Crafty Crafty - Spaghetti Dogs and Rag Quilt Letters

I know it is very hard to believe but I actually accomplished two crafty things!  A "food" craft and a "real" craft!

With Preschool starting here this week, I've started making our Rag Letters.  The inspiration for this idea came from Artsy-Fartsy Mama and is an idea I posted back on May 10, 2011 in a Too Cute Not To Toot post.

Supplies
Fabric - scraps are fine
Quilt Batting
Thread
Template for letters (Check out Artsy-Fartsy Mama - she gives a great template!)

Step 1:  Cut out your template, two fabric squares and one square of batting.  I chose to use the same fabric on front and back of my letter - you could do a pattern on the front/solid on the back also. 

Step 2:  Make a fabric sandwich with the batting in the middle. 

Step 3:  I pined the pattern through all three layers so I could cut all three at once.  It is really important that you have some good fabric scissors.  I thought about using my rotary cutter but, sometimes I cut more than I mean too with that thing!  You could also use pinking shears but I did not have any!

Step 4: As I removed the template, I pinned the letter together to keep it from slipping while I sewed it.

Step 5: Sew!  I did not get any pictures of the actual sewing - it was hard enough to sew with someone trying to "help" me with the foot pedal and thinking it was funny to turn the machine off and on.  HA!  Because these are "rag" letters, I just sewed around the entire letter with about 1/4" seam allowance.  Don't judge my sewing abilities - I'm a novice :-) 

I also made the Letter "A".  I have not washed this yet which will fluff them and give them more of a rag look but for now they will do.  There are two - one for each boy :-)   We will eventually have the entire alphabet but I'm making about a letter a week right now.

Thanks to my mom and a small stash of my own, I have lots of fabric to use so this project is relatively inexpensive. 

This would also make a great "Search and Find" game too - give the kids a list of items to find and they can search through all of the letters to find them (like a blue train, a football, a red ball, etc"

Now, my second attempt this last week was with food.  You may remember a Too Cute Not To Toot from July 26th when I shared an idea from Simply Designing for Hot Dog Pasta.  Well, I tried it this week.  It is actually a very simple kids lunch idea.

First, cut up a hot dog (I used two) into small rounds.  Grab a handful of spaghetti noodles.  I actually broke mine in half so they would fit in my cooking pot :-)

Spear the hot dogs with the noodles.  For the most part, I put 3-5 noddles through each hot dog.  Once the water is boiling for the pasta, throw everything into the pot.  I did put all of those extra noodles in too to make sure there was enough for all the boys.  Cook - I would actually cook these a little longer than normal.  I discovered that the pasta going through the hot dog was still a little undone when the boys started eating.

This is the finished product.  Doesn't it look cool? 

Now, I was a little worried about this because my 2 year old believes that hot dogs are sacred perfect the way they are . . and I was right!  He did NOT like noodles coming out of his hot dog.  Much to my surprise, neither did my 1 year old!  When I put this on the table I was greeted with things "Mama, tot dog stuck, tot dog stuck"  and "Out, get it out! Out, get it out!" So I actually had to break the hot dog pieces apart and pull out all of the noodles HA!  They both ate all of the noodles and dogs - just not together :-)  Oh well, it was fun to try!