Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Handmade Fun 4 Children: Mama's Felt Cafe Review/Giveaway

MMEM
HANDMADE FUN 4 CHILDREN PRESENTS:
MAMA'S FELT CAFE

Pretend play is one of the best ways to develop critical cognitive skills like problem solving and vocabulary.  Upon finding Mama's Felt Cafe, I see great potential for creative pretend play.  We were given the Heart Shaped Whole Wheat Peanut Butter and Jelly Felt Lunch to play with!  My son is a big fan of PB&J sandwiches and it was fun to watch him "make" lunch with this felt version.  Included in this set 2 slices of heart shaped whole wheat bread, a layer of peanut butter and a layer of jelly, three granny smith apple slices and two cookies.  All are hand sewn with wool blend felt, Eco-Felt and Polyfil stuffing.  Love was definitely in the ingredients too!
So many great concepts were discovered with the felt lunch.  Shrade learned about matching shapes (hearts) since the sandwich is a heart shape.  He also learned about different colors.  Which color would be the jelly?  Yes, the red heart! 
We also did lots of counting.  How many hearts are there?  How many apple slices?  How many seeds on the apples?  How many cookies? 
And can we forget...food identification.  Shrade figured out right away what everything was except the cookies.  And he was a little distracted because we found a surprise in one of the cookies!  There is a little bell that jingled when we shook it.  Sweet!
And after assembling the lunch, of course we had to "eat" it.  I put all these items in a paper lunch bag and periodically throughout the day Shrade will volunteer to "make" lunch for me.  We go through all these different concepts in the form of pretend play and it's fun!  Be sure to check out all of Brittany's felt food and other felt products that can encourage such bonding and growing with your child.

Let's get to know Brittany:

*Where did you come up with the name of your shop?
~My blog, www.mamasfeltcafe.com, came before the Etsy store name. When I first started making felt food, I flooded my personal Facebook page with pictures and links to the tutorials I used. I decided to start posting my own tutorials and create a fb fan page to contain my crafty excitement. There are a lot of felt shops/blogs out there, so when it came time for a name, it was a bit overwhelming. I wanted to use "Mama" as that is my main job title at home, and my husband had suggested a restaurant theme for my felt food collection so I toyed around with "cafe", wanting there to be a social aspect to the name. Hence, Mama's Felt Cafe was born!

*How long have you been making crafts?
~I've actually only been doing this about 6 months. I found a wonderful wooden play kitchen for my son this past Christmas and I needed food to fill his little pantry. When I looked online, there were many resources for making your own toys. I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed hand sewing and started crafting everyday. If someone had told me a year ago that I would have a craft blog and Etsy shop, I would have laughed aloud. But, you never know what you are capable of until you try!

*What do you like best about what you do?
~I love having a creative outlet and building my own little community with the blog and fb page. I was starting to feel a little hum-drum in my stay-at-home-mommy life. You can only fold laundry and load the dishwasher so many times, you know? But this has given me an opportunity to stay close to my son, challenge myself by creating new items, teach others how to make toys for their own tots, and earn a little money on the side. I can't think of a more fun way to spend my time!

*What is unique about your shop?
~I really pride myself on trying to create original, unique items. There is a lot of redundancy in the felt food world--much of which is representations of junk food. I think we can offer our children play food that sets a healthier, more diverse example. If I have an idea for a food piece, I'll do a search on Etsy to see if someone is already selling something similar. If so, I generally go back to the drawing board. There are too many fun things to make to spend time doing what has already been done!

Thanks, Brittany!

*This product was provided to me  free of charge for the purpose of this  review.  This is my honest opinion of  this product  and no monetary compensation  was received for my opinion.*
 


Buy it: Visit Mama's Felt Cafe and enjoy her wonderful products!




Win it: Brittany is giving away a pancake breakfast set.  Giveaway ends Friday, July 8.






To enter:Be sure to click on all the links before filling out the entry form.





1. Be a follower on  my blog (required)
2. Visit Mama's Felt Cafe and tell me another product that you like (required)
3.Use the Handmade Fun 4 Children button for your blog post about this giveaway and provide link
MMEM


4.  Subscribe to my blog by email
5."Like" Milk N' Honey Learn and Grow on  Facebook (link on my blog).
6. Post about  this giveaway on  another site (blog, facebook, twitter,etc)  (1  entry for every site)
7. Add Mama's Felt Cafe as a favorite on Etsy.
8. "Like" Mama's Felt Cafe on Facebook
9. Make a purchase at Mama's Felt Cafe.
10. Tell me one thing you learned about Brittany.


If you entered more than one giveaway this week: