No Sew Felt Fish

My kids love fishing with those magnetic fishing sets. Thing is... they never last long. The paper fish get ripped in half and the paper clips pulled off. I often find the clips all unfolded and poking up out of the carpet just waiting to snag its next victim.

I've found a lot of super cute felt fishing sets out there, like these from whipup.net or A Little Learning For Two or Sewing Stash Challenge or Shannon Makes Things or my favorite from Just Another Day in Paradise.

But they all require sewing and stuffing and other time consuming stuffs like that. I think it would be incredibly fun to make them. I just don't have the time to drag out the sewing machine and polyester stuffing. And if one was going to make them for a busy bag swap, I highly doubt anyone would want to spend time sewing up 90 fish.

So here's my rendition.

I made ten of these little fishies in about 10 minutes' time with just some felt, some washers, and a hot glue gun. The rod was made by one of the moms in our last swap, using an unsharpened pencil, a length of yarn, and a magnet.

Here's how I put the fish together...

First, I doubled up felt sheets of the same color and cut out simple fish shapes through both layers at the same time. Cutting through both layers insures that both sides of your fish are the same shape and size.

Next I glued the two layers of fish together with a washer in between the layers. I found it easiest to glue the tails together, lay the washer in, and then put a line of glue around the edges of the fish body and seal it up.

You could end it here, or you could add details with puffy paint or marker or what have you.

There you have it... it's quick, it's colorful, and most importantly, it's durable.

On the Cheap (collect no junk) Letter and Number Tiles

I've been scouring the internet for $1 per bag swap friendly ideas for the upcoming busy bag swap, which by the way, I hope to have organized and posted by next Monday night. I'm
finding a lot of ideas. However, some of them require recycling "junk"... bottle caps, milk
lids, egg cartons, juice cans, etc. This works great if you're making one set for yourself,
but multiply that by the number of bags for a swap, and it would take you years to collect
enough junk.

Take for example, these very clever milk cap letter tiles from Totschool. Very awesome idea to reuse
something that you would otherwise throw away. But you would need 26 caps for the entire
alphabet. Multiply that by 30 sets, and you would need 780 milk caps. If your family goes
through two gallons of milk a week, it would take you 7 and a half years to collect enough
milk caps for a swap.

So I racked my brain for a better idea, and here's what I came up with...

For 30 sets, you will need:
8 EZ Felt Sheets (for alphabet tiles) OR
6 EZ Felt Sheets (for 1-20 number tiles)
4 (?) small bottles of white Puffy Paint

The EZ Felt is a very stiff felt that comes in 12x16 sheets and costs 79 cents a sheet at
Hobby Lobby. You can get 108, 1.25" tiles from each sheet. That's a little over 4
alphabets or a little over 5 number sets (1-20) per sheet.

I love the look of circles, but knowing that, if I were cutting 30 sets of tiles, I'd rather
not have to cut all those circles, I decided on  1.25" squares.

I tried to use my little Fiskars paper trimmer to cut the squares. The blade was not long
enough to cut all the way through, but it did an awesome job scoring straight lines. I
barely had to open and close the scissors... just slide it along the scored lines. If you
have a more heavy duty paper cutter, I'm sure it would slice right through the felt nicely.

Once I had my squares cut, I got out my puffy paint and started handwriting class all over
again. You may want to practice a tiny bit on a sheet of paper before you dive in, just to
get a feel for how fast the paint will squeeze out.

You'll want to lay these out in a place where you can leave them for several hours (or
overnight) to dry.

Once completed, try not to stack them puffy paint to puffy paint, as it will take several
days for the paint to cure completely, and you don't want them sticking to each other.

So there you have it, alphabet and number tiles inexpensively created without having to
save milk caps for the rest of your life.


You can use these tiles with the printable alphabet, counting, and spelling cards available on my printables page, under "Busy Bags".

A Handsome Pair of Turkeys

Aren’t these adorable? I was walking through Walmart the other day when I saw a pair of toe socks in fall colors. Immediately, the word “turkey” popped into my head, and the socks jumped into my cart. I mean, everyone's got a sock monkey. There are instructions out there for all sorts of sock animals... sock elephants, sock dogs, and even sock bunnies. But a sock turkey... now that's different.

And even better than their uniqueness is the fact that they are super easy to make for just the cost of the socks (I found this pair at Walmart for $3), if you use what you have at home. If you do not have poly-fill in the house, drag that old pillow out of the linen closet that you haven't used in over 3 years. If you do not have plastic pellets on hand, just use a couple tablespoons of rice or lentils.

(Oh and yes. I’m aware that there is only one turkey in these photos. While a pair of socks will make a pair of turkeys, I have yet to get a chance to make the second one. sigh.)

Do you want some of these Tommy turkeys? Here’s how. It should only take an hour… maaaaaybe two, if you do not have little people “help”.

