Felt Food - And a GIVEAWAY!!

My boys are incredibly interested in playing kitchen lately. They have pots and pans and a few plastic items that came with their play kitchen, but after looking at toy stores for more food items that they could pretend with, I decided that I didn't like anything available. I played with Fun With Food when I was a kid and nothing seemed to measure up to what I was hoping for.

Enter Etsy's BuggaBugs shop! I am a DIY-er by nature but have a hard time coming up with ideas on my own. I love that she sells easy to use patterns in a variety of play sets and that each pattern comes with several items to make. I purchased the Groceries set and the Picnic set and made them for the boys as a part of their Easter basket and they love them!


Because I had so much fun making her items and because I love imaginative play, I'm giving you a chance to win one of her patterns too! I received the patterns within an hour of purchasing them and was able to get right to work. Easy peasy!

Want to win a pattern?!

Mandatory: Go to BuggaBugs shop and leave a comment telling me which pattern you like best
Extra entry: Become a follower of Diapers to Diplomas and leave a comment telling me you follow me
Extra entry: Leave a comment with a link to a felt tutorial you have used or want to use in the future. [I LOVE felt projects and I'm always looking for more fun ideas!] You can leave a separate comment for each link you submit!

Make sure you leave your email address in your comments so I can contact you if you win!

This giveaway ends Monday, May 16th at noon. Good Luck!!

Tea with Lemon

My latest creation with felt... tea bags and a lemon wedge! I'll refine these boys yet ; )

In other news... what do you think of my new header and menu bar (the blue drop down menu)? I'm hoping it makes navigation of my site quicker and easier. I spent about 5 hours over the last two days working on it but love how it turned out! I was pretty proud that my HTML skills were still there after brushing off the dust of the last two years not using them!

My ABC Book!

Here it is: My ABC Book! I have to admit that this is not my original idea, however, the final product is pretty different than the original idea that I saw on this etsy site. I wanted upper and lower case letters and more complex images for each letter, and this is my finished product! I wanted it to be a 2nd birthday present for the boys, but they have been dying to get their hands on it ever since I started cutting the felt, so they might not be able to wait another 3 months. I think my favorites are the lion, penguin, jellybeans and rainbow, but I'm pretty pleased with how the entire book turned out - especially all the beaded embellishments. What do you think?!

Beanie Bags

Using the leftover felt from a few earlier projects, I whipped up these colorful bean bags for the boys. They are actually filled with dried beans that we had used for a Tot School sensory tub a little while ago and I was looking for a way to repurpose them.

I'm still discovering all the ways that these can be used for playtime, but so far they are having a great time tossing them into buckets and baskets, balancing them on their heads and each other's head and stacking them up. I love that it ended up being a free project for me since everything I used was leftover from something else.

I can't wait to 'unveil' my most impressive felt project yet! I have one more component to complete, but it should be ready within the next day or so. Stay tuned!

My Love Affair with Felt

It started with Counting Fish that I first saw on the blog Counting Coconuts. My neighbor and I churned them out in about two nap times. They have buttons on the front and the corresponding numerical value stitched into the back. They also have washers in thier noses so the boys can use a magnetic fishing rod to catch them! Then, with the leftovers, we made some sea creature magnets for the refrigerator (jelly fish, sea horse, starfish, Nemo, angelfish and other tropical fish) and they turned out great! Felt is super easy to work with, even with beginner skills like mine. Here's a sneak peak at my newest project. I'm almost done with the cutting process and just need to work on the time consuming sewing/embellishing process. Can't wait to show you how it turns out!!