These cowrie shell inspired felt bracelets add a touch of the tropics to your child’s summer crafting. Easy to make these can be made start to finish by a beginning sewer with minimal effort. To make sure these beauties were totally doable for the tween crafter I enlisted the help of my 10 year old niece Ruby.
6″ x 6″ Off white felt/ shell color, she used Linen.
3/4″ Button per bracelet – she used wood grain buttons
Brown thread
Scissors
Sewing needle
Felt glue
Clothes Pins
Packing tape- Optional
Loosely cut around the bracelet template and try on to get it close to the right size. It will need to overlap so the button works.
Trim the template and tape or pin it down to the felt and cut out.
Cut out 4 shell shapes per bracelet cut the edges of these shapes with pinking shears, scallop scissors or just cut small triangles out along the edges with regular scissors.
Mark where the button should go and sew down with criss crossing stitches.
Mark the correct spot for the button-hole and carefully fold over the felt and cut. Cut less than you need to, you can always make it bigger.
When you’re done your bracelet should button up!
Lay down the shell shapes and sew along the middles with a simple running stitch.
To make the shells curl place small dots of felt glue fold over and clip clothes pins to hold them until dry…about 15 minutes. Then remove the clips and rock those babies!
Babies love crinkle. I don’t know why exactly but they do, luckily crinkle toys aren’t hard to make. Follow this simple tutorial for a fun crinkle starfish no baby on land or sea can resist.
Whip up and these little crinkle starfish to keep little hands occupied during any summer soiree. Although they seem tedious don’t skip the little french knots, they add texture that babies love!
You will need:
2 sheets 9″ x 12″ felt or 1/4 yard of felt per starfish
Embroidery thread in black for face and contrasting color for raised spots
Lead and Phthalate Free Crinkle material (1 toy size yard should produce 6 or more starfish)
A sewing machine, pins, scissors, a needle and thread
Starfish template (at the end of post)
Cut:
2 Starfish shapes from desired felt color
Step 1:
Create eyes and spots with french knots, stitch in smile with a back-stitch onto one side of your star fish.
Don’t make any knots in the seam allowance area of pattern.
Step 2:
Place starfish pieces together with the face facing inward. Cut a square of crinkle slightly larger than your project and pin it to the wrong side (the part that will be inside of your piece. Sew along outside of starfish as marked on the template.
Step 3:
After machine sewing down cut off excess crinkle scrap, don’t throw it away – you can place this into toys with stuffing for a less dramatic crinkle. Cut notches along the seam to help the curves lay flat. Be careful not to cut through your stitching.
Step 4
Turn the whole thing right side out.
Push out corners with a pencil or chopstick. allow the crinkle to lay on the side it was sewn pushing a pencil or chopstick into it could cause it to rip.
The crinkle will stick out from the open area trim it back.
Step 5:
Close up the starfish with an overcast stitch.
*Note I used wool blend felt for these projects and so only spot cleaning is recommended. For more tips on cleaning felt see:
Card Stock (for invitations, 3 invitations to a sheet)
Woven wreath form
2 containers for table decorations (small buckets would be cute)
Sand (a small amount to fill containers)
Baggies for Popsicle favors
Ribbon, rick rack or twine for Popsicle favors
Printable labels for Popsicle favors (I used Avery 5294)
Frozen Popsicles and lots of ’em (store-bought or homemade see recipe below)
Elmer’s or school glue (optional)
Outdoor play things like hula hoops, water guns, a sprinkler,or sidewalk chalk (store-bought or homemade in Popsicle molds if you’re a theme purist, recipe below)
Let’s get started:
First I printed out this insanely cute invite designed by Maura Huston of Blackbirdie and Pink Monster Knits onto card stock.
Here’s a blank version
Download this free printable 4th of July Popsicle party invitation it by control-clicking (Mac) or right-clicking (PC) and saving to your computer.
And while I was at it I created my stickers with another version of Maura Huston’s design:
Download it by control-clicking (Mac) or right-clicking (PC) and saving to your computer
These would also make adorable cupcake toppers, simply print onto card stock and sandwich two together with a toothpick in between!
Next I constructed my decor:
Felt Popsicle and pin wheel banner:
To make the banner you will first need to make 2 blue popsicles, 2 red popsicles and 1 striped popsicle from felt. Instructions can be found HERE
From there I made my pinwheels from this template
Each pinwheel is 2 colors and for this banner I needed 6 so I cut 12 squares.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————I stacked two squares together and cut through the dotted lines (but NOT through center ring), the folded the upper right hand corner (marked with a star on template) to the center and stitched down with a small running stitch. I repeated this process with the upper left corner (also marked on the template with a star) this can be done in any order but only fold down the areas marked with stars. Finish by folding the remaining points inward tacking down with a running stitch as you go.
