Handmade Christmas--Felt Fun

I'm dedicated to making some gifts for my girls this year, in hopes that they'll be a) cheaper, and b) a happy memory for them to look back on.  I've made felt food off and on for the last couple of years, and it's so much fun and easy, too!  If you're interested in how to make this cute little cake, keep reading.  I've never done a tutorial before, so bear with me.

Overall, this is a super-cheap little toy.  Many people use expensive wool felt, but I'm poor, so I use the 5 for $1 stuff you get at your basic Hobby Lobby/Michael's kinda joint.  True, my felt food may not last years, but I'll just replace as needed.  First:

I picked up these styrofoam rounds at Dollar Tree.  They're about  4 3/4" across, and 3/4" thick.  You'll need both of them.

 

You'll need 2-3 pieces of felt.  Trace your styrofoam round onto your felt and cut out the circle.  You'll need to do this twice, as this is your cake top and cake bottom.  I used a sewing marker with disappearing ink.

Cut two strips of felt 7 1/2" long and 2 1/4" wide.  The sewing is about to begin, so if you're not familiar with the blanket stitch, go here.  It's the best one I've seen online.

 

Using the blanket stitch, stitch the ends of the felt strips together to make a circle.  Then, take one of the felt circles you cut out and stitch it to the bottom of the circle you.ve just made.  This can get tricky, but once you're about 1/4 of the way around the circle, it gets easier.  Voila:

At this point, you're going to fit the styrofoam rounds down into the felt shape you've created.  Now, if you're using the cheap felt like I am, you have to make sure you don't stretch it all out of wack.  The felt has a little stretch to it, but just tug gently to get the rounds inside.

Now, you have two ways to give the top of your cake a little fun "smooshiness" to represent frosting.  I cut three (I only showed 2 in the picture) circles from some thin quilt batting I had in my stash:

You could also just sew on the top felt circle, leave a little gap, and stuff it with Poly-fil or something like that.  At this point, you've got a cute little cake that's got a pretty sturdy bottom & sides:

Now you're ready to decorate.  You can pretty much do whatever you'd like at this point.  I've seen a lot of cute decorating kits where you cut out felt shapes and let your child decorate the cake however they'd like.  If you'd like to do the piped icing I did, here's how.  So easy!

Cut three leaf shapes out of a contrasting felt color, about 1 3/4" long.  You'll need 3 shapes for each "pipe".

Stack the three leaf shapes on top of one another, and sew them together down the middle (using a standard straight stitch).  Then, just sort of separate the individual pieces & kind of fluff them out to resemble icing.

You'll need to make 10 of these to fit around the top of the cake (cut a total of 30 leaf shapes).  Sew the individual pieces together, end to end.  It just takes a few stitches to secure them.

Stitch the circle of icing to the top of the cake.  Just a couple of stitches per individual "pipe" will work, you don't have to go crazy.

I tried to do another ring of piped icing around the bottom, but it didn't look right to me.  Instead, I cut two

7 1/2" long, 3/4" thick strips of the contrasting felt, stitched them together into a loop, and fit them over the bottom of the cake.  I didn't bother stitching it to the cake; it fit pretty snug.  That's pretty much it! 

It still needs a little something on the top.  Since I've made one for each of the girls, I'm thinking their first initial on the top.  If you're adventurous, maybe you can figure out a way to write "Happy Birthday" on the top or something.  Anyway, enjoy!  And for more DIY fun, go visit A Soft Place to Land or Just a Girl sometime today.