Tutorial: Soft (Half Square Triangle) Sensory Block

I decided that it was time to put some of my coordinating scrap fabrics to good use, and a sensory block seemed like the perfect fit. The sensory blocks are made out of fleece, minky, and quilters cotton.  The variety of materials will stimulate those little fingers as baby explores different textures.  I also added scrap piece of ribbon to the half square triangle seam allowances.  Inside the block: plastic bags for a big of a crinkle, and a couple of small bells.  

 I used my Accuquilt Go! Baby fabric cutter to cut out several half square triangles.  You don't necessarily need a fabric cutter for your half square triangles, but it can make the whole process much faster and easier (especially since the seam allowances are already added to the triangles.  You could also, make the sensory blocks out of plain old regular squares, and add the tags to the side seams.

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Children's Gift Ideas: Felt Cookie Sheet Puzzles

This is a gift that I made for Clark's birthday last month.  I hadn't posted it, and I thought that now might be a good time.

Do any of you ever run out of things to do with your toddlers?  Clark's attention span is pretty good for his age, but I seem to run out of activities pretty early on in the day and week.

He's getting to the point where he's pretty good with puzzles.  I decided that I'd make him a rocket ship puzzle.  He's obsessed with rocket ships and planets.

I didn't want to have to deal with creating interlocking puzzle pieces, so to give the puzzle some structure I created it the same dimensions of the inside of a cookie sheet.  Using the same dimensions of the cookie sheet allows Clark to have a basic format to work with.  At this point I took a piece of paper the same dimensions as the finished puzzle and broke it down into eight sections, or the same number of puzzle pieces that I wanted.  I designed the image of the puzzle in a way that each piece had part of the rocket ship, planet, or stars overlapping the edges of the puzzle piece-making it easier to see where the pieces connect.

  I  transferred the images to felt, and cut out the main  shapes.  I then sewed my image onto  two thicknesses of felt with a thickness of batting sandwiched  between them. If I'd thought through this a bit more I would have made the bottom layer of felt a different color and extended it beyond the border of the top layer by a quarter inch or so, that way Clark would be able to tell which sides are edge sides.

Once my image was sewn to the felt sandwich I took my rotary cutter and cut it into my predetermined puzzle pieces. Next I sewed around the open edges of the puzzle pieces.  If you wanted to make your own puzzle, and keep the puzzle pieces in place on the cookie sheet, you could consider attaching magnets between the batting and bottom layer of felt.  I'd suggest using the technique that I used for these number and shape magnets.

So what are your favorite activities to keep your toddlers busy (especially during the winter months)?  I'd love to know, I'm desperate for some new ideas.

Friday Finds: Wooden Toys for Boys

Two of my favorite blogs (Made, and Made by Rae), are celebrating boys this month.  If I get my buns in gear I might try to turn out a few boy themed sewing projects.  While we wait to see if that happens, I thought that I'd join in the celebration by sharing some of my favorite toys for boys from Etsy.

These aren't just any toys, but wooden toys.  I love wooden toys and buy them for Clark whenever I can.  I love having wooden pull toys, wooden train tracks, and of course wooden blocks.  These Etsy finds go beyond building blocks (though you can find those too) and are fantastic choices for encouraging pretend play.

organic SKITTLES - 10 pin retro wooden bowling developmental set

Little Sapling Toys

Personalized Camera - natural wooden imagination toy with name

Little Sapling Toys

 Natural Colorful Wooden FISH PLAY SET, Great Pretend Play

Sasi Shop

 t-rex wooden dinosaur toy

Banished

Small Bring along waldorf kitchen

Jounik

Wooden Tool Box FREE SHIPPING

Uncle Woods Workshop

Aren't those lovely.  One day I'm going to buy myself some power tools and learn  to do some woodworking.  Until then I'm going to drool over these lovely toys.  Perfect for the little boys (or girls) in your life.

How to make a Mod Podged Puzzle

The puzzle pieces aren't laying flat in this picture, the pieces do fit together nicely normally.

We are kicking off Stashbusting September with this wonderful Mod Podged Puzzle.  I have several white backer boards that I use for mailing my prints, unfortunately I have several that are a bit beaten up.  I chose to make this simple little puzzle with my battered boards, and an irregularly formatted print of Meadow Moose.

I thought that it would be fun to have a few more simple puzzles in the house.  I chose to make an eight piece puzzle, but of course you could increase or decrease the number of pieces to fit your families needs.

Want to learn how to make it?  Buckle up and let's go. 

A Teaching Toy: Magnetic Shapes

Teaching a toddler shapes, numbers, colors, ect. can be a bit of a challenge. I've done my best to come up with new ways to teach them to my son.  I'll pull out all of his toys and help him sort them by color.  I've printed off different sheets to help him learn his shapes.  We use number shaped cookie cutters when playing with play dough, but it is hard to know what really works best.  Not too long ago I  made some felt magnetic numbers for our fridge. Clark loves to move them around and try to count.  He understands that they are numbers despite the fact that he still can't identify each one.  Just this week I decided to add some felt magnetic shapes to the collection.

This time I decided to make each shape it's own color.  Like the magnetic numbers, the shapes have enclosed magnets.  I love that I don't have to worry about the magnets falling off the back of the shapes and finding their way into my son's nose, ear, or stomach.

I stitched the name of each shape with embroidery floss. Hopefully after we've successfully learned numbers, shapes, colors, and letters we can work on reading (don't worry I know that this will be a few years).

They are so tiny!

 After making the magnetic numbers I ordered some great little magnets.  They are tiny, very strong.  Even though there is  a layer of fabric between the magnetic and the refrigerator, there is a strong attraction.  I can't wait to try these little magnets out on some magnetic bibs.

If you are interested in learning how to make the magnetic numbers continue reading.

Magnetic Numbers

So my husband and I have been trying...I wouldn't say diligently, but trying nonetheless to work with our 20 month old on learning numbers, colors, and shapes. I figure that if he is smart enough to recognize animals and make their noises that he could probably learn to recognize his numbers.

About a month ago I decided that I was going to put the magnets and felt that I had sitting around to good use. I am quite pleased with the way these little numbers turned out. Clark loves to move them around on the fridge. He still can't identify all of them (most of them are "Wee" or Eight- "Wee being how he says three), but at least he can become familiar with them.

One of my favorite things about these magnetic numbers is that the magnets are enclosed. The thing that I dislike about the little plastic magnetic numbers and letters is that the magnets always seem to be falling off. In my opinion it is just too dangerous for little guys. Let me know what you think. I bought some felt with the intention of posting some in my Etsy store (which is the only reason that I haven't done a tutorial yet), but am still searching for the time to get it going.