Homemade Playfood - Muffins

My last post was a birthday present for my nephew...but both my little ones have summer birthdays; so there are more birthday posts to come. These muffins were for my son's 2-year-old birthday a few weeks ago. I took pictures along the way when I made the last one since the pattern finally had my approval (my pattern was a work in progress...I made the carrot one first; it's kind of blobby...the zucchini and blueberry are better, but still possess some blobbiness). Anyway...here are the pictures and instructions (see the bottom of this post for color/flavor ideas).


Cut the pattern out of felt (or whatever fabric you are using). To those of you that are playfood purists, just pretend that I used beautiful soft wool felt. To those of you that are on a budget or can't find wool felt...go to the craft store and buy the little squares of acrylic felt; yes, you'll be able to feel the difference, but your kids will probably just be happy to have playfood and won't care that it's not made with the best of the best. Or...like I've said before...find any fabric from any project and make it work.

The first thing you need to do is sew the little things on the top...whatever you choose to put on it. This one is a banana muffin. My banana is a second piece of the same color felt, and I've sewn it on with 3 strands of embroidery floss with a blanket stitch. At the end I added a little brown thread to finish off my banana.


The next step is to sew together the four sides of the second piece. I've done this part by hand and I've done it with the sewing machine...it works well either way; it's a lot faster with the sewing machine, obviously. Turn this piece right-side-out so the seams are on the inside.


Lay the circle on top of the bottom, and sew a blanket stitch with embroidery floss (all 6-strands) around 3/4 of the circle (the top edge of the bottom piece lays flat against the circle when you do this so that you are folding the edge of the bottom piece out and sewing the two edges together).

Leaving the long floss hanging off to the side, fill the muffin with rice on the bottom (for weight) and stuffing (fabric scraps, stuffing from the fabric store, cotton balls, old socks, whatever), then blanket stitch the remaining edge to finish your muffin.

The picture at the top shows my banana, carrot, blueberry, and zucchini muffins, here are some additional ideas:

Apple - red or green muffin with an apple on top
Strawberry - pink muffin with a strawberry
Wheat/bran - light brown with wheat stalk on top
Lemon, Lime - yellow or green with a slice on top (see my zucchini, and picture it with half a circle)
Pineapple - yellow muffin with a pineapple on the top
Cranberry-orange - orange/peach muffin with an orange slice and/or cranberries on top...sew the edge with cranberry colored thread
Blueberry-peach - same concept as the cranberry-orange with different colors
Chocolate-chip - light brown muffin with dark brown spots

or....CUPCAKES...use the same pattern to make chocolate or vanilla cupcakes with icing on top. I've made cupcakes, donuts, and cookies for my daughter's birthday coming up in a few weeks...so more on this later.