Play Eats: Thrift it and repurpose it

One of the best things about having a kid is getting to buy silly drinks at street fairs. I would never spend half a million dollars on super sweet juice and crushed ice for myself, no! But if Z wants it, I tend to indulge every now and again, especially if we can reuse it. So this pineapple wasn't half a million dollars but it was at least twice as much as all of the other overpriced street fair grub but I knew that we would remember our fun day way longer if I bought this. This has been a huge hit in the play kitchen (even though the drink was so syrupy we didn't even finish it).

Yes, this is a shot glass. But it is a Dinosaurland shot glass. Yeah sure, the first thing I want to do around realistic (what do I know?) fiberglass dinosaurs from 50 years ago is get wasted so why not buy a shot glass to make that easier (I'm joking). Anyway, it's a cool play size tumbler and another memory of a fun day. And it has yet to break.

Another awesome part about life with a child is getting to dig through bins of toys at thrift stores. I was raised at yard sales so I feel like I have a trained eye. But I think it is a skill that can be achieved through lots of practice. You just have to keep an open mind and use hunter's vision. The orange juice was a quarter; the eggs are from Easter last year; that round thing is a piece of bologna (weird -- one random slice in a bin of dinged up Happy Meal toys); and the tea set pictured is part of a larger set that came in a little basket. The basket was trashed and some of the pieces are missing but I figure that they could just as easily get lost at my house.

Dig deep, people and don't be afraid to get your hands dirty.

Play Eats: Make more play foods

Not all handmade food has to be super involved or time consuming. This ravioli just requires pinking shears and an iron.

First, iron your Wonder Under to the dough colored felt. Cover the whole project with a cotton dishtowel or you'll melt the felt and ruin your iron.

Next, cut your felt into strips and then squares. I found it easier to make these one at a time. Peel off the paper backing to your interfacing and place a triple size cotton ball right in the middle of the square. Put another square on top (interfacing together) and iron each side. Don't forget your dishtowel! Don't worry about being neat because you'll trim your edges.

Snip snip with the pinking shears and you have some easy no-sew ravioli. If you didn't do a good job with your ironing, you can always pull apart where it didn't fuse, dab some glue stick on it, and iron it back up. To make the cute jar, I just hot glued some vintage ribbon to a Christmas container from the Dollar Store.

These peas and carrots are even easier. Buy some tiny pom poms and you have peas. The orange carrots are made from polymer clay rolled into a cylinder and sliced and baked.

Tomato slices take a bit more time. Embroider some veins onto your solid and stitch to your backing fabric RST (right sides together) leaving a gap for turning. Stuff with a smidge of polyfill. Turn them inside out and handstitch up the little gap.

There are several different tutorials out there on this bowtie pasta. But it does take a long time to stitch each one together. They look really cool though so the effort is worth it.

We eat lots of wrap around here. This is just some thick cotton fabric from the clearance bin at JoAnn's. I took some Tupperware from the cabinet and traced around it. Sew them together RST just like the tomato and clip the edges because you want nice round wraps. Stitch up your opening. Since these are flat, I just used the machine to finish them off.

And for the final step, I put all those painting skills that I got with that BFA to make char marks with the edge of a flat brush. I actually put a real tortilla on the table and copied it for the highest realism.

Let me know if you make any of these fun foods. Put some pics in the flickr pool.

Play Eats: Make some food

These cherries are super easy to make. The original idea is courtesy of Catherine Hug of Hyggelig. Instead of the rope, we used brown pipe cleaners, cut them to size and sealed them in the holes of the wood beads with some hot glue. To make painting the beads easier, we stuck them on the ends of chopsticks and just painted half at a time. The tin is from Michael's and those are just stick-on letters. Super quick and easy project. My sister-in-law helped with making most of the play foods so the other part of that "we" is her. I do recommend tackling these projects with a friend, you'll get a lot more done and it's a fun way to spend the day.

Now these strawberries were a lot more difficult. The pattern can be found here. I was not about to do any hand-stitching out of sheer laziness so I added a seam allowance to the whole thing and used the sewing machine to create the shape. My sister-in-law and I both stuffed them and closed up the top (by hand, there was no other way) and I hot glued on the leafy top.

I think the tiny polka dot print is what really makes these work. It's from Jo Ann's. Oh, and we just cut the tops freehand so they would look more realistic. That's green fleece.

And don't forget, you can reuse your container from the grocery store for some realism (although I think blueberries or tomatoes came in this). Now, if only we can find the rogue strawberry that's been missing since Christmas...

These tea bags were one of the most difficult play foods to make but certainly worth the effort. I stole the idea from my amazing friend Nikole of A Happy Nest.

I used some muslin I keep around for well, muslins (test garments), and cut up some Beatrix Potter scrapbook paper to make the tags. What was difficult was folding the tops in and stitching them up so they look nice and neat. We filled them with quinoa but I think lentils would work better. They are bigger so you won't have to worry about them spilling out if your sewing is crap. We were thinking it would be nice and fragrant to put some actual tea in each bag but I had already finished them by then.

The little tin is something my sister in law picked up at Ikea and more sticker letters for the top.

Finally for today, some peanut butter and jelly. My mother in law made these. She said they are just a simple single crochet and she reduced and increased whenever it felt right. Each one takes less than 20 minutes. I just traced a piece of our play bread and asked her to do whatever she wanted. These have yet to be used as peanut butter or jelly though. Z likes to put them in the blender, in her tea cups, on the pizza...

Play Eats: Make a shopping cart

So we'll begin our little segment called Play Eats with a shopping cart tutorial. You should probably shop and pay for your groceries before you begin cooking, right?

This project is a great way to reuse that perfectly good walking toy that your kid hasn't played with in ages and turn it into an awesome shopping cart.

