Wee Felt Nests and Haybales

                            CHEAP  &  EASY  TOY  WEEK                           

The chicken coop at the Salt Lake Children's Museum, as well as recently seeing Charlotte's Web for the first time, have renewed Huck's interest in his little farm set.  It's a Melissa & Doug one.  There were other fancy, German-made sets I really liked more, but I couldn't justify $300+ so we got this one a while back, which is at least simple and wooden for long lasting, open-ended fun.  We've populated it with Schleich animals that we can get at our local drugstore.  And this weekend I decided to make a few little items for the farm to cozy the place up.

Naturally, I started with some nests for the chickens.  It was very easy. 

2 circles of yellow or tan felt cut out with pinking sheers and a smaller circle of batting.  Then just sew around the circle of batting (machine or by hand)  and snip the overhang into fringe.  I made a little bigger one for the geese.

Then I moved on to haybales.  A little more complicated but still easy.

For each bale, cut out 4 rectangles and 2 squares with pinking sheers in a pale yellow felt.  Then sew the rectangles together to form a box that's open on both ends.  I stuffed mine with basic craft polyfill--enough to make the sides bulge a little bit.  Then I hand whip stitched the square ends on.

I sewed the first one with contrasting thread but didn't really like it so I sewed the next two with matching thread.  Then I tied them up with contrasting embroidery floss. 

I may try some little troughs out of sticks next.  Little eggs would probably make Huck very happy but I think I'm going to encourage him to find something to use as eggs himself.  He's been feeding the animals the black beans left in the craft room from making bean bags. 

Glad I'm not the one mucking that barn!

It was a fun and quick little project and he's enjoying playing with them.  Admittedly, so am I. 

And check out the little visitor we had while we were playing...

That's some, terrific timing!  Thanks for stopping by, Charlotte.

For other toys and activities like this one, check out my entire Cheap & Easy Series.

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