With my pinwheels and popsicles done I was ready to assemble my banner, I made a loop on either end of my twine for easier hanging and then sewed each of my pieces to the twine. Pinwheel, felt ball, popsicle (repeat) with the three color version in the center. Technically I guess you could glue them but the Popsicles have to be properly balanced to keep from flipping around and it’s much easier to gauge this by sewing. When sewing the Popsicles to the twine I noticed that creating a bit of a V shape helped, tacking twine to center and then to both sides nearer the top.
Felt Popsicle table decorations
For these I created 2 Popsicles in red, white and blue as described here.
But rather than fitting felt sticks into the bottom I created a little more space inside the popsicle by cutting with my scissors.
I then slipped real Popsicle sticks through the bottoms and applied a small amount of felt glue (tacky glue will also work) and sewed up the bottoms.
When I had finished all 6 I simply filled my containers with sand and arranged my Popsicles.
Door Wreath
I constructed my wreath by making 3 pinwheels and 3 felt Popsicles and attached them to the wreath with felt glue
(SUPER AWESOME TIP: double stick tape will hold this puppies in place like you wouldn’t believe, making both your wreath and felt objects easy to store and 100% re-usable.
Favors:
To keep with my theme I made these felt Popsicle magnets.
I made a few brightly colored Popsicles, glued magnets to the back with felt glue, (allowed them to dry 24 hours) placed them in bags, added my stickers and tied some rick rack to the bottom to close them up.
These look adorable on any fridge and are daily reminders of your awesome shin-dig!
If magnets aren’t you thing try attaching a key ring or for your littlest guests add a mini rattle for sweet summer baby toy.
You may also consider store-bought pinwheels Slinky brand makes an awesome American flag version.
I plan to keep my guests entertained with fun outdoor activities like:
Popsicle stick house building contest (warning men seem to find this activity irresistible and you may lose your co-host for a few hours, possibly days!) Just throw a basket full of Popsicle sticks into a basket and set out some school glue and prepare to oohh and aww.
A sprinkler run, or water gun fight (gotta get those sticky little bodies clean somehow)
Sidewalk chalk, try making it in a popsicle mold with this recipe:
Word of Warning: DO NOT let any plaster of Paris go down the sink. It will harden and ruin your pipes.
Petroleum Jelly
Plaster of Paris (available at any craft or hardware store)
Washable Tempera paint in the colors of your choice
A Popsicle mold
Directions:
Grease mold with petroleum jelly.
Mix 1/2 cup of Plaster of Paris with 1/3 cup water. Mix well and slow for about 1 minute.
Immediately add 2 TBS of paint (or more for desired color) and mix well.
Spoon into molds. Tap molds gently to settle. (This will start to set very quickly so work in small batches)
Let chalk dry overnight.
and of course lots of Popsicle eating!
If you decide to make your own try this DRIPLESS recipe from Kitchen Scrapbook:
By far my very favorite flower has to be the gerbera daisy, it makes no excuses for itself, there is nothing subtle or demure about them even their colors are extreme and demand attention and as Auntie Mame so famously put it, “more is more!”
Enjoy the best of summer with this free gerbera daisy template and tutorial. And now you can share pictures of your creations on our Facebook page!
You will need:
Felt in your choice of flower color I used our new color, Hot Pink
Scraps of felt in a deep yellow, Gold Nugget is used here, and a pale green, I used Granny Smith.
Thread in pale green color
Flip Flops, or anything you want to accent with these whimsical flowers.
Print out and enlarge this Template to the standard copy paper size.
1: Cut 2 each of templates A, B & C in your flower color choice.
2. Cut 1 of template D in deep yellow color
3. Cut 1 of template E in pale green color.
**For tips on cutting complex or small pattern pieces from felt see our blog post***
Now that the pieces are all cut stack them in order of size making sure that the petals fan out in different directions so that the finished piece looks fuller.
Step 3:
Place a small X with a running stitch through the flower, shown here in contrasting thread color for clarity. Pull threads tightly so the flower curves inward.
Step 4: You can now attach these to any project you like, to attach them to the flip flops as shown above simply attach the flowers to the toe posts as you would a button or use hot glue.
Loosely cut around the bracelet template and try on to get it close to the right size. It will need to overlap so the button works.
Mark where the button should go and sew down with criss crossing stitches.
Mark the correct spot for the button-hole and carefully fold over the felt and cut. Cut less than you need to, you can always make it bigger.
Lay down the shell shapes and sew along the middles with a simple running stitch.
To make the shells curl place small dots of felt glue fold over and clip clothes pins to hold them until dry…about 15 minutes. Then remove the clips and rock those babies!
