Happy Summer, Everybody!
My family went to a homeschool campout at the beach a couple weekends ago. I wanted to do a fun hand sewing project with the kids and I wanted to use sand from the beach. Well, it turned out that the beach sand was a little too rocky so I’m glad I brought some of my own sand from home.
So, what would be the right challenge appeal to kids? Emojis!! Emojis forever. Here are the instructions for this easy, great little hand sewn sand project. For craft projects with kids, I find it best to do the prep work in advance. I precut the shapes and I thread several needles so the kids could get straight to the good stuff. Speaking of the good stuff, let's get to it. You can follow these written instructions or if you prefer, you may watch the video here. Whichever you prefer, scroll down to the end for a one page quick sheet printable tutorial.
And, of course, if you're not out at a campground, you can make these emoji sandbags at home on your sewing machine.
1. Gather your supplies:
Fleece fabric, needles, thread, templates, markers, snack bags, scissors, sand, colored felt, tacky glue, sand, and a half sheet of paper.
2. Make a template. I made a template by tracing the bottom of a large can of tomatoes onto foam core board. I cut it out with my Xacto knife and my circles have a 4.25” (10.8cm) diameter. I know my homeschool crowd so I also made the poop emoji. I just enlarged the icon to 308pt and glued it to the foam core. If you like the poop emoji, you can use the pdf template here.
3. Fold the fleece in half right sides together selvedge to selvedge. Trace the templates with a marker. I was able to get approximately 36 circles from ½ yard (less than a half meter) of fabric – enough to make 18 emojis.
4. Thread the needle and use a running stitch with a ¼ inch (6.4mm) seam allowance around the edge of the fabric. Leave a 1 – 2 inch (2.5 – 5cm) opening in your stitches to turn the emoji right side out. Alternatively, some kids prefer to use a whip stitch all the way around without turning. You must still leave an opening so you can add the sand.
5. Insert the plastic sandwich bag into the emoji. Use the ½ sheet of copy paper to make a funnel and fill the bag with the desired amount of sand. Twist the bag end and tie a knot.
6. Use the ladder stitch or whip stitch to close the gap.
7. Add your emoji decorations. This is a small sampling of what the kids (and adults) did.
