Yesterday, we ended up watching too much tv. :o( Especially because my favourite episodes of Little House on the Prairie were on. However, we kept our hands busy with a little sewing project that was inspired by the "Chasing Cheerios" blog while we watched .
Heart Sugar Cookie w/ Buckets o' Sprinkles
Ri has had a play kitchen for a few years now and we have been trying to acquire a little Haba and Melissa and Doug food here and there. I love the Haba brand of kitchen food, because not only is it a German company (so you get to practice a little German when you're "working the kitchen and serving your guests"), but you also can find classical and practical, yet small and sometimes very interesting food items made of wood or felt and stored in metal tins. Like a set of wooden tea bags (complete with the tag) and a set of sugar cubes to go with it. Or felt bow tie pasta.
Last year, i broke down and purchased some "gormet food" from a local crafter out of West Seattle that makes the most adorable and fancy fruits and veggies you've ever seen. Potatoes from pantyhose, pineapple from fancy drapery material, green onions...you name it, she makes it. It's all inspired by the tradition of the cornucopia, so i think the lady was a little surprised when we said we were going to be playing with her food in Ri's pretend kitchen rather than displaying it. :o) And ever since the arrival of the refrigerator that Poppa so carefully crafted for her, the interest in the kitchen has really piqued!
And now that Ri is 6, i figure its about time to show her how you can make some of these things she'd like to have in her kitchen, instead of buying all of them (keeping in line with our "homemade is better than store bought" logic.) So yesterday we set forth to make heart shaped sugar cookies. We're both just beginners at stitching by hand, so they aren't "Made in China" perfect, but we love them just the same. And Ri tried her hand at her first sewing project and was quite successful (didn't even poke herself with the sharp embroidery needle!)
We used one larger-sized heart shaped cookie cutter and traced it onto 3 pieces of felt (two for the sugar cookie colour and one for the royal icing colour) and cut them out. Then i shaved off a little extra from the "royal icing". Then i used a running stitch to piece together the icing and the top of the cookie. Then Ri chose all of her sprinkle colours and she stitched them on. (if anyone has a trick for teaching the lil' ones how to hold on to the needle so it doesn't need to be rethreaded with every stitch, please share in the comments below.) :o) Once that was finished, we whip stitched the bottom of the cookie to the top and left a small hole at the top for stuffing it. I used the leftover thread and the felt scraps leftover from cutting to fill the cookie. Then we whipped the rest of the cookie closed and Ri set it up on a plate at the dinner table as a trick for Daddy when he got home.
Didn't she do a phenomenal job with sprinkle placement??
Today, i think we are going to try our hand at shamrock cookies. 'Cause it's almost that time of year again!! Woo hoo!
Ri figuring out the stamp hinges
Earlier this week, we started on her 100th Day of School Project. The kids have to bring a collection of 100 like items, grouped by tens. When Ri heard i had a stamp collection she was welcome to go through, she was excited! We're going through the old stamps and i am curiously fascinated by how she decides which stamps she'll choose for the project. When she's finished, i'll post more photos, but for now i'll leave with a picture of some of my stamps that makes me wonder "Why did i stop stamp collecting again??"
Did you see Martha Stewart show this week, when she had the ladies on making furniture out of cardboard and then food out of felt? You might want to check it out.
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