Thinking Thursdays: Croc gets a home (How to sew a river scene)

Yup, Mr Croc has a new riverine property: his very own riverbed.  I thought I'd try to make a felt play scene for the boy to go with his new reptile pet (click here to get instructions on how to make your own croc), so I dug out those rolls of felt I had sitting in the cupboard and got to work with a scissors.  Making the playscene is quite straight-forward, you would just need a large piece of brown felt for the base (I bought all my felt from Daiso, of course, you could buy nicer felt, but I just used whatever I had at hand).  Then you'll need to cut out a windy river and sew it down:

I was trying to recall my Secondary school geography, and only could remember about meanders and ox-bow lakes... so I added one little ox-bow lake in just for fun!

Cut out grass, or whatever kind of vegetation you would like to have around the river, using green felt.  Sew the base down, so you can ruffle everything up, such that they stand up to give a nice 3D effect:

Then cut out pebbles using grey felt.  Mine were sewn down for the bottom-half only, so that they form pockets where you can hide stuff like other animals or perhaps little yummies for your riverine friends:

Then collect all sorts of river related stuff like pebbles, and scatter them around:

Voila!  One happy croc, and probably one happy child!  (Mine got up from his nap and saw the scene, and instead got very UPSET because Mama had sewn on flat FAKE pebbles on.  He tried to rip them off because he only wanted real pebbles!)

It was quite fun working with felt.  I'm not a good seamstress (you can see all my messy sewing there!), but felt's great to work with since it doesn't fray.  Hopefully this play scene will lend itself to some hours of creative play... I'm hoping to use it with his other animal figurines, and perhaps use it to teach geography next time!

Oh, and the croc books that we're loving currently are:

   :: Cornelius, by Leo Lionni

   :: I'd Really Like to Eat a Child, by Sylviane Donnio 

   :: The Enormous Crocodile, by Roald Dahl

We recently started reading the last title, and I was quite surprised since the boy actually sat through the entire book!

Ok, gotta run and cook dinner... meanwhile, do share if you have any fav croc-related books!  Have a blessed weekend!

PS: The "Art Adventures" page has been updated, so hop over if you're looking for ideas for crafting with kids!

Monday Made: 10 minute cushion covers

I had a wee bit of time over the weekend to do some sewing.  As we had alot of these small pillows lying around the house (don't ask me why, its a family secret! :p), I decided to sew a couple of new covers for some of them, so that they could be used to brighten up the bed (and make it more comfy) in Junior J's room.  Each took about 10 minutes to make, and are a great way to bring colour into a room.  A search online yielded alot of good tutorials on how to sew a cushion cover (Design sponge has a great one for a zippered version here, and the Cottage Magpie has another version here), however I was short of time and wanted to make one really QUICK.  So anyway, here's the lazy Mama's way of making a cushion cover when you have a little time when baby is napping:

1. You'll need only one piece of fabric per cushion, plus thread.  Nothing else!  (I did say it was the lazy version!)  The length of the fabric should be twice that (and add another 10 cm to that measurement) of the length of the inner cushion.  The width of the fabric should be the width of the inner cushion plus about 4 cm.  I used some cutesy fabric purchased from Taiwan as well as Heather Bailey's Tiled Primrose and Anna Maria Horner's Mingling.

2. Hem the two ends of the fabric by folding the edges twice, pressing them and sewing them using a straight seam.

3. Lay the fabric flat on a table with the wrong side facing down, and fold it such that the upper half of the fabric has a length that corresponds to the length of your cushion:

4. Fold the remaining part of the fabric over that upper half, like so:

5. Sew straight seams (about 1 cm from the edge) down both sides, and turn the cover inside out.  Viola!  A cushion cover!  And since baby is still napping, you'll have time to do a few more!