DIY gifts for teachers/hand-made soap with kids

Our class is buying my son's teachers a larger gift, but I wanted to make something special to give them too. My choice fell on handmade soaps. We used the melt and pour method with glicerine soap. I just bought some glycerine soap at the drugstore and we cut it up and melted it (over stream), and we poured it into Ikea Plastis ice trays (they say that the trays are for water only--- but I'm a badass crafter:) ).
It was super easy and lots of fun.

 You can buy glycerine blocks to make soap out of at craft shops but glycerine soap is actually cheaper than the craft kind.  I tried melting cheaper/harder glycerine soap, but it did not melt.

You can also add stuff like poppy seeds, cinnimon, dried lavender to make soap more interesting. I could not figure out what would smell good with olive.

Melting the cut up soap cubes

The cubes start to melt

We filled the trays and let the soap harden in the fridge.

More letters!

I made some more letters for my friends'  kids. I kept the baking paper cutouts from the first batch and it was much easier to make these! See previous project here: http://thefeverishfeltist.blogspot.hu/search/label/alphabet

I gave the bear a ribbon for a more girly effect!

"Put a bird on it" be-birded mirror and wooden flower pot

 Ikea Malma mirrors are ideal for crafts projects, especially painting. They are inexpensive, have a relatively large surface and have a useful function. This is my first completed mirror but I suspect there will be more to come!

 Clearly inspired by Portlandia's "Put a bird on in" sketch (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHmLljk2t8M) I did just that a couple of months ago, when deciding on the decor for this IKEA Malma mirror that I made for my cousin's birthday. I made a template for the birds' bodies (by cutting the shape from paper) to make them even. I used acrylic paints. The actual colors in the bottles of the pink and green were super bright, so I added a bit of tan paint as well as some of the bronze paint  and mixing them. These new colors matched very nicely and were much prettier. This is not rocket science, but I'd not understood mixing colors until I did this project... I also used an finish as the brown paint rubbed off on the wall.

As I had quite a bit of mixed paint left over I searched our home for other wooden surfaces in need of a bird... in the end I found this wood flower pot that we use to keep nick-knacks in.

FELT HAIR CLIP HOLDER

 I made this hair clip holder out of felt, reused (or upcycled) fabric and ribbons. It will be a gift for our niece's 8th birthday. I had seen some really cute clip holders a couple of months ago and had been planning on making one, but was uncertain about the design.  I saw some strawberry ribbon at the store and fell in love and decided use it for this project. My sister-in-law mentioned that my niece likes fairies and as I was combing through my stash I found the pink dotted fabric (formerly a t-shirt) that I used for the first batch of Easter eggs and thought it would go well with the dots on the strawberries.

FELT ROSE HAIRPINS

 My sister-in-law, made these gorgeous hairpins last night as I was sewing yet another Easter egg garland... Maybe her flower girls will be wearing white felt roses in their hair.

PORCUPINE HAIRPIN

Porcupine hair clip

This hair clip was my first hair accessory comission! :) It was requested by my super-cute goddaughter... well one of my super-cute goddaughters to be exact. She wanted a porcupine hairclip after she was the porcupine bib scarf I made for my son   (http://thefeverishfeltist.blogspot.com/2012/02/fleece-bandana-bib-scarf-with-felt.html).

I used two felt circles as the base and sewed the porcupine on one of the circles first, attaching first the brown to the body then the body to the circle

I snapped a pic of her wearing it! :)

POMPOM MAKING with sick child

This was a good project to do with my son when he was semi-bedridden. It is not messy, it's easy to put away or do in bed but still with a fun outcome!

 My son is recuperating from the flu and asked to make pom poms for some reason. We watched a tutorial (as I have forgotten how to make them): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsGI6R-Opag and got down to business...

I made a small ball of yarn for easier use ( it does not matter if you run out, then all you need to do is tie the end of the yarn to a new piece with a simple knot) and tied the end of it to the cardboard rings.

My son wrapped the yarn around the ring. He did take some breaks but managed to wrap the whole ring it the end.

All done with the wrapping!

I cut the yarn by sliding the scissors between the who pieces of card.

My son tied the pompom with as seperate piece of string using several knots.

 We removed the cardboard, but off any longer pieces and

Voila! Our very own pompom!

MORE HAIR ACCESSORIES

Here are some hair accessories I made recently...

The first three pics are of  hairbands consisting of three layers or circles, of slightly different sizes and a button. They could also be attached to headbands...

Cupcake hairpin

Watermelon hairpins

Simple flower hairpin

FLEECE BANDANA BIB SCARF WITH felt PORCUPINE

  

 I finally got down to making this scarf for Simon yesterday. I bought one for his dad earlier this winter and we were both so impressed that I wanted to make and decorate one myself. After having bought some fabric that was not right for this endeavor, I found a strip of light brown fleece left over long ago from a blanket.   

The original scarf (adult size) was 58 x 41.5 x 41.5 cms. I measured it to the baby's neck and scaled it down to 46x33x33cms.

First I used blanket stitching to decorate the edges of the scarf, then I attached VELCRO to the ends of the longest side, a smaller piece to the outer side and a longer piece to the inner side. (I actually used the velcro from a stained bib as I could not find new velcro at home and was very eager :))

 

Here is Simon wearing it with his jacket. It is ideal for small ones because there is no fear of choking, , it can easily fit into mommy's pocket or his hat when he takes it off, and it covers his neck where it needs the most covering!

HAIR ACCESSORIES