Sewing For Baby: Baby Animal Hats

Source: Moth and Sparrow

Moth and Sparrow offers adorable free (for personal use) patterns for knit baby hats.  When I stumbled upon the image on Pinterest they were instantly added to my list of things to make to welcome baby. She offers patterns for A Fox, Raccoon, and an owl.

I couldn't resist turning the little owl pattern into a penguin hat.  I tilted and elongated the beak, and slightly altered the face shape.

The hats are easy to sew up, and don't take much time at all.  I left all of my raw edges unfinished....laziness mostly, but you really don't have to worry about knit fraying much.

If you're expecting a baby, or simply can't resist sewing up cute little things, then I highly recommend trying out this project.  I used scraps from my knit pile, but you could certainly cup up a soft old t-shirt or two to whip these up.

Cardboard Creature Update

For those of you who are interested, I just posted templates for the cardboard creatures.  You can find the links at the bottom of the original Cardboard Creature post.  Enjoy.  Let me know how you like making them.

Meet Our New Cardboard Friends

A couple of days ago I was staring at a couple of cardboard boxes that I needed to clear out of my house, and I had what I thought to be a great idea. It was probably inspired by the great book index cards that I featured on Monday, but either way, I am super pleased with our fun little project.

I decided to involve my 20 month old in the material preparation process. We broke down our cardboard box, ripped the sides apart, and began painting. Clark really loves to paint. I think that it is a great way to expose him to colors. We painted both sides of our pieces of cardboard. I painted the tops shades of the primary and secondary colors (one greens, one purples, one reds, ect.) The back of those pieces of cardboard I painted a different color. You could combine any two colors that you wanted, but this is how I paired my top and bottom colors: yellow/green, red/orange, blue/purple. Clark really enjoyed painting and getting dirty. I really enjoy it when I can involve him in my arts and crafts. It seems like most of the time I am asking him not to touch this, or do that, so when I can ask him to do specific tasks and participate I really like it.

After the pieces were painted and dried I sketched out some basic shapes for animal body parts and cut them out. Next I cut small slits in my shapes to allow the pieces to slide onto one another. If you decide to try this take care not to make your slits too large or they won't stay securely in place.

I ended up making an elephant, a lion, and a giraffe (can you guess which is my favorite?). I am really thinking that the mama elephant needs a little baby by her side. These little cardboard figures aren't very refined, but they were a lot of fun to make. I enjoyed putting some texture in the Lion's mane. If anyone is interested in making these just let me know. I would be more than happy to draw up some quick little templates for you. We have some painted cardboard remaining; I might have to come up with a few more little friends.

This is a craft quickie, and a great way to reuse, repurpose, upcycle (whatever you want to call it) your old cardboard boxes.

Comments, suggestions, and questions are always welcome.

UPDATE: Get your templates here: Lion, Elephant, or Giraffe.