Catching Up With Mickey

Ages ago I started working on a Mickey Mouse themed quiet book for Rowan.  Off and on again I've slowly been plugging away at it.  Here's the pages I've finished so far:

First page

Velcro the clubhouse together

Page 2

The buttons are sewn on the page

Page 3

Page 4

Goofy even has his signature pineapple underpants!

Page 5

Page 6

Velcro the different hats on Donald

Page 7

I used faux fur for Daisy's ponytail

Page 8

Finger puppets!

This is one of Rowan's favorite pages so far!

Page 9

The puzzle pieces attach with velcro.  However, I wish I had used a different image for the puzzle.  It's actually trickier than you'd think!

Page 10

Toodles has glue, a screwdriver, a hammer, and of course, the mystery mouse-ka tool!

Page 15

(No I didn't miscount, there's 4 pages I haven't finished yet.)

Practice your numbers

Page 16 & 17

There's the shoe garage, mistletoe mountain, the sandy desert, and Mickey Lake.  

The fact that I know all these places explains why my brain can no longer retain useful information.

Page 18

This is currently Rowan's all time favorite page.  He loves going fishing for gooey fish!  

There's a magnet inside the 'hook' and those are paper clips sticking out of the fish.

There's still 4 more pages to go, and thankfully those aren't quite as detailed as some of the above pages.  Of course, there will be a cover, too.  

Sadly, I will not be selling these books in the future.  While it hasn't been particularly difficult to make, it's pretty time consuming.  Oddly, most of the time is spent just cutting out all the little pieces!  My plan, however, is to eventually sell a pattern with instructions.  When I get it all ready, would anyone like to test it out for me and see if it makes sense?  Pretty place?  With cupcakes?

The BIG Valentine Craft

Last year around this time I came across a great tutorial for a Valentine's mailbox complete with mail on the great blog Imagine Our Life.  However, I thought Rowan was a bit too young, so I saved it for this year!

After quite a bit of prunching (that's a term my gramma used to use for messing around), and only having to rip out one little bit, I finished it in time for V-day!

There's canvas inside the mailbox to give it a little body.  The mailbox is stitched together with the blanket stitch.  After this project, I think I've finally mastered that stitch!

The stamps are removable with velcro.  The envelopes also seal with a dab of velcro.

The flag on the side of the mailbox actually moves up and down.  It's a little floppier than I'd like, but it works!  On the blog, she used fabric that goes through the printer to print off cute little letters with pictures that were stitched to the felt letters.  I cheated and just drew squiggles with some black puffy paint :)

My favorite piece is the cookie that slides into the heart envelope.  It's got seed bead 'sprinkles' and a little stuffing to make it look extra yummy.  Rowan loves to munch on it!  He informed me that Gramma Nin sent it to him.

Rowan and I are both really happy with how this one turned out!  Now on to finishing my valentines for his school party and maybe some creme filled cupcakes...

Better Late Than Never

The past few years my neighbor and I have exchanged Christmas presents, not just for ourselves, but also for our kids.  I really like to make (and receive!) hand-made gifts and this year I stumbled across a super cute pattern from Wild Olive.

It's a felt ginger bread house!  How adorable is this thing?  I hand sewed all of the pieces, but the real time sucker was the cutting.  The pictures don't show a big pile of little candies.  Actually, you can see some of them in the little baggy to the right of the house.  My little neighbor girls are little young for the tiny pieces this year, but in another year or two I think they'll have a good time decorating the house to the nines.  And mom will appreciate this gift because this way her girls can get the gingerbread house experience without all the sticky, crumbly mess.

I'd really love to make one of these for Rowan, but he's not really in that type of thing.  If I could somehow add gears and/or wheels, though, he'd be all over it!

Oh, I don't' think I mentioned that I just finished it today.  December 30.  Oops.  I also have a stack of tea towels to embroider for some other friends.  Maybe they will turn in to New Years gifts.  Or Valentines gifts….

What's the latest you've ever given/received a Christmas gift?