Felt Food Finds & More

I've been pretty busy, but things have cleared up, and now I get to share some fun finds with all of you!

My niece, Giuliana (aka Princess), is turning 3 this week! Her birthday party was yesterday, and it was fabulous. So, what do you get a 3 yr old princess for her birthday? Turns out this particular princess enjoys serving up hot meals from her kitchen set. Odd, for a princess, but oh so easy gift-wise! I found so many great felt food shops on Etsy that It was hard to control my spending. How do you choose between chocolate covered strawberries and swiss cake rolls? or a t-bone steak dinner and a spaghetti and meatballs dinner? what about the sushi? what about all of the breakfast options? There were so many choices! And who thought of felt food anyways? It's brilliant!

I went with:
　
+ Chocolate chip cookies and pancakes topped with blueberries and bananas from bugnikdesigns. These came super quick in the mail, and I was ecstatic when I opened them up. They were SO incredibly adorable and looked delicious! The cookies were a hit at the birthday party as Giuliana was happy to "nom nom nom" on them over and over again for pictures.

+ T-bone steak dinner, with a baked potato (with sour cream and butter) and a side salad (with cucumber, onion and tomato) from LittleMissSewNSew. TOO CUTE! The baked potato comes apart and can be two servings of mashed potatoes...and...my favorite part...the steak is raw on one side and grilled on the other! Genius! I love it! LittleMissSewNSew was delightful to order from. She was super friendly, and I got the package in the mail in just 3 days! The dinner came packaged in a to-go container - ready to be gifted. I like that the package included lots of information about the shop. I love to spread the word about the wonderful shops I find, so it is really helpful when sellers send business cards, profile cards, etc.

+ Veggies from PickleThings. I ordered these at the last minute, so I haven't gotten them yet, but I'm extremely excited. So far all of the felt food has been adorable and really well made, so I know these will be great, too.

To complete the package, I found a little silver tray and a big scarf perfect for a play table cloth while thrifting.

Packaging: I love old suitcases, but I never know what to do with them. I've had a little blue one sitting in the basement for years. It's in pretty good condition, and the inside screams "princess" with a mirror and everything. I think it's from the late 50's/early 60's. It's the perfect size for little ones, and I thought it'd be great for Giuliana to use for sleepovers. I packed all of her gifts in the suitcase and stuffed the little inside pouches with pearly bracelets and necklaces.

Now, how about a keepsake? I turned back to Kjrsten's fabric banner how-to and put together a banner for Giuliana. I changed it up a bit from my first banner - I used pom-pom ribbon instead of ruffles, I used a different color for the letters, and I added buttons. Since this was my second banner, it went much more smoothly than the first. I kept all my letter and flag templates from before, so that saved a lot of time. All of the cutting was done at home, and all of the assembling was done during our drive to and from Chicago last Saturday. The next morning all it needed was some cosmetic work to finalize everything and I was done! The first banner I made took me three nights. I think I could've done this one in one Saturday or Sunday. So, I'm getting better, and this time around it was actually kind of relaxing!