Felt Apple Trees for Small World Play

I had a great idea to incorporate some wooden apple trees into our block area for some great imaginative play, but I’m not that crafty with wood & didn’t have the money to spend on some very nice wooden apple trees on Etsy. So I put my mind to work on how I could make some little apple trees for small world play! And what I came up with was felt! Felt is the easiest way to create with fabric! It doesn’t fray, holds its shape well, is cheap and can be sewn or glued! Felt is just down right awesome!

 

You totally want to make your own felt apple trees don’t you?! Well here is what you need:

• Green felt
• Brown felt
• a Pipe Cleaner
• Apple colored buttons (apple-shaped buttons would be even better!)
• thread to match your felt (I used green, red & yellow)
• Half an old plastic Easter egg with holes at the ends (I’m not the only one with random halves of plastic eggs am I?)
• and a hot glue gun or craft glue (I used a hot glue gun- it’s just quicker!)

And here is how you make one!

1) Grab your green felt and cut out 2 tree-like shapes (just the leaves not the trunk). Just fold your felt in half and cut, that way they match up nicely!

2) As if your green felt is sandwiched together, stitch on some buttons for the apples on the front of the tree and on the back of the tree. (I hope that make sense.)

3) Using a blanket stitch, sew around the green tree cut outs joining them together and leave a small opening of about 1.5 inches wide for the tree trunk.

4) Now that your “leaves” are done, you can start on the trunk. Fold the pipe cleaner in half and then inserted the two ends into the two holes at the end of the plastic egg. Then on the inside/underside of the plastic egg half, twist the two pipe cleaner ends together to secure the egg to the pipe cleaner.

5) Next cut enough brown felt to be able to wrap around the pipe cleaner and egg half base. And carefully using your hot glue gun, glue the brown felt to the base of the egg half and then wrap the brown felt around the pipe cleaner, gluing as you go. Cut any access brown felt off the top and/or base of your tree trunk.

6) The last step is to put a little glue at the top of your tree trunk and carefully slip the tree top onto the trunk.

Once the glue has dried and cooled your little apple trees will be ready for some imaginative small world play!

And for more ways to explore, play and wonder please follow Stir the Wonder on

 Facebook , Twitter, Google + and Pinterest!

Looking for more apple ideas?! Well you’re in luck because this is part of the Apples, Apples and more Apples! Blog Hop! Scroll down for more great apple ideas from my fellow bloggers!

© 2013, Stir The Wonder. All rights reserved.