Toddler Chalk Number Quiet Book

If you've been following my recent posts, you would know that my Etsy store has been undergoing a transformation. I'm selling out some products I've had for a while, added a few new ones and updated several others with new fabrics and some new features. I've also joined the Etsy Make For Good Campaign this year with two great creative products for kids. I am so happy with how the store is looking at the moment, and just in time for the pre-Christmas shoppers - bring it on!

This Quiet Book has been in the works for a while, but life has been busy these last few months with changing jobs and reassessing a few other projects I've been involved in, but here it is finally finished.

There are ten number pages with chalk vinyl numbers appliqued on that little ones can trace around with chalk. Each page also has a matching bead counter so that kids can practice counting to each number and associate each figure with its amount.

 

 

I've also added in four new cover designs - bright, colourful and very fun! 

Check out the books here: https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/476407589/toddler-chalk-number-quiet-book?ref=shop_home_active_1

Pinterest - Most Recent Pins - Sewing for Boys

I love sewing clothes for my little boy. I love making toys and play accessories for him the most, but comfy shorts and pants for play and childcare days are my favourite clothes to make for him.

Here are five of my most recent pins to my Pinterest board "Sewing for Boys".

1. Jaden T-Shorts

This idea is great - turn a favourite adult T-shirt into a pair of shorts! I love ideas that encourage re-using and upcycling.

2. Baby Yoga Pants

Along the same lines as the T-Shorts. Recycle an old T-shirt to make some comfy pants. So simple!

3. Toddler Tour Pants

Cute pants with a patchwork insert down the sides of the legs and a really easy to follow tutorial.

4. Men's Shirt Baby Romper

Along the themes of upcycling - turn a cotton button-through shirt into a summery romper for a little boy.

5. Free Boy Patterns

A great collection of exactly what it claims to be - free patterns for boys. Heaps of easy to follow and easy to sew clothing for little ones.

Please share any great finds that you have below in the comments - I would love to find more!

Riches and Roses July Etsy Update

It's been a BUSY past month in the Riches and Roses Etsy Store!

Top 3 Viewed Items

1. Toddler Quiet Book

2. Baby Doll Diaper Nappy Carry Bag

3. Balloon Cover



Top 3 listing favourites

1. Toddler Quiet Book

2. Kids' Tool Belt - orange

3. Kids' Tool Belt - pegs design

Biggest sales

1. Toddler Quiet book

2. Balloon Cover

3. Reversible Whales sun hat

Fabric Favourites

Sometimes it seems kids get to have all the fun. My son has shorts covered in little monsters, and another pair in sharks. He has pants with dinosaurs on the trim and a reversible hat with bugs on one side and vehicles on the other. 

My daughter has a skirt covered in rainbow spots and multiple items made out of different owl designs.

I shouldn't complain too much though as it can be a lot of fun shopping for kids fabric and as you can see, I'm building up quite the stash <3 <3 <3

Which one do you like the best?

Sewing Tutorial Quiet Book Pages - Rainbow, Butterfly, Hot Air Balloon

A few months ago a custom order came through my Etsy store. One of my most popular existing items is the Quiet Book that I sell through the store and one of the great things about it is that it is so easy to add extra pages to it as I join the pages together with ring binders.

The request was to add in one extra page (two-sided, so two extra designs) more suited to a smaller child. See the finished product below!

To make the rainbow, I cut the red (largest) semicircle first and then cut each next colour a little smaller. I then sewed the red semicircle onto the page and followed with each smaller one until I was done.

I overlapped two little light grey clouds over the bottom edge and cut out two identical pieces in a small butterfly shape. I sewed these together, inserting antennae and leaving a small opening on each side so that I could feed through the thin ribbon. When constructing the page and joining it to the previous one, I fastened in the ribbon between the pages. 

The cute little butterfly can be pulled along the ribbon to fly around in front of the clouds.

For the hot air balloon, I first sewed the blue felt rectangle onto the background page as the sky. Then I added two little white clouds and sewed on the main hot air balloon shape (here in the white with coloured spots). I attached four short lengths of ribbon to the base of the balloon cover (here in orange), and then sewed this felt piece at the top of the balloon. I attached the ends of each ribbon at the bottom and then hid the ends by sewing the balloon basket over them.

The doll is used in another page (the tent and sleeping bag page) in the book, so rather than add another, and in order to make it easier to handle for a small child, I attached a ribbon to the doll so that it could be used for both pages, and also couldn't be easily lost - double win!

