homemade Archives - My Life: A Work in Progress

Toddler #DIY #Craft Time! Make Your Own Felt #Easter Bag

Baby J will be 2 years old next month, and we haven’t established that many family traditions yet. The biggest reason is that his dad has been gone so much (all of which will change this summer, when J starts shore duty- woohoo!), and I just haven’t felt like celebrating holidays on my own.

But this Easter, Baby J and I are going up North to visit his aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandmother. So I’m making an effort to celebrate this holiday!

I’ve seen cute little felt Easter bags at several stores recently, and it occurred to me that a bag would be a fun, easy craft to make with Baby J. Because he’s so little, I did do most of the work on my own, but I let him help me “place” the decorations on the bag and pretend to glue them on. After the bag was finished, he ran off with it and kept trying to shove his cars and trucks inside, so apparently the bag was a hit.

To make your own easter bag, you’ll need the following:

Glue gun and glue
5-7 pieces of 9″x12″ felt in multiple colors*
Coordinating thread and needle (or sewing machine)
Scissors
Easter coloring sheets
Ruler
Marker or pen

*I used 2 pieces of blue felt for the bag itself, and then chose 5 other colors for the decorations. I did have plenty of leftover fabric, so you could probably make do with fewer pieces. If you have extras…save them for another craft!

We bought our felt pieces from Michaels, but I’ve seen them at Hancock Fabrics, as well.

Felt Easter Bag Craft- Find the tutorial on My Life: A Work in Progress — “Instagramming” our shopping trip…

Steps:

1. Do a web search for “free easter coloring pages printable” or a similar search term.

For our craft, I gathered several images from this collection of printable Easter egg color sheets, a flower coloring page, and a bunny coloring sheet. The great thing about this bag is you can customize it to whatever design you want! If you’d rather design a religious Easter bag instead of secular, there are a number of free religious coloring pages online (crosses, lilies, etc.).

2. Print out your selected pages and cut out the drawings. Then using the cut-out drawings and a marker or pen, trace designs on your felt (make sure to keep 2 whole pieces of felt untouched on the side, to make the bag itself).

3. Cut out your felt decorations.

Time to make the bag!

4. Cut a one inch strip of fabric off the top of each fabric rectangle. These strips will be the bag handles.

5. Pin each end of the straps to the wrong side (inside) of the bag. Pin them 2″ in and 1/2″ down. **

Make sure the straps aren’t twisted. Also any markings that are leftover from tracing should be facing the inside of the bag.

**If you’re planning on using the bag for heavier items, pin the straps 2″ in and 1″ down. When you get to step 5, you will sew the straps in two places- at 1/4″ and 1/2″. This will make the straps more secure, but it’s not necessary if the bag’s only holding candy and small toys, etc.

6. Sew the straps on at a 1/4″ (half way). Once the machine needle is secure and all the way through the fabric, it’s fine to remove the pin that was holding your fabric together.

Sew over the strap several times to secure and strengthen it. I sewed back and forth for a total of four times.

7. Pin the sides and bottom of your bag together, then sew at a 1/2″.

8. Turn your bag right side out, and start gluing on your decorations.

We tried using a natural craft glue first, but I had trouble getting the decorations to stay on, so after Baby J was in bed, I used a glue gun.

Once the glue is dry, your bag is ready for use!

What Easter crafts have you made? Do you have any family traditions (from any holiday) that you’d like to share?

Easy homemade fruit & nut bars

16 October, 2013 12 Comments

My food processor is kaput. I need a new one, but rather than purchase another cheapo that will probably break quickly again, I’m contemplating on buying a more expensive model. But I also need new running shoes and would love a food dehydrator and a Garmin GPS running watch…so I’m prioritizing and doing without the food processor for now. By the way, have I mentioned that I decided I’m going to run a half marathon in the spring?

With these early morning training runs -okay, it’s actually like 9 or 10 am, but I am not a morning person- I need a healthy breakfast that I can just grab and go, and it has to be light enough that it won’t give me a stomachache while running. A friend sent me a link to some homemade Larabars recipe. I didn’t have all the ingredients on hand to make those, but the concept seems the same in each recipe -fruit and nuts. So I decided to wing it. I had a container of mixed nuts from Target and a baggie of dates from a local Lebanese grocery store, and that’s what I used. By the way, I think these taste better than actual Larabars!

My Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup dates
1 cup mixed nuts

Step One:

If your dates aren’t already pitted, cut them in half and dig the pits out. Soak your dates in water for at least 5 minutes, so they’ll soften.

Step Two:

While the dates are soaking, crush your nuts. =D If you have a food processor, you’ll want to grind the nuts up into fine pieces. If you’re like me, try using a pastry blender (cutter).

Tip: I discovered that peanuts and cashew halves are the easiest to crush by hand, so you could go with a cup of those instead of mixed nuts.

Step Three:

Crush the dates into the nuts. You can toss them in your food processor at this point, if you have one. I used an immersion blender. Not going to lie, it was a bit laborious. I’d get one or two dates crushed/blended, and then I’d have to stop the blender and use a fork to clean off the gunked up blades before starting again.

Step Four:

Put a piece of wax paper, parchment paper, or plastic wrap in a loaf pan. Use some oil to grease the top of the paper/wrap. Add your date and nut mixture. Then use an additional piece of paper or wrap over top. Flatten the mixture. Put the pan into the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Step Five:

Take your mixture out of the fridge and place on a cutting board. Carefully peel the wax paper off the top of the mixture. Flip over and pull the other piece off. Then cut the bars into the size you want. You can individually wrap them at this point to grab while on the go.

Voila! Enjoy your bars.