Kid Craft: Felt Landscape Fun

Monday Craft Fun: Be Inspired By the Seasons, Felt Landscape Fun for the Whole Family by Tiffany of Fair Trade Family

As an artisan I go back and forth between complicated patterns (such as when I am knitting socks or baby sweaters) and free-form fun (which is how most of my play foods come together). As a mom of 4 growing boys I find that the more complicated a project is the more I end up doing the work, or the more the older boys end up telling the younger ones what to do (sometimes in a less than kind way). Since we have been working on honoring each other in our family, and we value creating things together as a team while each person contributes artistically, we were drawn to the felt.



We used simple, inexpensive felt. There are nicer 100% wool felts out there, too, but we were on a more limited budget and were just having fun. We purchased four of the stiffer pieces of felt (each about 8" x 10"). We used these as a base for creating our little landscapes.

Ours were inspired by the four seasons since the youngest of our four boys is focusing on the seasons in his homeschooling. When our kids were little we did simple felt boards and we could focus on a color, or shapes, or some other theme.



Each child then went to work on creating their own little pieces to add to each board. The littlest made the simplest flowers in a single color,



while the 12 year-old drew more complicated objects like a reindeer and carefully cut them out of the felt pieces.





The 10 year-old spent a long time on his jack-o-lanterns for the fall theme.



Each child took his own time creating their pieces and we fit them on the board. It really made the seasons come alive for our 5 year old and they had FUN doing it.





I don't have any templates for any of the cut-outs because it really was an open-ended activity but I would love to offer a free pattern for one of my play foods instead! Have fun with your kids. Be inspired to do a craft that all the kids can do together, each contributing something bright and bold and fun. And then make a nice cup of herbal tea or a green smoothie, some fuzzy merino wool, and a crochet hook and settle down for a little crafting time of your own.

Fair Trade Family has been offering a menu of unique play foods since 2005: from simple wool fruits and vegetables to vegan-friendly cotton avocados and artichokes and complicated ethnic food feasts. Fair Trade Family also offers custom hand knit and crocheted longies, shorties, and skirts for cloth diapering. Artisan and operator, Tiffany Nixon, dreamed of running a store where she would sell crocheted goodies in the mid 80s (long before the internet) when she was only 10 years old. She has been a vegetarian since 1996 and recently converted to raw food vegan but still loves crafting nachos and chili and cupcakes from yarn. Tiffany has been married for almost 14 years and her four sons are 12, 10, 8, and almost 6.... and they are all creative in different ways.