Materials:

thick canvas fabric (or home décor weight. I used that cheap stuff from Ikea)

cool cotton fabric from Spoonflower (or whatever quilting cotton you love, really. I used Paper Sparrow for this)

Pellon 809 heavyweight fusible interfacing

Velcro

boning

denim needle (or similar heavy duty needle)

The amounts will depend on the size of your walker.

1. Measure your walking toy. The Melissa and Doug alligator will need a basket 9.5 wide and 11” long. You’ll need a bottom too. Don’t forget to add seam allowances!  I like to use 3/8” because that’s the width from my needle to the edge of my favorite foot.

2. Cut your fabric. You’ll need two pieces of each shape.

Front

Back

Left side

Right side

Bottom

Straps:  Our pieces were 3.25” X 2.5”  (That includes a ¼” seam allowance). The diameter of the bar is 1”.
You’ll need 4 of the print and 4 of the solid.

Cut your interfacing to the size of your basket. No seam allowances!

It is important to be very careful with this. If your interfacing is too small, your basket won’t stand straight (guess how I learned this!). You also don’t want to be sewing over that extra layer.

3. Iron your interfacing onto the Spoonflower fabric. Tip: Lightly press the interfacing to the back of the cotton, then turn it over to press more firmly. My iron does not like the Pellon at all.

4. Draw lines on your solid. I used a disappearing ink pen. The lines started to disappear before I was finished sewing so if you can, do one piece of fabric at a time.

I used my 1” and 2” rulers to make it easy. Start at one edge and use the 1” ruler to make your horizontal lines and the 2” ruler to draw your vertical lines.

5. Stitch. 

I used a reinforced straight stitch so that it would stand out and have a nice texture to it.  You might want to change your needle now. All that probably dulled it.

6. Sew together your four outer sides RST (right sides together). Then carefully pin your bottom on. Clip the bulky corners.

7. Do the same thing for your inner layer but make your seam allowance just a smidge wider so that it will nest inside the outer a bit better.

8. Pin your boning into the seam allowance of the canvas solid and stitch it in place. You can skip this step if you want. The basket will still stand on its own. The boning will just help it to last longer.

9. Stitch your straps RST, leaving one short edge open, clip corners, turn inside-out and press.

10. Pin your straps into the seam allowance as shown. (There is an additional image with the Velcro step that may be helpful). The straps need to be stacked. Keep your solid sides down and the patterned sides up. Stitch ¼” from the edge of the seam allowance. That way they’ll get reinforced.

11. Stitch the baskets together. There are two options:

a. Place your baskets WST just as they will be when finished. Turn your entire seam allowance in and top stitch the whole top edge closed.  If you choose this option, you can also cut a piece of cardboard to stuff in the bottom between the layers for support. This would not work for the Melissa and Doug toy – only one with a flat bottom (those pesky gators!).

b. Place your baskets RST and stitch 3 sides closed and about 1” in to the fourth side on each end. Turn inside-out through that opening. This can be difficult with the boning and can wrinkle up your fabric.

12. Cut your Velcro and sew it to the straps where needed.

13. Admire your upcycled creation! 

Please let me know if there are any mistakes in these instructions. I’ve tried to make them simple. If you’ve never sewn on canvas or denim before, don’t worry. The needle is what makes it happen. And definitely upload photos of your shopping carts to the Project: Project flickr group.

Play Eats!

Two whole weeks of awesome play food tutorials, play food reviews ('cause not everyone's crafty and some people are busy), play kitchen stuff, play dishes ideas, some great stuff. So stay tuned.

Special guest posts: Thanks to Sabra of Sew a Straight Line, Jess of Craftiness is Not Optional, and Katie of Hippos and Dinosaurs for their play food and cookware tutorials. Also thanks for extra reviews to Carolyn who finds amazing vintage furniture for cheap like it's her job. See their posts for links.

Day 1: Shopping Cart Tutorial

Day 2: Cherries, strawberries, tea, and peanut butter and jelly slices.

Day 3: Tortillas, peas and carrots, tomatoes, bowtie pasta, no-sew ravioli.

Day 4: Ideas on repurposing and thrift store finds.

Day 5: Play Kitchen roundup and inspiration photos.

Day 6: Pottery Barn Kids play kitchen review

Day 7: Fabric pots and pans tutorial

Day 8: Fabric pretzel tutorial

Day 9: Felt egg tutorial

Day 10+: Play Food Reviews...

 

Haba

 

Garden Fresh Peel-Able Fruits and Veggies

Ikea

Target's Play Wonder

Melissa and Doug

Green Toys

Finally, some Etsy tips.

Play food reviews disclaimer: I have either bought all of the play foods discussed here or a family member has bought them for my kid. No company is paying me to write about this stuff. But if they were, I'd still be super honest about it.

Also, the photos may or may not contain all of the pieces found in a particular set. The play kitchen is a mess and I did my best to find a nice sampling the day I shot the images.

More plans

Just like that chair, I can't seem to get these houses out of my head, so much so, that I had to look through I Can Fly several times to make sure there weren't any more drawings of houses on the other pages. But no, this is it. And because of this one little scene, I went and bought a dollhouse kit. Ironically, my husband is okay with it so far. Maybe that's because I we haven't started it yet. Ha ha.

So see that one little house there on the left in the back, the one with the ironwork at the peak of the roof? (I have since learned it's called cresting). That's what did it. I need to make a dollhouse and it needs to have cresting. I bought this one for super cheap on eBay. I know it's a tudor and they don't normally have cresting. Cresting is more traditionally a Victorian element. I plan to leave the half-timbering detail off the dollhouse anyway. But seriously, I'm going to Mary Blair the heck out of this house. It will be mid-century whimsy at its finest. I'm so excited.