My 3 year old has EE and is primarily tube fed. Read: he can’t have candy. He also started preschool this year. He wants to participate in all the fun parties they do in class. One thing they do is bring in candy to share with the other classmates. Since he can’t have candy, I whipped up some cute and simple pencil toppers.
Felt is the easiest material to sew with. You don’t need to worry about fraying edges or fancy stitches. I whipped 25 of these up in an hour.
- pencils
- orange, green and black felt
- E-6000 glue
- template
Rough cut two layers of orange and your template. Cut a green stem and sandwich it between your orange layers. Put your paper template on top.
Pin the layers making sure the stem is held in place.
Shorten your stitch length. You are going to sew right through your paper and the short stitch length will make it easy for the paper to come off. (No, your needle does not like sewing on paper. You should change your needle often anyway.)
Sew right on top of the template. Follow the lines for the outside of the pumpkin. Do not sew around the stem, just where the stem and the pumpkin meet.
Your paper should easily pop right off because of the close perforations.
Carefully trim around the stitches. Make sure that you do not cut through the green stem.
Cut your eyes and little smirk out of black felt.
Using E-6000 and a toothpick, glue the face on. I like a little smirk, don’t you?
Snip a small opening at the bottom of the backside. Be careful not to cut through both layers. This is where the pencil will go in.
Apply E-6000 around the eraser and shove the eraser into the pumpkin. I twist as I go and make sure not to get glue all over. Push the pencil up into the pumpkin.
Give them out to your favorite preschoolers!
Anjeanette
Very cute. Thanks for the tutorial.
ReplyDeleteAww, those are adorable, and a very nice alternative to candy!!!
ReplyDeleteSuzanne
"SEW" super CUTE!! Love it...
ReplyDeleteLOVE IT!!! In our school district we are not allowed to send candy for Halloween. In fact they can only have two "sugar" parties a year. They usually have those at the Winter Break party and End of the Year.
ReplyDeleteI am not even allowed to send cupcakes, cookies or anything like that.
I love that these are so easy and cheap! I like the smirk too.
Katrina
What an awesome tutorial! Thanks for the tips about shortening the stitch length to get the paper off! That makes perfect sense and I never thought about it that way before!
ReplyDeleteIt's adorable! Thank you for the template and great explanation for those of us who are not experienced with making these type of crafts. I'm thinking it could easily be made into a cute brooch for the teacher too :)
ReplyDeleteAhh, non-candy Halloween ideas. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteLove it.
ReplyDeleteVery cute as usual. I'm surprised that you cut out the face in black felt. That would make me cuckoo cutting them out and glueing them on. I think it would be easier with black puffy fabric paint.
ReplyDeleteI love the tutorial...It gets my mind a whirl of all the possibilities year round. Hearts, Shamrocks, Flowers, Snowmen. I've given pencils before... but this is such a cute way to dress them up! Thanks!
OH yeah. I forgot... Poor little thing... No candy? Do you go trick or treating? I think this is such a great awareness, because I know there are many children who can't have sweets. Thanks for the reminder to make things kid friendly for everyone - and cute too!
ReplyDeleteThose are the cutest! I am sitting thinking of making them for my kindergartener's class.....Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteDear Anjeanette,
ReplyDeleteThese are adorable!
Love,
Amy
This is so cute! Thanks for sharing!!
ReplyDeleteThese are really cute! I like doing non-candy treats for my son's preschool room, too--I think I've just found this year's contender :). Oh, and sometimes I find that normal paper can be too thick when I sew on it so I've found that using thin phone book paper is perfect!
ReplyDeleteThaks all for your nice comments. As a little note to Sandra's last comment...
ReplyDeleteI sew on paper all the time and never have aproblem. If you have your stitch length set to very short, it always works out beautifully for me;)
Anjeanette
Love this idea!!! I wish my son was old enough to be in school to take these as his treats...So fun, thanks for sharing:)
ReplyDeleteI love this Tutorial! Thanks so much for sharing. I love how your just sew over the template, great idea.
ReplyDeleteGreat for handouts! I will use my Sizzix Pumpkin die and also try foamies as well as felt. I do crafts with Seniors w/Dementia and this will be a good project for them. Wewill use glue instead of sewing.
ReplyDeletehonestly!!! this is sooo cute!!! I will be making these for sure!
ReplyDeleteToo cute! My son has special needs and some of his classmates can't eat candy so this will be perfect! :)
ReplyDeleteI have found some great ideas on your site, and have linked to
ReplyDeleteseveral of your creative projects. These links will help you be found more easily. I would really appreciate it if you would link back to me to make my site more easily found, also.
Here is a link to my page with your project:
http://www.craftlinky.com/kids-pumpkin-crafts.html
Thanks for sharing all your creative ideas!
Hi, I am Pat from Malaysia. I have linked this article to my handcraft tutorial collection at http://handcrafttutorial.blogspot.com/2009/10/pumpkin-pencil-topper-aka-non-candy.html.
ReplyDeleteIf you are not happy with this, please let me know and I will remove it from my blog. thanks.
very adorable!!There are so many things about Halloween which I didnt know! Check how much you know!!
ReplyDeleteI made Pencil Wand party favors for my daughter's birthday party using this tutorial! Again, thank you so much for sharing!!
ReplyDeletehttp://treasuresfortots.blogspot.com/2009/10/pencil-wands-star-pencil-toppers.html
Oh my goodness these are adorable!! I was going to give out stickers to the kids in Emily's class, but now I have to make these..they are just way to cute not to :0)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this amazing idea!!
These were really nice, great work, I personally like the way yo did this, I think that it might be difficult but you really did a fantastic job, awesome, I really appreciate your work.
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