Felt Food Inspiration

My fat little sprout is going to be nearly 2 in December, and I plan to make him lots of felt foods from Santa.  I haven't started yet, because as I told ya'll in the soft ball post, I have been very unhappy with the acrylic felt that I can get locally.  Just yesterday I found a good supplier for wool blend felt, and I plan to order some of that better stuff for making felt food.  I will give you lots of links later in this post.  But first, I want to show ya'll this, another awesome gift made by my friend Hilary:

Here is what she wrote about this gift:


I'm always striving to make thoughtful handmade presents. Because I'm on also on a very tight budget they also need to be low cost. This involves using materials found at thrift stores (and a lot of the time hand me down clothes,sheets,curtains,etc. from friends and family). Conveniently this also works out for being friendly to the earth.

Here's a gift I made for about $3. It was for a 2 yr old's birthday but I think it would be great as a Christmas present too. The lunch box was a thrift store find that I picked up a while ago.When I see something cute at the thrift store, I immediately start going through a mental gift recipient list to decide if I can actually use it or will it just become clutter.  I knew right away the lunch box would get used.

I was a bit intimidated at first by all the great felt food out there, and my head was spinning with all the possibilities.  I decided to make foods that the recipient actually eats and that brought me out of the whirlwind.  But I quickly found that felt food is fun and pretty easy to make.  Felt is very forgiving and I was able to just "wing it".  And the present was a big hit(with the grown ups just as much as the kids)!

Happy Making!
Hilary


I have found so many great links for felt food tutorials that like Hilary, I don't know where to start!

The first link you will want to see is for "Felt Food Making 101," where you will find lots of advice on what felt, stitches, and needles to use, as well as some easy and simple tutorials.  I have linked you to lesson 1, but be sure to read through all 5 lessons.  This blog also has a store which sells wool and wool blend felts and other supplies.


I love Hilary's idea of using a thrifted lunchbox, but if you cannot find or don't want to buy a lunchbox, Litl Brown Bird's Passion has a tutorial for an adorable woven felt picnic basket.  She also has a tutorial for a chinese take out box made of felt and some other cute things, too.


Skip to my Lou has an easy to follow tutorial for a complete brown bag lunch, including the bag and a cute little debbie swiss roll.


This mama on Craftster made a whole ton of stuff and shares instructions, too!


I just love the pancake tutorial at Turkey Feathers, and here is how to make a banana you can unpeel and corn in the husk   I definitely plan to make these.


The Petite Cafe is a whole blog devoted to felt food making, and One Crafty Place has collected tons of felt food tutorials into a roundup.


Another place to find some awe inspiring felt foods is to google felt food tutorial and look on Google Images.  This brings up more free tutorials, as well as some really amazing patterns you can order for pretend meals.


As soon as I get my wool blend felt, I know I will have tons of fun making a lot of these foods for my son.


Thank you to Hilary for sharing what she already made.  I hope you all will comment and let her know what a great job she did!


I will post again soon.  Until then, as Hilary said, Happy Making!