Update on the Homemade Angry Birds game

The Angry Birds game I made for the kids for Christmas was a big hit! We've built towers and walls to hide our piggies in, and the kids created their own version of the the slingshot to shoot the birds. Very fun game!

Make Your Own Plush Angry Birds Game

Shhh! Don't tell my kids, but I made them a real-life Angry Birds Game for Christmas. Both of the kids like to play the electronic game, as do I. So I thought I would try to make a real-life game where we could throw bean-bag style birds at little stuffed piggies hiding under our building block towers. How fun would that be?!? 

I searched the Internet for ideas, but ended up just printing out some pictures of the little guys in the game on my computer and went from there. 

Buy all the relevant colors of 8x10 sheet felt from a craft store along with some felt glue. You can cut out small pieces like the eyes and mouth line or you can draw them on with a fabric marker. I opted for the marker because it was much easier.

Cut out the facial features from the paper print-outs and cut around them onto the felt.

Take the felt body color of the creature you are creating and sew a circle, triangle or oval leaving an opening to turn the body inside out and stuff.

Turn inside out to hide seams then glue facial features onto body. Let dry appropriate amount of time according to glue bottle. You can sew these features on, but that was too much work for me! I used pins to hold the bottom white pieces that curved around the bird until they dried.

Stuff bodies with appropriate material. For the birds, I used mostly bean bag pellets. Real beans would work here as well. I wanted to give them some heft so they would knock over the towers we build. The large bomb birds were stuffed with half pillow stuffing and half pellets because I didn't want them to be so heavy they would break something important like a window. :) The pigs were stuffed entirely with pillow stuffing.

By hand, sew up the opening on the body then sew on any embellishments like ears for the pigs, hair tufts for the birds or the fuse on the bomb bird. 

Build some towers or forts for your pigs to hide in, and launch your birds! I did think about getting a sling shot for launching, but I thought that would be a bit too dangerous for the rest of my household belongings.

Enjoy!

Hooded Towel for a Big Kid

The other day I saw this post about hooded towels at Sew Like My Mom, and knew I had to make these for my kids. Now you may think that a hooded towel is something for a baby or toddler, but you would be mistaken! My big kids love hooded towels and have tried to squeeze into the baby ones that for some reason are still in the linen closet. They have friends who have hooded beach towels that they take to the pool, and my kids have looked longingly at them all summer long. So now that I had the instructions on how to make one myself, I got to work.

These hooded towels uses regular sized bath towels and hand towels sewn together; so technically they could fit an adult...I tried them on and they were so snuggly that I may just make one for myself! I went digging in the linen closet and found 2 white bath towels and 2 white hand towels that looked like they had maybe been used once. Perfect! Then with my coupon to the fabric store in hand I bought some remnants that would be used for the edging on the hood and for a bit of decoration on the back of the towel.

The process of making a hooded towel is fairly simple. First I took the hand towel, folded it in half, measured 6 inches along the folded edge then cut from there diagonally to the corner.

I then took my remnant, and cut a strip 5 inches wide by about 24 inches long. This ended up being a little too long, so measure the distance along the cut edge of your hand towel to determine the exact length you need. Then I basically made bias tape out of the fabric by folding the edges of the fabric to the center then folding the whole thing in half again long ways. In the end you have your fabric folded to 1/4 of the width with edges folded to the inside.

Position your homemade bias tape along the cut edge of your hand towel, pin it, then sew it on.

Take your hand towel and refold it in half with the fabric edge along one side. Sew the other side of the towel to make the back of the hood. At this point right sides of your hood are on the inside. Turn the hood right side out so the seam on the back of the hood is now on the inside.

Take the neck part of your hood and center that onto the center of one side of your bath towel. The curve of the hood will make the neck not lay completely straight against the side of the towel, but do your best and pin this in place. Sew the right sides of the hood and bath towel together.

Now you can be finished if you like, or you can embellish a bit. I added a fabric Hot Wheels panel to the back of The Boy's towel and the Girl wanted her initial on the back of hers made in the same fabric as the hood edging. You can also add little hand pockets to make it easier for little hands to hold the towel closed, or not, it's up to you.