Upcycled play food

Hello everybody!

I have been spending a lot of time recently on a Facebook group called the Up-Cycled Cloth Collective. They are a movement dedicated to keeping textile waste out of landfill. There are thousands of inspiring people doing their best to dye, sew and embroider all sorts of fabrics. I really want to try and do more of that sort of thing myself.

A lovely little human recently had her first birthday. Her talented mother made her a play kitchen for her birthday present out of recycled materials. So I thought she needed some upcycled play food to go with it. I made 5 little bits.
Photos are posed on my own children's play kitchen, which is not recycled but has been well used.

First up, I made a milk bottle. This is made out of an old T shirt, with cardboard from a cereal box inside to stiffen it. It is stuffed with fabric and batting scraps.

This was my raw material - this is all that could be salvaged from an old T shirt of my sons'.

My first attempt to make an apple resulted in this red ball.

It was clearly not very apple shaped, so on the suggestion of my husband, it became a tomato instead.

My second attempt at an apple was much more successful. My husband described it as a 'very apply looking apple' although my 3 year old is utterly convinced it is a butterfly.

The leaves are fussy cut from an old ironing board cover and backed with felt.

And here are two bunches of grapes.

These are made from fabric and batting scraps, and the ribbon for the stalks was reclaimed from a chocolate box. For some reason chocolate boxes are the main source of my ribbon stash.

So there we are! Incidentally, I also attempted to make a banana. The attempt was so unsuccessful that it did not make it into the final package.

It doesn't look as phallic as I feared it would during the making process, but it is also not recognisably a banana. My husband guessed it was a butternut squash, but I don't think I could have passed it off as that, either. It is just a shapeless blob. It's now sitting in my orphan block box, awaiting inspiration.

In the spirit of upycling, I have been doing some repairs on the family's clothes. I really like how this pair of my daughters leggings turned out - the white heart patch was cut from the same T shirt remnant as the milk bottle above.

I am afraid my little model wouldn't stand still for long enough for me to get a good pic of them in use!

This is only a small foray into the world of upcycling but I do hope to do lots more in the future.

Thanks for reading!