What You Will Need:

• Fall colored toe socks
• Foam ball (OR poly-fill)
• Poly-fill
• Plastic pellets or rice or lentils
• Thread and needle
• Sewing machine (optional, but recommended – unless you’re super good with tiny hand stitches)

Step One: Gettin’ Started 1. Cut your foam ball in half. I used a foam ball that somehow appeared in our house. Actually I probably rescued it, because I am sure it would have soon been bitten to death just as its block partner had. If you don’t have needy foam balls begging to be rescued, I’m sure you could get away with just using poy-fill. Your turkey just wouldn’t be flat in the back.

2. Stick one of the ball halves inside of one sock to determine where you should cut your sock.

3. I cut mine just at the bottom of the green stripe. You’ll want to leave about 1-1 ½ inches below the ball.


Step Two: The Body
1. Take a moment to look the photos above and laugh at my awful hand stitching ability.

2. Stuff the ball back into your sock and begin stitching up the bottom. You’re going to kinda wrap it up like a present, as show in photo 1 and 3.

3. When you have only one end open, pour a little of the plastic pellets (or rice or lentils) into the hole. Use your finger to stuff it in toward the other end and pour in more.

4. Spill the pellets all over the place. The kidlets will think it’s cool.

5. Keep going until you have about 2 Tbsp. in your turkey bottom. The idea is to have enough in there to make the Turkey bottom moldable so he can sit without falling over. Finish stitching it up.


Step Three: Those ‘Dorable Turkey Feet 1. Create a leg/foot pattern similar to the one above. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You can leave off the curved toes and just make a triangle, if you want.

2. Lay your pattern on the sock and cut. You will need a total of four per turkey, which means you should only have to cut twice (per turkey), because you’ll be cutting through both layers.

3. Lay two feet pieces right sides together. Stitch around the foot only… NOT THE LEGS. Repeat with the next foot.

4. Let your “helper” get a good look.

5. Turn right side out. A crochet hook or other similar object may be helpful. Just don’t jam it in too hard. You don’t want to poke a hole in your turkey foot.

6. Stuff each foot with a small amount of poly-fill.

7. Stitch up one side of the leg and down the other. Do not cut your thread.

8. Bend up the foot to create a right angle, and stitch the foot to the leg, so these cute little turkey feet can stick up and show off their cute little selves.

9. Repeat with the next leg.

10. Stitch the legs to the bottom of the turkey.

You should now have a two legged toe sock that sits.


Step Four: The Head

1. Take one of your remaining sock pieces. Cut out an oval. Eyeball it. Perfection is not needed, at all. This should give you two ovals… one for each turkey.

2. Thread your needle with a looooong thread. Make large loose stitches around the oval. Do not cut your thread.

3. Pull it up into a gathered pouch looking thingy. Do not cut your thread.

4. Stuff your little pouch with a small amount of poly-fill. Pull it tight. Do not cut your thread.

5. Stitch it closed. Do not cut your thread.

6. Stitch head about 3/4 up from the bottom of the turkey body. Tie it off. Stick your needle through the head. Pull it out the other side very tightly. Cut the thread. This should make your knot pretty much invisible.

You should now have a one headed, two legged toe sock that sits.


Step Five: The Turkey Beard

1. Cut a shape similar to the one pictured above from the cuff of the sock.

2. Do a quick whip stitch around your nice lookin’ turkey beard. Do not cut your thread.

3. Pinch the top of the beard together. Pierce it with your needle. Pull the thread through. Pierce it again and pull thread trough. Do not cut your thread.

4. Now stitch the beard to the bottom of his head. Tie it off... and now you may cut the thread.


Step Six: The Beak

1. Take the remainder of the sock cuff and fold it in half. Stick it in the sewing machine and stitch a small triangle. Trim about an 1/8 inch from your stitching.

2. At this point, you’ll probably want to put the beak up against the turkey’s head to check for size. I ended up needing to cut mine a little.

3. Stuff the beak a little.

4. Stitch onto the turkey’s head.

You should now have a one headed, two legged, beaked and bearded toe sock that sits.

Almost done!


Step Seven: The Eyes

You’re going to make the eyes by endlessly knotting double looped, black thread. Or you can do it the easy way and use embroidery thread, if you have some on hand.

(How to double loop: Take a long string of thread. Fold it in half. Thread the looped end through your needle. Pull it half way through. Knot the end. You should now have four strands of thread.)

1. Poke your needle through the bottom of the beak and back up where you want your first eye.

2. Pierce the needle through the head, as shown in photo 1. Pull needle through.

3. Reach through the loop that is created. Grab the needle and begin to pull. (Photo 2)

4. Use the fingers from your other hand to guide your loop as you pull slowly and tightly. (Photo 3 and 4)

5. Repeat a bunch of times until you reach the desired size of eye.

6. Pierce your poor turkey again and come back up where you want your second eye. Repeat knotting process.

7. When you are finished with the last eye, poke your needle into the head and bring it back out under the beak. Pull it real tight and cut.

You should now have a two eyed, one headed, two legged, beaked and bearded… TURKEY!!! Gobble gobble gobble!

If you create an adorable turkey, I’d love to see it! Just post about it on your blog and leave a link in a comment over here.

*If you would like to share this tutorial, feel free to pass on the link, but please do not copy and paste these instructions into your own blog.