Kids Gifts: Play Cookies & Elf Apron

Hello! Did everyone have a great Thanksgiving? It was so nice to have a few days of family time. Today we start Gifts for Kids! It's been a while since I posted any felt food, so I thought we'd start there. It's a christmas cookies baking and decorating set. 

The first thing I made for this set was a little christmas apron. Christmas is a time of year where Thing One helps in the kitchen a lot. I thought an elf apron would be perfect. This one is a slight variation from the Kids apron I made before but it's still made from a vinyl table cloth. Now for an exciting announcement: I have finally uploaded my kids apron pattern for you! You can find the free pattern here and find the instruction here. 

This apron was traced from another we had so it has a more rounded shape. Because of that, I decided to finish the edges with bias tape. If you are using the pattern you can just fold and sew the edges as directed or (if you have more time on your hands) you can try the bias tape for a little more finished look.

Here's the finished apron. I wish I would have done the D-rings for the neck strap like I did on the other one, but this was actually my first kid apron attempt, so each one has improved a little more since this first one.

What do you think? Does this make a great apron for little elf helpers or what?

Now on to the play cookies. To make the dough I used two sheets of tan felt which you can find in craft stores or sometimes even Walmart. I trimmed the edges to make a more blobby shape and sewed all the way around, about 1/8 inch from the edge. Next I traced the cookie cutter I wanted to include a few times on the dough.  Space them out pretty well. Then sew along your traced lines. Cut out the shapes just inside your sewn lines. Sew the two cut out pieces together.

Then your inner cut outs should look like this. I tried different methods of sewing the cookies: by hand with a blanket stitch and machine zigzag. I finally decided on machine straight stitch as seen on the right below. It looks cleanest I think. Then you can cut our some frosting for kiddos to add after their cookies are "baked." If you want frosting to be permanent sew it on to the top cut-out layer before sewing the two layers together.

I bought the little pan at the dollar store and these cute rolling pins are available in the wood aisle at Hobby Lobby.

You can package up the cookie set in a Christmas tin or add a few more felt foods and make it a full set of cooking fun. This set had bacon and eggs, bow tie pasta and sauce and cookies and frosting.

Now your little elves can bake away with no worry of burnt cookies or someone eating too much raw cookie dough. : )

Thanks for reading. See you soon for more kids gifts!