Sewing Tutorial: Reversible Chalk Cloth Bunting

We recently had a friends wedding that we weren't able to attend. I still really wanted to send a gift and so we bought them a cute chalkboard that we could personalise with a message, and then they could erase it and use it in their house. Practical, original and fun.

And then I bought this chalk cloth fabric. I've made some portable chalkboard mats for the kids and then I thought that this was a fun idea. Bunting looks so effective and lining it with chalk cloth means that we can reuse it for lots of different occasions.

I started by cutting out triangles of chalk cloth and fabric of the same size, a little larger than how I wanted them to be in the finished product. I also decided to make my own bias binding to string them together, so I had to cut out several long strips of fabric along the bias and feed it through my bias binding maker.

Place cotton and chalk cloth together with wrong sides together. Sew around the perimeter, about 5mm in from the edges. Use pinking shears to cut along the side edges and trim the top edge with normal scissors.

Pin and string together using the bias binding, closing the ends.

Sewing Tutorial: Jungle animal dress up tails and ears for kids

A while ago, I bought some of this soft furry fabric on sale, with the plan to make some dress up items for my kids. A lion, zebra, elephant and tiger would be just right for these prints.

I bought some simple headbands for the ears and cut out the following for each animal:

- one long strip for a tail

- four ear shapes to make two ears

- and for the elephant, an extra strip for a trunk

To make the tails

With right sides together, sew along one end and then along the length. Turn the tail out the right way and fill with polyfill. I attached clips used for name tags to each tail, to make it easy for the kids to attach their own tails and avoid pins and elastic or velcro waists. Sew along the opened edge to enclose the filling.

To make the ears
With right sides together, sew along the sides and tops, leaving the bottoms open. Put in place on the headband and handsew along the bottom to attach to the headband. For the elephant ears I used the glue gun to ensure that the ears wouldn't move.

For the lion I added a felt mane, but first sewing close to the edges by machine (leaving spaces to feed through the headband), then sewing on the ears.

Kids Sewing Kit - Make your own doll - Sewing Tutorial

Two years ago I put together a sewing kit for my daughter who was then 2.5 years old. You can read the blog post here: http://richesandroses.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/kids-craft-toddler-sewing-kit.html. It has been a really popular blog post and attracts a lot of traffic on Pinterest. 

Over those two years it has evolved and she has now outgrown most of the original items that I put in the kit. She has started showing interest in actually sewing something and having a finished product at the end, so I had the idea of making an easy doll kit that is aimed at her age. 

This is what I came up with, and I have to say I am pretty happy with the finished product. Miss 4.5 is very keen to get started on making her own doll and I can't wait to see how it turns out!

I started out by cutting out all of the pieces. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, and ended up with this design. I machine sewed the pieces together, leaving just two basic pieces for her to sew together - a front and a back.

I invested in a leather hole punch and punched around the edges of the doll pieces. Be sure to pin the front and back pieces together for this step so that the holes line up. I placed a piece of card under the felt while punching to make it a bit stiffer too. I made some small bows for her hair, cut out some felt pieces for the face, chose some sequin beads and added a blunt wool needle and some embroidery thread.

Stay tuned for the finished doll!

Sewing Project - Advent Calendar

Last Christmas I attempted an ambitious family project. My children had just turned 2 and 4 and I wanted to start some Christmas traditions with them.

We live on a day to day diet relatively free of refined sugars, so I knew from the start that I wanted a chocolate and sweet free advent calendar. I spent a lot of time on Pinterest and saw some ideas for daily activities for the month of December so I decided to incorporate those into our calendar. 

While on Pinterest I came across a design similar to this. I wanted to make the tree as big as possible, so I varied the original idea by putting the numbered squares around the outside perimeter rather than in rows along the bottom under the tree. 

I kept it simple by making everything out of felt. Felt does not fray and does not need hemming. For the numbers I used heat and bond lite - it is an iron on applique paper that you can draw on to (remember to make it a mirror image), iron on to the wrong side of the fabric, peel off and then iron onto the backing fabric. It is great for doing difficult shapes.

The first step was to cut out all the shapes and place them in position on the background piece. I then sewed them down. For the Christmas tree, I started sewing from the back most layer, finishing up on the front most layer. For the pockets, I sewed the numbers down first and then sewed each pocket on, sewing around the sides and bottom.

I then sewed on buttons, scattered over the tree, to hang decorations onto. And then began the long task of making each decoration. They were also made from felt, although some were trimmed with ric rac, buttons, embroidery thread or other notions. Each decoration had a backing piece to make them stronger, and ribbon with ends placed in between before sewing up to use for hanging on the tree.

Decorations were placed into the pockets and I made up a card for each activity by printing them all up and sticking each one on a card backing.

