A gift and an Easter Bunny

Did some sewing and crafting over spring break.  Namely for gifts or others.  

Will be sharing the next few days while I'm finishing up a big project (for moi).  :)

First up is a gift that Maressa took to a friend's birthday party (also 3 yrs).  Even though I was planning to make the whole gift, I did end up getting a store bought gift.  It was something that M got for her bday that she just loved.  It's this Leap Frog Text & Learn.  Yeah it's electronic, but it fits nicely in my tote and entertains her in the car and shopping and it's educational.  She loves the little dog on it and it cracks her up often and it's totally age appropriate with the games and teaching the alphabet.

Anyway, I had to make something.  So when I saw this tutorial I just knew with Easter approaching it had to top her wrapped gift.  Our particular friend has lots of food allergies, so this felt bunny was the closest thing she would get to a chocolate bunny.  It was so easy to whip up and I just love how it looks.  I have some more chocolate and white chocolate ones cut out too ready to sew up and put in a few baskets.  Only thing I changed is I didn't bother with the leg piece.

Also, instead of buying a card I went to this free printable art site and printed a small version of one of the art and used it for the card.  I let Maressa color on the inside.  :)

But speaking of precious Easter handmade gifts, check out these tutorials:
Adorable bunny finger puppets
Fun felt egg design book (kids can design all kinds of things with egg shapes and loose felt pieces)
and of course my bunny alphabet coloring book
these candy jars on Martha Stewart would make fun teacher gifts

Now I'm brainstorming ideas to make for party favors for Micah's upcoming preschool Easter party.   I've got little peat pots, but haven't quite figured out what to put in them (definitely NOT candy as they will have more than they can eat between egg hunts and other party favors I'm sure!)

Cupcakes, Cupcakes, Cupcakes!

Next week I'm having a Cupcake Week!  And nope, none of them will be edible...all crafts...then a GIVEAWAY!!  I've had lots and lots of cupcake stuff on my brain in preparing for the next birthday bash in this house!  And boy have they been everywhere in the Valentines stuff  out there!

Well in all this cupcake brainstorming, I remembered a very lovely cupcake week done by another blogger last year.  So of course I had to go dig those posts up.  So here are some very yummy cupcake printable goodies!  And look for some of them in my upcoming crafts!

via LollyChops:
Cupcake party invites ~ though I've already pulled out stuff to make my own, thinking I will use these instead and save myself some time!

Cupcakes tags, paper buttons and/or shrinky dinks

Cupcake embroidery ~ which I'm using them for something different all together!  ;)

Make canvas art with free printables

Yesterday browsing blogs I came across a link to free printable art on a site called Feed Your Soul via How About Orange. I knew we needed the sleeping squirrel one being that 2 year old LOVES squirrels and we in fact are having nap time protests. lol
So I figured she could use some inspiration hanging by her bed. I didn't want to just hang the picture for her to eventually tear up, nor did I want it framed because 2 year olds don't have the reputation for leaving things alone that they can reach. So I came up with this idea. I already had some 8 X 11 blank canvases (my crafting pack rat tendencies come in real handy for instant crafting gratification). So to turn your free printable or any 8 X 11 printed paper into art on canvas keep reading. :)


Just need your canvas, print and mod podge. First I printed my art onto white cardstock. This squirrel print is just the right size. I did some others too and some of the prints are a bit larger. I simply trimmed them to fit the canvas.

Now apply a layer of mod podge to the front of the canvas and one to the back of your printed cardstock. Place the print carefully on the canvas and smooth. Let dry (if you get impatient like I did with the first one and you go ahead and do your top layer when the bottom is still wet it makes your paper a little too wet and it starts rumpling and bending). Now apply a layer of mod podge to the top of the print to seal it.

For my toddlers art I wanted to hang it from ribbon. So after the top dried I turned the canvas over and used a staple gun to attach the ribbon to the top. Take a lighter close to the other raw ends of the ribbon to heat set it to prevent raveling. Then to avoid potential injuries I hung Maressa's art on one of those command strip hooks by her bed. Now we say goodnight to the squirrel at bedtime and at yesterday's nap she was distracted enough by her sleepy painting that she took her nap without the usual screaming routine (disclaimer: in no way do I suggest that cute art by the bed will alleviate bed time woes with toddlers, I'm sure our troubles are not over yet!)

So check out the free art...they have a little something for everybody and I printed several to hang in different rooms and for gifts (after all I did have 6 of those canvases on hand!) :)