Riches and Roses Etsy Update

For a mother of two kids aged 3 and 5, who works three days a week and has volunteer commitments, my Etsy store has been keeping me busy since around last Christmas with an average of about 4 orders per month since December.

Since then, I've updated my packaging and labelling, to use this cute little label on all my items:

I've also added in some new items including these baby doll accessories:

And some of my long standing products have suddenly become very popular, especially this cute little hungry caterpillar set.

The 5 most active products in my Etsy store so far this year have been:

1. Toddler Quiet Book.

2. Baby Doll Diaper/Nappy Carry Bag

3. Balloon Cover

4. Hungry Caterpillar Set

5. Kids' Toolbelt.

<3 <3 <3

Simple Rainbow Ribbon Skirt Tutorial

Miss 5 loves rainbows. Her first drawing that resembled anything was of a rainbow. Since then, we have had rainbow beetles, rainbow birds, people wearing rainbow clothes and more feature in her drawings.

I saw a skirt somewhere online that had bias binding strips along the bottom to create a rainbow effect, but as I am always on the lookout for the most simple and effective ideas, I thought I would replace the binding with grosgrain ribbons.



To start, I measured my daughter's waist and doubled the measurement. That gives you the width of fabric needed.

I then measured the length from her waist to where I wanted the skirt to end (in her case that was just on her knee). I added around 4 - 5cm and that gave me the length of the fabric needed.

Open out the rectangle and fold over the bottom edge by about a centimetre and iron down. Pin the ribbons along the skirt. The bottom one serves as the hemline and the spacing is dependent on personal preference really and how many colors you choose to use. Sew the ribbons down by sewing along both edges as close to the edge as possible. To finish off at the ends, fold the ends under and sew down.

Fold the rectangle with right sides together and sew down the open side. Then press the top over 2cm and then another 2cm. Sew along the bottom fold as close as you can to form the elastic casing. Leave an opening of about 2 - 3 cm and feed the elastic through. Sew the ends of the elastic together and sew the casing closed.

Oh so cute!

Sewing tutorial - Heat/Cold Packs for Kids

Unless there is a lot of blood, we cannot use band aids or sticking plaster at our house. The noise and pain that is experienced with their removal is never worth the pain that they alleviate at the time of injury. The next best option is the ice pack.

And even better than the ice pack, is the rice pack. We keep one in the freezer and another on the bench, ready to microwave if a warm pack is better suited to the situation.

I made them out of flannel, after first drawing the outlines and cutting a front and back piece for each.

I cut wings, beak, eye and arm pieces out of felt and attached them. With right sides of the flannel together, I sewed around the edges, leaving a space to turn them out the right way. Embroider by hand any other features such as eyes, mouth etc.

Fill with rice and sew close the seams. I sewed in a small length of vecro to each opening to make it easier to replace the rice in the future.

Sewing tutorial - Colour your own art supply bag

Ikea. I love the stuff that they sell, but I'm not a fan of the shopping experience. Finding a parking spot, finding what you want in the store and then getting out before two young children lose it. This time we went in with a plan. Fabrics only. Straight there and straight back out. I didn't believe it could be done, but that is how it went. And they even had a little play area at the fabric section! Wow!

So I bought a few metres of the Tidny fabric and we love it. The kids spent part of a lazy Sunday afternoon colouring in and then I made it up into art supply bags. The bags now travel with us when we eat out, filled with some Frozen colouring in pages, coloured paper, markers and stickers. A success!

I washed the fabric and cut a wide strip out (allowing for handles and pockets too) and then the kids used fabric markers to colour in the designs on the fabric. Later I placed baking paper over the fabric and ironed over, applying heat to fix the colours.





I cut a lining for the bag, pockets and handles, and a second fabric for some of the inner pockets.



For the handles, place right sides together and sew along one short end and the long side. Turn it out the right way. Top stitch along the two long ends.

For the top pocket, place right sides together and sew along the two long edges. Turn out the right way and press. Top stitch along the top long edge.

For the two bottom pockets, place right sides together and sew along the top long edge. Open out, press and top stitch along that long edge.

Take the top pocket and pin it in place on the lining fabric. Sew a few mm above the lower seam to fasten the piece to the lining. Sew vertically to form smaller pockets.

Sew velcro strips to the lining and the lower upper pocket. Use a tacking stitch close to the edge to put the lower pockets and handles in place. Now sew the bag outer and lining together by place right sides together and sewing around the outside with all pockets and handles in place between. Be sure to leave an opening to turn it out the right way.

Turn the bag out the right way and press. Sew a top stitch around all outer edges to finish off. Fill with goodies and enjoy!

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 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.