Felt Doughnut Tutorial

It's been party-central on the blog here lately because it's my favorite way to create (and it involves so many DIYs that I have lots to talk about!)  So bear with me a few more times as I share about my daughter's 3rd birthday party and all the fun elements within it.  Today I want to show you how I made felt doughnuts. They were used as decor & then the kids at the party got to take them home as a favor to use in their own play kitchens!  So even if you aren't planning a party, you'll definitely want to read on and make these for your own imaginative play! Because after all, there's never a bad time for a doughnut.

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Have you ever read If You Give A Mouse a Cookie?  There's a whole series that includes the original mouse cookie, Moose a Muffin, Pig a Pancake, Cat a Cupcake and of course Dog a Donut (just to name a few). Our whole family loves these books!  My daughter's birthday party was themed around the series, meaning that each table or section was based on a different book.  This table was all about Dog and his donut!

I found this great tutorial on felt doughnuts and used the basic idea to make my own.  I'm not sure why she left an opening on the outside though so I changed that and also sewed the topping on before turning it.  Hope that makes it a bit easier for you (and less hand sewing so it's faster!)

First cut out your circles from felt (2 pieces) and cut a hole from the middle of each.  Then from a different color felt, create an icing piece (also with a hole in the middle).  I hand embroidered some sprinkles on it then top stitched with my sewing machine to attach it to my felt.  Don't forget to keep the middle hole spot open for turning!  Here's how it will look once the icing has been attached:

Next, take your 2 pieces (one just the tan felt, 1 with the frosting attached to the tan) and putting them right sides together sew all the way around the outside of the doughnut.  Keep the middle hole open. It will look like this when this step is done:

(The photo above is of 2 different doughnuts. On the back of it you will only see tan. On the front you will see the stiching from your frosting) It's like a little sandwich from the side view.

Next, carefully turn the doughnut inside out using the open middle hole.

After everything is turned right side out, use Poly-fil or another stuffing to give the doughnuts their shape and blanket stitch the middle hole closed.  It's easiest if you do a little stuffing, a small batch of stitches, some more stuffing, some more stitches until you make it all the way around.

The blanket stitch gives it a secure hold for a long play life and is visually a prettier stitch for projects like this (it's also a very basic, beginner stitch so it's easy to do!) 


That's it.  These doughnuts are pretty easy in terms of dimensional felt food and are about the cutest things ever!  We did all sprinkles with different colored frosting but you could do plain, just frosting, drizzle, nuts, the possibilities are endless!  What would you put on yours? Would you use them for a party like this (or an entire doughnut themed party?) or just for play? Let me know & follow me on Instagram!

DIY Pretend Play Ice-Cream Toppings

I don't know if it's because my children are blessed with so many Christmas celebrations (read: spoiled by family) or because we have managed to raise little humans who are thankful for what they have but when I told the kids that their "big" Christmas gift from us (they still get some things from Santa) wouldn't be finished by Christmas, they were totally fine with it.  Honestly, I planned for it to be done pre-Christmas Day but as is often the case with DIY projects... I got a little behind.

So that's why I'll be sharing parts of this gift over the next few weeks here on the blog... because well, I just got it done and gifted this weekend.  It's the truth, it's messy, it's real life.  Aaaanyways, keep on reading to see how I made these custom ice-cream toppings to fit the pretend ice-cream we already owned.

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A little backstory: My daughter (2) has recently started playing "ice-cream shop" every day.  Sometimes with our Melissa & Doug Ice Cream Set, sometimes just with her imagination.  But each and every time she would ask me what topping I wanted.  Of course, it's always great to simply use our imaginations but I thought that her and her brother would just be tickled if they could actually add 'toppings' to their ice-cream.  I figured the company would have some for purchase but after repeated online searches, I found nothing.  So I decided to make my own. Join me as I show you what works and what doesn't:


What Doesn't Work:

My first thought was to make entirely new scoops of ice-cream, using a similar technique as these faux whipped toppings.  Problem: They are made out of spackling.  After doing some research, it seems that spackling isn't super safe and since my kids sometimes actually lick their play ice-cream I decided it wasn't worth the risk.

My second thought was to use school glue and paint to create a drip (like I ended up doing in the photos above). My first one went really well and then I dropped it on our couch. No joke. Paint everywhere. The next day I tried to make more and could not get the consistency to be thick enough.  Below is the clear school glue with sprinkles (beads) on it and it was so thin that it dripped too much and couldn't keep shape. Even mixed with paint, I couldn't get it to work.

What Does Work:

So finally I figured it out. Hot Glue. First things first- cover your ice cream scoop!  You want to be able to remove it without ruining your nice play set.  Plastic cling will melt, so I used aluminum foil.

