a neat professional finish. (Have a look at my previous post about simple ideas to quickly jazz up a blank T-shirt here) 

I love using this to do appliqué onto jersey fabrics especially as they tend to move about when you stitch onto them, but doing it this way the Bondaweb holds the design and the fabric in place. Below are two I have just recently done, one inspired by Fi Fi Lapin and the other is just something I drew.

So if you want to know how to use it, click read more!

Sleep mask tutorial and free Pattern

Summer is definitely on its way, and with that comes bright early mornings! I have made a blackout blind for Annabelles room to prevent any unwanted early risings, but haven't made one for our room, and seen as my husband can sleep through anything, I figured I just needed to make it dark for myself, much easier and cheaper than buying/making blackout blinds! So here is a free pattern and photo tutorial for making yourself a sleep mask either to keep those pesky sunbeams at bay first thing in the morning, or to help you sleep on a long haul flight, or for whatever reason you may want a bit of personal darkness. Its a very quick project and I managed to get mine done in an hour and a bit despite having a 6 month old who needs attention! (If you don't have a baby I imagine it will take you much less time!!)

For the free pattern and photo tutorial click "Read more"

Oven glove tutorial and free pattern

I have made a pattern for these oven gloves which you can download here and follow the photographs below for how to make them. I hope they make sense! The fabric I used is a cotton print I got from the market (trying very hard to look like a Kath Kidston Print!) and the Bias binding I also got from the haberdashery on the market. It is 2cm wide. You can buy specially made insulating wadding, and I bought some called Insul fleece, I’ve not used it before and was a little dubious about how successful it would be as it’s quite thin. However it can easily be quilted on the machine without any special machine feet but to be honest I think I would double it if I was to do it again as it wasn’t as insulating as I hoped it would be. If you didn’t want to fork out for the more expensive insulation wadding you could instead buy some thick curtain lining, as this is much cheaper and I think would do the job just as well, seen as I use tea towels and all sorts to get hot things out of the oven.
Apologies for the photos not being great, but I took them while showing everyone how to do it!

Photo tutorial after the jump....

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Baby Car Seat Canopy Tutorial

It was half term a couple of weeks ago so I had some free time on my hands AND some energy which is nice after months of feeling exhausted! I have bought loads of fabric with projects in mind, I think my hubby was getting a little nervous I was never going to use it! So I set about on my first baby sewing project since finding we were pregnant! Can't believe it's taken me this long to get started! I'd seen these types of covers online and decided rather than buy one I thought I'd make one. I've photographed each step so you can make one too. It's super quick and easy and really only took me an afternoon. Think I may knock up some more for my preggers friends!

You will need:

• Two pieces of fabric measuring 103cm x86cm for the body and lining
• 4 bits of fabric measuring 23x8cm for the straps
• Co-ordinating(or contrasting!) machine cotton
• About 20cm of Velcro (hook and loop tape)

Here you can see the lovely pop of colour from the underside, and the car seat can still be easily carried with the fabric over the handle.

Photo tutorial after the jump.....

Ombre dip dye apron

A couple of weeks ago, I was due to host another crafting session with my growing craft group DCI (Dream Create Inspire!). I had decided that we were going to make aprons, and I had sent out the materials list etc, but when the time came, I had totally forgotten to go out and some fabric for myself! Now I know, I do have boxes and boxes of fabric stashed away, but not large enough bits to make a whole apron out of! Then I remembered under the stairs I had put some old white Ikea curtains that I had already hacked about a bit to re-fashion some curtains......so I took those with me and while I was making it, (pattern to follow shortly) I had a little brain wave to jazz it up a bit. Why not dip dye it!? So that's exactly what I did! Brief "how-to" below the picture.

• First you need to make up the dye as per the instructions on the packet. Use a cold water dye. Ideally in something deep like a bucket.
• Then you need to drench the apron or the product to be dyed in water. It needs to be wet all the way through, then wring it out a bit, but not so its bone dry.
• I dipped the apron in as far as I wanted the Ombre affect to go up the apron, then lifted it out so that just the first 3 or 4 inches or so were still in the dye. Then I suspended the apron from above the bucket, you could use a clothes airer or tape the neck strap to a table with the bucket underneath.... 
• Its important to keep the apron damp throughout the dying process as the dye gets naturally drawn up the fabric due to osmosis (fancy word!)thats how you get the nice faded out effect rater than a sharp difference between colour and white. To keep it damp, I occasionally poured water from the top of the apron down the front into the bucket. 
• I left my apron to sit overnight. 
• When you are happy with the dyed effect you need to rinse out the extra dye. BE VERY CAREFUL not to get the dye on parts of the apron you want to keep white! I got blue dye on my waist straps and the neck which was really annoying! Run it under hot and cold water alternately until the water runs clear, then hang it out to dry. 
• I then ironed mine to seal the dye in and to get all the creases out. Ta-da!

