Easter Chicken

This week when my fabric order arrived I was lucky to receive this cute little pack of goodies for free.  What a lovely treat, I just love a freebie!

But what can you make with such itty bitty bits of fabric?  

Well I decided I was going to make my 5 month old baby girl an Easter treat and here it is.

A cute and cuddly Easter chickeny-bird-type-thing!

I've tried to make it interesting for a baby by combining all the fabrics, colours and textures and I only allowed myself to use the contents of the pack.

The bird has:
A head crest made from ribbon loops and scalloped felt
Felt feet with crinkly-noisy paper inside
A hidden bell in his tummy
A hidden squeaker in his tummy
A felt beak and wings

If you want to have a go at making him here's a very rough guide....

Cut two squares or rectangles roughly the size you want the bird to be - mine was roughly 15cmx18cm including seam allowances.
Cut out two sets of feet (4 feet in total)
Cut a beak shape, a scallop frill for the head and two scalloped shaped wings (with heart detail if you like)
Cut the legs - two strips about 5cmx20cm
Cut two eyes using the spotty fabric
Cut six lengths of ribbon that can be looped - so cut double the height you want them to be




In addition to the contents of the pack, you will also need:
Thread (white, and black for the eye)
Toy stuffing (and rice is optional)
Crinkle paper
A bell
A squeaker
Double sided Bondaweb


I think that's everything?

so here's what you do...

1. Sew the feet together leaving an opening at the heel of the foot of about 2cm, insert the crinkle paper if you have any (I just used cereal packet paper)

Fold the leg parts in half and stitch from top to bottom (seam allowance 1cm) and then stitch across one of the openings.  

Now turn both legs through to the right side.  A chopstick or similar makes this easier.  Press each leg piece with the seam running up the middle.

Push the closed ends into the foot opening and stitch across to secure.


Fill the legs with toy stuffing.

2. Stitch the hearts onto the wings and then position and attach the wings onto the body fabric.






3. Fold the loops and sew them onto the head frill

Head frill tucked in at the top, beak to the right 

4. With right sides together, sew around the body shape ensuring that the head frill/ribbon and beak are tucked correctly into position.  Leave the bottom of the body shape open.


5. Turn the body through and gently press it.


6. Now add on the eyes - I ironed some Bondaweb onto the back of the eye shapes and then ironed them into position.  Then sew the pupils on - I just stitched a couple of french knots.

This is the bottom opening with the side seam (where the beak is)
now running up the middle.
Place a leg inside the chicken on either side of this seam.

7.  It gets a bit fiddly here.....
Turn the body back to the wrong side and twist the bottom opening so that the seam sits in the middle of the body.  

Insert the legs so the are fully inside the body (and on either side of the seam) with just a little bit sticking out at the opening.  

Pin them in place and then stitch the opening closed, leaving a small gap to turn the whole thing back through.

8. Fill with toy stuffing - you can also fill with rice if you want it to be heavier.  I filled 3/4 stuffing and 1/4 rice.



9. Hand stitch the opening closed.

That's it, you should now have a cute birdy-chickeny thing!

If you're unsure and need more guidance, please get in touch and have a Happy Easter!!

Easter Potato Printing

Create colourful prints with potatoes and paint!

First cut the potatoes in half - try to ensure you have an egg shaped potato when it's cut in half.

Then, very carefully, carve out some patterns.  We did zig zags, stripes and attempted spots but that wasn't very easy - maybe some sort of special tool would have made spots easier.



Now you can either dip the potato straight into the paint and start printing or if you want different colours on each print you'll need to paint the colours onto the potato with a brush as we have done here.

Happy Easter!

Easter Discovery Fun

Here are some ideas to keep you busy over Easter....

Firstly here's a little tub of mess that's a whole lot of fun!

I had a look around the house to see what I could find - Easter decorations, eggs, chicks, feathers and tipped it into the tub.  

The great thing about the plastic eggs (that are meant for egg hunts) is that you can hide things inside them which makes them great fun for cracking open.  I added lentils to cover the base of the tray so when you add some lentils into the eggs, they become great little shakers!

There are lots of textures in this tub so it kept little one amused for quite a while and it's something he's gone back to quite a few times now.




We've also been doing some printing in spring colours - super simple circles!  I used a little tub for him to print with as it was easy for him to hold but you could also use one half of the plastic Easter egg.









And finally we've been talking about yellow and collecting yellow things in our basket.  
Easy!!

Happy Easter everyone!

Easter Makes

I actually made these last year but thought I would share them with you in the run up to Easter this year.

The carrots were so easy to make and my little one loves to play with them in his kitchen as well as feeding them to his collection of stuffed toys and animals.  

They weren't actually my idea, I saw them on Pinterest and tracked the tutorial down to Clare's Craftroom . Thanks for sharing Clare!

Aren't they super sweet?

The eggs were a bit more fiddly to make but still pretty easy and the pattern for those came from Mollie Makes magazine.  They're great fun to play with too or just look pretty in a little Easter dish as a decoration.

Happy sewing and Happy Easter!