These are the activities we did over the 24 days:

• Learn a Christmas song.
• Make gingerbread.
• Make a Christmas craft.
• See Christmas lights.
• Decorate the house for Christmas.
• Make Christmas cards and send them.
• Go to carols by candlelight.
• Read a Christmas story.
• Wrap Christmas presents.
• Make salt dough Christmas ornaments for the Christmas tree.
• Watch a Christmas movie.
• Write a letter to Santa.
• Colour in Christmas pictures.
• Write your own Christmas story.
• Donate toys to charity.
• Visit Santa Claus.
• Take a family Christmas photo.
• Call a family member.
• Look at old Christmas pictures together.
• Borrow Christmas books from the library.
• Make green and red play dough.
• Play a Christmas game.
• Give a surprise gift to someone.
• Do Christmas shopping.

Before we started, I planned out the activities with some strategy. We had visitors from Germany for most of December, so I knew we would be busy. I also knew that on my work days we would be short of time. For busy days, I kept the simple activities. Of course we went away a few times too, so we had to play catch up when we got home. I also thought ahead for activities like carols by candlelight and found out when our local ones would be held.

It ended up being the most fun I had ever had at Christmas. It made us do just a little bit everyday to keep the Christmas spirit going and the usual big pressure that December 25th holds wasn't there for us as we had been celebrating the whole month. It was lovely, and so very sad on the 26th when it was all over.

Our activities list will evolve as the kids get bigger to include more community type activities and we will get input from them on the kinds of activities they would like to do.

Sewing Tutorial - Hungry Caterpillar Felt Set

This has always been one of our favourite books in our house. Our children are being brought up bilingual (my husband is German) and it's one of the few books that we have in both English and German.

From a teacher's point of view, I love the book because it teaches kids the days of the week, number sense and counting, the process of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly and, for our younger child, we even talk about colours when we read because the pictures are so bright and beautiful and those fruit pages are perfect for it.

Now, our eldest is 4.5 years old and very interested in learning about how to put a story together and how to read. And that is where the idea for the felt set has come from.

I started out by going through the book and choosing the main parts of story and the most important pictures. I then sketched these. I made each item double layered and added any trim on top of this. It makes them stronger (to last longer) and not as floppy (for more effective play).

I then cut out fabric for a case in which to keep the set together. You could make any size that you prefer, this just fit the zippers I had available at the time. I used clear vinyl PVC for the front of the case and a cute hungry caterpillar quilting cotton that I bought some time back. To keep the seams neat through the PVC, I cut a double layer of cotton, put right sides together and sewed around the rectangle, leaving a gap to turn to out the right way (so that front and back are showing the fabric design on the right side, and all seams are hidden inside). After turning it out the right way, I attached the zipper to the front and back as in the above right picture.

With right sides of the front and back together, I sewed around the edges, opened up the zipper and turned the case out the right way to finish with the above case. 

But back to the felt set....I placed all layers as I wanted them when finished and sewed around each edge, a few millimetres in from the edges. 

Sewing tutorial and pattern - Balloon cover

These covers were one of those things that I had seen around and thought was such a great idea. "One day I'll make some of those...". When I finally got around to experimenting and going through with it last week I couldn't believe I had put it off that long! So easy and fast. And they have been the number one toy here with both Mr 2.5 and Miss 4.5 since I finished them. We love balloon covers!

You will need two contrasting fabrics and the pattern (available here).

Cut six of the curved strips on the fold, and three of the hexagons on the fold.

And now start sewing. Choose one of each fabric and place them right sides together. Sew down one side only. Now take a new piece and place it right sides together with the contrast fabric. Sew down the next side. Take another new piece and place it right sides together with the contrast fabric. Sew down the next side. Repeat, repeat, repeat until there are no curved strips left. Place the two open sides right sides together and sew down to join.


Prepare the ends for sewing. Place two of the hexagons with right sides together. Pin a line through the centre across the hexagon. Sew from the outer edge inwards, leave a gap (approx 4cm) and then sew through to the other outer edge.

Fold down the pieces so that you now have wrong sides together and right sides showing.

Top stitch a few millimetres from the centre line on both sides to secure and to reinforce the slit that has now been formed in the middle of the piece.

Pin the hexagons into the ends of the ball, right sides together and sew along to enclose the ball.

Poke a deflated balloon through the opening at the end, keeping enough on the outside to blow the balloon up. Blow up the balloon, tie off the end and tuck it in.

Sewing tutorial and pattern: Mermaid dress up tail for kids

We love dress ups at our house. Little by little I've been adding to the kids' collection of costumes for play.

I wanted to make Miss 4.5 a mermaid tail that would grow with her and not be too tight at the ankles that she wouldn't be able to walk or play in it. 

You can download and print the pattern for the fin here.

First, choose your main fabric. I wanted something shiny, so I went for this sequined fabric. You'll need a rectangle - it should reach from your child's waist to the floor (length) and wrap around their body with a 15cm overlap (width). You can allow a little extra for hemming. Hem around the rectangle - I rolled approx 0.5cm over, then rolled over again and sewed along.

Cut two mermaid fins on the fold. Optional is to also cut iron on interfacing to iron onto one of the fin pieces to make the fin a little firmer.

Place right sides together and starting at the top right, sew around the edges, finishing at the top left. The fin can be sewn to the skirt along the bottom.

For fastening the waist, sew velcro along the waistline.

I trimmed the edging of the fin with some of the left over sequin fabric, but it is totally optional.