Christmas Stocking Tutorial and free pattern

Christmas fever is rising in our house! I LOVE Christmas and as we will be away in America for two weeks over Christmas visiting my hubbys Granny and Grandad, I thought I really ought to get the tree and decs up two weeks early in order to enjoy them to their full. You see the logic! In the process of untangling lights, fawning over all our lovely baubles again I found our stockings. The plainer one Dave made for me for our first christmas together and the following year I returned the favour for him with holly trim and buttons.

As people have requested a template for these christmas stockings,  I have made two different sizes, 1 large and one small you can down load the Large stocking template here and the smaller stocking template here. I have also done a photo tutorial ( Click "read more") so you can make one too!

Wallpaper envelopes DIY

Today Im going to show you how to make these super cool and easy customised envelopes! 

Envelope needle case tutorial

The other day on Pinterest I was looking for a small sewing project to do with the girls from DCI (Dream Create Inspire craft group I teach at) and I came across this super cute needle case in the style of an envelope. I searched high and low for the tutorial but I couldn't find one so I thought I would have a go myself. This is my first tutorial so please bare with me! The photography isn't amazing and artistic, It's just done on my Iphone so apologies for that! If you find anything confusing or unclear, please write a comment at the bottom of this post and ill try and rectify it for you! Any feedback is appreciated!

Equipment and materials:

• Medium weight Interfacing
• Felt
• Plain fabric
• Patterned fabric
• Pinking Shears
• 1 Press stud/ Popper 

Firstly you need to download the pattern for the envelope from here, the template in the pictures doesn't have the seam allowance added on but the download will. You need to cut out one patterned piece for the inside and one plain colour for the outside.

You also need to cut one out of a medium weight interfacing. I like to use the iron on sort as it doesn't slip about! this will be used to stiffen the case and give it better structure. 

So you should have 3 bits all cut out now the same, one plain, for the outside, one patterned for the inside, and one piece of interfacing. Next Iron on the interfacing to the plain piece as this is reinforce the fabric for stitching the address. If you don't have iron on stuff, just leave it till later or pin it to the plain piece.

Next thing to do is to sew the lines of "address" on the front of the envelope, which is the plain fabric. I worked this out by folding up the envelope and working out roughly where it would go. Make sure you have the template up the correct way!! I just used straight stitch but if you had the time and inclination you could hand sew an actual address or someones name on it if you liked!

Now for the stamp, I cut out a piece of felt, using pinking shears to get the zig-zag effect and positioned it using the folded template again. Remember you have 1cm seam allowance around the edge, so don't go up to far into the corner. Stitch that down with straight stitch then you could sew  a button on, or embroider a little motif, I used a small piece of fabric (with a little dog on) and bondawebbed it on then stitched around it again (see end photos)

Now to cut out the felt pages for the inside of the booklet, again I just folded the flaps of the template in and then cut out a rectangle about 1.5cm smaller than the folded template.

Fold the felt to find out where the middle is and then using straight stitch just sew it straight down the middle.

Now to sew it altogether! so....you need to put the right sides together, so the side with the pages needs to be touching the side with the sewn on address and stamp. Interfacing, if you haven't ironed it on just needs to go on top of either side, it doesn't matter.

Stitch all the way around the outside of the needle case, keeping your 1cm away from the edge. DON'T SEW IT ALL UP! Remember to leave a gap on one of the long sides so you can turn it inside out. Before you turn it you need to remove the bulk from the corners to make it flatter when you turn it out. Cut diagonally across outward points, and cut triangles into the inward points. See the picture above.

When you have turned it inside out, use something pointy to point all the corners out, and then iron it. The open gap you have left can now be turned in, and then when you top stitch all the way round on the very edge, this should be sewn in too. If it isn't just use a needle and thread to slip stitch it shut.

All that's left to do now is to stitch in your poppers (or press studs, whatever you call them!), It doesn't really matter which way you do them, but they need to go onto the top and bottom flaps, not the side. i like to to the pointy one on the top so it can press down into the one with a hole in it. I should of used white thread here, but I was rushing to the end, I'm sure you will do a much better job!

So here is the finished one! You can see the little doggy I Bondawebed  and then stitched on. A little squiffy, but not too bad.

Here it is closed, for some reason my machine did a funny lump of thread where I started and stopped, and the point at the top of the envelope wouldn't fold in and so it looks a little shabby I'm ashamed to say (not like the amazing polished tutorials you get on other sites!!)

And here it is Half open so you can see how to fold it up!

 I hope that is pretty clear-if not-write a comment and Ill answer ASAP. O and I'd love to see your results if you have a go! ENJOY!