Next, simply squeeze hot glue out onto the top of the aluminum foiled-scoop. Glop it on top, occasionally letting it fall over the edge to create longer drips. It's easier than it sounds and the hot glue & gravity really does the work for you.

The one problem I can't get past is the aluminum foil sticking once the hot glue has dried. I was hoping to peel away the foil from the inside but it's pretty hard to do.  The plus side is that for the drizzle toppings, paint covers the top and for the clear base toppings (like sprinkles) it does show through but doesn't seem to be very distracting.  I would still love to hear any ideas that anyone has for removing it (or using something else in place of it) so please comment or message me letting me know what you think will work! I did try to grease it with non-stick but it discolored the glue.

Once the glue is dry, use non-toxic acrylic paint to paint the top of the glue.  Personally I would not paint the inside because it might discolor your store bought ice-cream scoops over time but it's up to you.  For sprinkles or other toppings like that (we used brown beads for toffee/nuts and rainbow beads for sprinkles) carefully drop and press seed beads onto the glue while it is still hot.  Be careful not to burn yourself!

I ended up creating 4 pieces to start with.  Two were drizzle flavors- chocolate and caramel/butterscotch...

...and two sprinkle type toppings- a rainbow sprinkle and a toffee/nuts:

You can see how the aluminum foil shows through on the toffee/nuts one but it really doesn't look bad at all and my kids don't even notice!


Here's a few peeks at the toppings in action. They just set right on top of the store-bought scoops but because they are molded to the shape, they don't easily fall off. It's almost like they "snap" on!  Now my kiddos can offer their customers a wide variety of ice-cream and topping flavors!



If you don't already have a play kitchen, see how my husband turned an entertainment center into an amazing play kitchen !

What flavors/toppings should I do next? My favorite ice-cream is "Coffee Toffee" so now my kids use chocolate ice-cream and toffee bits topping to make it for me.  It's so fun!  If you have any ideas for something better than aluminum foil (or how to remove it better) please let me know & don't forget to follow me on Instagram for crafty ideas straight to your feed or just to chat!


Looking for more play kitchen DIYs? Check out these other projects I've made for our play kitchen: felt pasta , personalized apron , felt decorated cookies , even DIY seasoning salt ! 

DIY Felt Cookie Decorating Set

We love imaginative play.  Anything where my kids can use their creative little minds to develop stories in their day is a "win" in my book. One of our favorite spots is the play kitchen my husband built for them. Within it, we have a variety of felt foods- including pastas, cookies and even seasoning salt! Okay... I'll admit. I may be a felt addict.  When we've hosted play dates before, my son's best friend really enjoyed playing with all of these fun foods.  So when her birthday was coming up, I asked him what we should get for her.  His answer? "Felt cookies!" 

It was so sweet of him to remember that she liked those, I had to do it. Of course, I also had to go all out.  I made some changes to the interchangable top cookies that I had made for him a while back (I opted not to put velcro on them because I've found through experience that it sticks to parts of felt you don't want it to!) and I added a few new fun 'toppings'.  Then we finished it off with a "cookie sheet" and spatula/flipper for even more play!

Each cookie (and the remaining 'dough sheet' is made from 2 pieces of felt sewn together.  The really awesome thing about felt is that unlike most sewing projects, you don't have to turn it after sewing because the edges won't fray. So just sew along the outline to keep the pieces together and that part is done!  I used a rotary cutter to easily cut out the circle, flower and heart shapes without compromising the cookies or the dough.

As for the tops of the cookies, simply cut 1 piece of felt in the same shape as your cookie and then hot glue your icing, chips & sprinkles on top!

As you can see, the cookies can be removed from the dough and the decorative tops can be removed from the cookies for multiple levels of play!  I'll admit, I really enjoy playing with these and I'll be 30 this year.

For decorating fun, I made a vanilla and chocolate icing bag and using an empty bottle of sprinkles, created a custom "sprinkles" bottle for the birthday girl.  Since she loves all things "Ninja Turtles" we made sure that a few of the cookies had green icing and sprinkles in the 4 colors of Ninja Turtle outfits!

For those wondering, the cookies/decorations are:
- Chocolate chip
- Cranberry white chocolate chip
- Ninja turtle icing & sprinkles
- Chocolate swirl icing
- White chocolate icing (on both heart designs)

My son really enjoys using the icing bags to decorate the cookies.  Check out this darling video of him "testing it out" before we wrapped it up to gift.  Turn the volume up and hear adorable sound effects of icing squirting out! *ahhh kid, you hold my heart*

Happy crafting & happy pretend play!  What kind of cookies would you make?  

{Yea, I realize this photo is ridiculous. Who pulls the spatula, icing bags and sprinkles out of the oven?!  Someone who didn't pay attention until editing, that's who *ahem.. me* }