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Felt Flower Ornament

Day 11 of 12 Handmade Ornaments is here, which means it's the penultimate day of this series! It's so rare that I post on the weekends, but since this series is running for 12 days in a row, that necessitates weekend posting. Needless to say, I'm planning on taking it nice and easy next week - probably just one post. It's Thanksgiving week anyway, which is a good one for taking a break!

Also, before I get to the tutorial for today's ornament, I just want to remind y'all that tomorrow (Sunday), a LINK PARTY will be going on when the last ornament posts go up. Now it's your turn to link up your own handmade ornaments! Show off your creative skills :). Since we know not everyone has started their Christmas decorating yet, we're keeping the party open for a couple of weeks to make sure you have a chance to add yours. Many of us will be showing off our favorites in the coming weeks, so don't miss this parTAY!
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Felt Trees and Puppets

I recently sewed some curtains for one of our play stands to make a puppet stage. This area now gets a lot of use with puppets and with the small standing animal figurines we have collected over time.



The trees were made on our craft day. I found this idea when looking on etsy and knew it would be easy enough for us to make together.




My youngest daughter and I made the apple tree which now sits at the nature table. Before sewing the two sides of the tree together, we used her small embroidery hoop to hold one piece of the tree while she sewed on the beads. I sat next to her and helped and she really loved it.




My oldest daughter made this tree the same way. I had cut out the little leaves and she sewed them on using the hoop. I then added a little stuffing and sewed the sides together later. It also sits at the nature table to remind us of the changing leaves outside.



Later I made these finger puppet birds for puppet play. This idea comes from the book Creative Play for your toddler toy projects for 2-4s




Next, I need to work on a better way to store our growing collection of puppets and puppet accessories. For now, we are enjoying lots of fun play.

Available link for download