Go For The Gold: Make A Plush Olympic Torch & Gold Medal

The Olympic Games officially begin later this week.  The whole world will be watching & cheering for their favorite teams and events.  What better way for the kids to celebrate the magic of the moment than having their own Olympic torch and gold medals? 

I originally designed these plush Olympic accessories as part of an Olympic-themed party over for Bird's Party Magazine.  You can see the full spread HERE.

Here's how to make your very own and get into the Olympic spirit:)

You'll Need:
- Fleece scraps in red, orange and yellow
- Scrap polyester batting
- Gold pleather fabric
- 1 1/2 inch wide red grosgrain ribbon
- Fiberfill
- Sewing Notions (shears/rotary cutter, tape measure pins, thread & sewing machine, hand sewing needle)

For the torch flame, start out by cutting out three leaf-shaped pieces as shown below, the yellow being about 3 inches high x 1 inch wide, the orange being about 4 1/4 inches high x 2 inches wide and the red being 6 inches high by 3 inches wide.  Sew the layers together to get three layered flames:

With right sides facing, sew all three flames together, leaving a small opening at the bottom.  Clip the curved edges and turn right side out.  Stuff with fiberfill.

To make the handle portion, cut a long, thin isosceles (aka two equal sides) triangle from the gold pleather.  Mine was 15 inches long and 4 inches wide at the base.  With the right sides facing, sew together lengthwise and then turn right side out and stuff with fiberfill.

 Baste the open end and cinch closed by pulling threads:

 Pin flame to handle piece and slipstitch together by hand.

 Now it's time to light the way to greatness:

Ready to go for the gold?  To make a medal cut two lipped circles about 4 1/2 inches in diameter and a  single matching out of batting.  Cut a length of grosgrain ribbon (personal preference of amount, I did 28 inches) and overlap raw ends.  Sandwich batting on bottom, a gold piece right side up, ends of ribbon and then remaining gold piece (gold side face down).  Coil up ribbon in middle and pin outer edges of fabrics.

Sew all the way around, leaving a 1 1/2 inch gap for turning right side out.  Clip around raw edges and turn.  Fold opening inward and slipstitch closed by hand.  Now we're ready to award a little champion.

Let the games begin!

Sharing this with my FAVE LINK PARTIES too-

Click HERE to check them out!

Bird's Party Magazine - Spring/Summer 2012

Do you love gorgeously styled parties?  Inspiring themes & designs?  Want the inside scoop on how to make stunning parties for yourself? Then check out Bird's Party Magazine.  The Spring/Summer 2012 issue has just come out and it's a treasure trove of fantastic party & decorating ideas - over 180 pages!  

• Elegant Mother's Day brunch + a golf-tastic Father's Day
• Striking Spring & graduation spreads
• Loads of spectacular birthday and shower themes 
• Plus tricks for duplicating them yourself  

Just looking at them is a treat for the eyes!  And did I mention you can check it out online for FREE?

         Read the magazine online for free HERE

         Purchase a print version of the magazine HERE

Besides being a fan of Bird & her amazing blog, I'm also proud to have contributed to this issue.  Yours truly created plush golden torch & medals for the 2012 Olympics party:

Using shiny gold pleather really gave them a winning look:

And the pink cupcake birthday I styled for my daughter also has a full feature:

A big thanks to Bird for putting together such an amazing issue.  Be sure to stop by & check out the creativity!

Olympics At Home!

I'm kind of negligent in my homeschooling posts these days.  Between my craft stuff & actually doing homeschool there isn't much time to blog about it.  But this week's topic is a lot of fun, so I thought I'd share.  It's fun stuff even if you don't homeschool.  We got a bunch of great books from our library and have been watching the real events.  We've been learning about the origin of the Olympics, what the Olympic flame & rings symbolize and the sports represented in the Winter Olympics.  I have to say I'm probably learning as much as the kids!  Two of my fave sources for theme activities & printables  Enchanted Learning and Making Learning Fun and they've both got some great Winter Games stuff.  

We even printed medals, attached them to cardboard, added ribbon and are holding our own competitions.

Like this Ski Blower using straws (which is way fun and practices measuring and graphing), and of course, the plasma-luge.

I can't believe I'm showing you my hideous basement, but this is where we race.  My clever husband did the electrical tape track & used spare tires covered in bags to prevent damage to our Plasmacars, kids, pipes.  It's great for unleashing some energy & working on their sledding technique. Go for the Gold!!

Baby Figure Skates

With the Winter Olympics coming up, how else is a baby supposed to train to be a champion figure skater?  I'd seen incredibly cute knitted booties that looked like skates, but since my knitting skills are pretty basic I decided to come up with a sewing version.

Using fleece, I whipped up a quick design and presto:  Babies on ice!  Here a few action shots:

Getting ready to try them out (she's just a little nervous to get out there, as you can see)

And success!  Such smooth moves & natural grace, definitely ready to go for the gold.  I'm sharing these with some fun linking parties:
Just Something I Whipped Up Mondays
Making The World Cuter
Market Yourself Monday
Make Your Monday
Today's Creative Get Your Craft On
Show & Tell Blue Cricket Design 
Fireflies & Jellybeans Show Off Your Stuff
Treasures For Tots Thursday's Treasures
Somewhat Simple's Strut Your Stuff 
Poppies At Play's Creative Cats