Toys - The Marble Chute

This is the marble chute, which lives at Grandpa's farm. An older version existed, that we played with when we were kids, but it has disappeared. Thankfully, my older brother constructed a new marble chute a few years ago, so that generations of Roth kids could continue to roll marbles for hours at a time.

I know there are probably snazzy plastic chutes that are similar on the market, but I've got it in my mind to make my own wooden one, down the line.

Toys - The Littlest Birds

I've started making these birds from scrap fabric and old sweaters, after seeing the cool ones at Spool Sewing and Sew Liberated. So far I've made three little guys. And Sam and I chose a branch from the back forty that the birds are going to sit on. But before I got to glueing them, Sam had so much fun playing with them and making them talk to each other. So they might not ever make it to the branch.

The big fuzzy purple one is the dad, while the other two take turns being the mom or the child. My husband tried to convince him that the fuzzy one should be the mom, since I'm the one with crazy curly hair in the family, but he's not having it. The big fuzzy purple one is, and always will be, Dad.

Toys - Some ideas work better than others...

The 'snow globe' we tried to make using a peanut butter jar and crunched up egg shells :) Back to the drawing board...


The coffee filter flower bouquet Sam gave me for Mother's Day, co-created with Auntie Cheryl. So beautiful!

Sewing/Toys - We Love Crowns!

I've finally finished the yo-yo reggio give-away crown that I started for Fiona in Denver so many weeks back! There are so many cool crowns that you can see on-line and in a variety of books out there. Amanda Blake Soule shows a nice version in The Creative Family. I got my original inspiration from the tutorial at Juicy Bits and the blog posting at Koala Brains.

I somewhat followed the Juicy Bits tutorial, but as usual I changed it up according the materials I had on hand. In some versions of the crowns that I've made so far, I've used cardboard or a thicker felt inside the crown body, instead of interfacing material. The pictures you see here show several layers of felt to make a sturdier crown body. I've also played with machine stitching and hand stitching. Fiona's crown is primarily hand-stitched, just because I liked the way it looked and I felt like hand stitching. For better or worse, I think I'll always be an improvisor! You might want to follow the more formal tutorial, or just follow along with my improvisational photo essay.


Playing with the initial layout. I just didn't like the look of those yellow stars...


These colors worked better!


I used a simple running stitch to sew her initial onto a felt diamond.


I stitched the square to the front of the crown body and added some embroidered spirals. Because I really like spirals.


I sewed a strip of the butterfly fabric to the bottom of the crown body. I made a fabric sleeve from the same fabric, to make the back elastic holder. These are the seams that I machine stitched.


This shows the fabric sleeve with the elastic inside of it. I machine stitched both ends, to make sure that the elastic would stay in. You can see on the crown body that I added gold/brass buttons.




After I sewed the elastic onto the crown body, Sam graciously modeled.

I don't have a picture of the wand, but I made it with the same butterfly fabric that's on the crown. I cut out two free-form stars (because I like free-form stars!) and sewed them together. I stuffed the star with quilt batting, then attached it to a wooden dowel. Finally I tied on a variety of ribbons and finished it with some glue. I hope Buffy will share some photos when Fiona gets the package in the mail!

Toys - Elephant from Vietnam

Michael brought this lovely stuffed elephant for Sam. I'm in love, and planning to learn to make them myself, so I can give one to every kid I know.