Homemade Christmas: Shape Magnets & Sewing Project Link

For all the folks out there that sew and need a relatively easy and inexpensive way to use up all your fabric scraps, you have to check out the Scrap Buster page over at SewMamaSew.com.  There are tons of ideas and one that I picked up was originally posted at Chez Beeper Bebe for making a plush alphabet and surf around her site for other simple sewing projects too - she did some neat cloth napkins.

I used her method to make a set of magnetic shapes for GBaby.  Since I wanted them to be multipurpose, I did spring for some clearance rack fabrics so that I could have solid colors to work with.  I also ended up with a fun assortment of fabrics: nylon, denim, cotton and canvas.

I stenciled out squares, triangles, circles, arrows, hearts and stars.  I zig-zagged around the marker lines and then cut out the shapes.  Easy - the whole thing took me about an hour.  I was not concerned with the marker showing through the stitching, so I just  used a Sharpie.  However, if you want a more finished look, you may want to consider a washable marker designed for marking fabric.

Here's the shapes traced and the first batch sewn:



And here are the finished shapes on my dishwasher:



I was intentional about the construction of my shapes as I have plans in my mind that they will serve as a multifunction educational toy in the coming months.

-For now they are fun textures for GBaby to explore.

-She's having fun exploring the magic of magnets and how some things will stick to the fridge and the dishwasher.

-As she begins to learn shapes and colors, they're a quick sorting game while I'm working in the kitchen (or wherever).  For example: all shapes start on dishwasher and a star gets put on the fridge - she then finds all the stars and moves them over.  An orange shape gets moved over and she finds all the orange shapes.  You get the idea.

I'm excited about this project and can't wait to see how she grows into these fun shapes!