Childhood Crafting: Fashions & Food for our Sylvanian Families

In the box of Sylvanian Families stuff we found in our attic, there was some Sylvanian furniture and some Sylvanian Families themselves (of course!) ... but the real treasures were the homemade bits and pieces we'd made as kids to accompany the store-bought stuff.

As you can see, I've been making things from felt for a looooong time.

I stitched these very stylish hats, shawl and bag for my rabbit family - and I also replaced the buttons on Mr Rabbit's dungarees when they fell off, and knitted a cosy wrap for Grandma Rabbit (luckily small pretend rabbits don't care how bad you are at knitting). 

 

I distinctly remember making a wedding dress and veil at one point, and one Christmas I carefully (and secretly!) made hats and jackets from felt for all my sisters' Sylvanians, wrapping them up in teeny handmade cardboard boxes which I then hung on the Christmas tree like ornaments. If those fashions ever turn up, I will be sure to take photos to share with you all.

As well as making clothes, I made lots of little things to decorate my (homemade) Sylvanian house.

Anticlockwise from bottom left: pieces of fabric that sat in a basket next to the sewing machine;"flannels" for the bathroom; an umbrella stand (for the paper cocktail umbrellas my parents brought back from a party) made from half a cocktail stick box covered in faux-woodgrain sticky back plastic; "skeins of yarn" made from embroidery thread and yarn; a paper fan; a beaded "necklace"; and two tiny "letters" which were tucked in the drawer of the dressing table.

My sisters and I loved making stuff from Fimo and we made lots of fake food for our Sylvanians to take on picnics. Fake fruit, fake hamburgers, tiny fake sandwiches and fake iced buns (complete with fake cherries on top). So cute!

I also made some tiny packets of food for the kitchen shelves. Each packet is a tiny handmade box, filled with toy stuffing (to help keep its shape) and decorated with tiny pictures and text like "ingredients" and "best before".

Top row: Jelly, Sugar Cane, 400g Lentils, Flour, Cheese & Noodle Soup.
Middle row: Carrot & Cauliflower Soup, Cornflour, Icing Sugar, Tomato Soup, Vegetable Soup.
Bottom row: Birds Eye Custard, Self-Raising Flour, Selection of Fruit Herbal Teas.

Look how teeny they are!

Good work, younger self, good work.

16 Free Felt Christmas Ornament Tutorials!

I know it's a bit early to start talking about Christmas, but it's definitely not too early to start sewing for Christmas - especially if you've got lots of things you want to make!

I love sewing Christmas ornaments from felt. They're cute and colourful and easy to sew, and they make great gifts - either on their own or attached to a larger parcel as a colourful, festive gift-topper you can hang on the tree when the gift has been unwrapped.

Here are 16 free ornament ideas from my crafty tutorial archive. Let me know if you sew any of them for this Christmas :)

1. A cute felt penguin ornament.

2. Felt snow globe ornaments.

3. An embroidered mistletoe ornament.

4. Sparkly felt owl ornaments.

5. Simple felt Christmas tree ornaments - these are a great project to make with your kids as they can get creative and decorate the trees however they fancy. 

 

6. Felt angel ornaments, complete with sparkly halos!

7. A different version of the angel ornaments pattern.

 

8. Little snowman ornaments.

9. Snowflake baubles, inspired by those paper snowflakes you used to make as a kid.

10. Holly decorations made from felt, fabric and felt balls (designed by one of my lovely guest posters!).

11. Vintage-inspired felt baubles.

12. Red and white candy cane ornaments.

13. Classic Christmas pudding ornaments.

14. Simple baubles decorated with sequins and ribbon.

15. Easy felt star and heart ornaments (perfect for beginners!).

16. A whole set of embroidered baubles, decorated with different Christmas motifs.

Follow the links for all the tutorials.

P.S.Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly free pattern and visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots more free projects.

Visit my shop to buy my printable PDF sewing patterns:

My Childhood Sylvanian Families Collection

More treasures from our attic clear-out: Sylvanian Families!

I definitely collected Sylvanian Families more than I really played with them as a kid.

My sisters and I each had one family - mine were the grey rabbits. My parents used cardboard boxes to build us an apartment block style dolls house, with one vertical row of boxes each which we could decorate as different rooms.

We used carpet and wallpaper off-cuts and mixed our store-bought furniture (all lovingly, carefully chosen after much deliberation and on a limited pocket money budget) with homemade things.

I just loved looking at all the teeny pieces. A bookcase with tiny books! A bath with a teeny cork in the plughole! A sink with a tiny bar of soap! A sewing machine with little scissors and reels of thread.

Drawers that really opened! Charming old fashioned furniture like a dressing table and a rocking chair and a fancy rotary phone!

It was such a joy opening up a box and finding all these things... especially as I'd also kept some of the handmade furniture and accessories we'd made. I'll blog about those soon, they definitely deserve their own post.

In the meantime, check out my posts about other rediscovered childhood collections:

My shell collection...

... my badge collection...

 

... my sticker collection...
 

... and my eraser collection.

You might also enjoy reading about puzzles and games from my childhood, more childhood treasures, Fuzzy-Felt Fairytales and beloved kids books.

Cross-Stitch Brooches in Homespun Magazine

I got a lovely bit of post this week - all the way from Australia!

The September issue of Australian Homespun magazine features one of my crafty tutorials: stitching cute little cross-stitch sampler brooches.

Click here to find the free cross-stitch patterns and step by step tutorial.

It's always so nice to see my work in print, and especially exciting seeing it in a magazine being sold so very many miles away from here! Many thanks to the team at Homespun for featuring my project, and for sending me a copy of the magazine.