I’m sure you’re wondering why is there a need to make felt butter.

Food toys have been a staple in my kid’s lives since they were little. They associate food with love and care for our family and themselves from us, their parents. So it’s pretty obvious that making food toys be a fantastic choice.

Whether your kids are like mine and love food or you’re looking to create an activity for life skills at school, or interested in the item for any other reason, look no further.

This easy tutorial will go over the steps to create a thin slice of butter.

Personally, I like the idea of having the butter this thin because it can become a good teaching tool. Think of it. How many food items require spreading with a knife? Off the top of my head there are plenty of fruit spreads like jam, there’s butters that include nuts, and cheeses too. There are also non food items that require gathering and spreading too.

For this particular DIY project, children in school will be taking turns to butter crocheted bagels. They will need to know how to use a reinforced felt knife (tutorial to come) to gather the butter on its side. Also, due to the similarities of gripping the knife and rotating their wrist have with fine motor skills, such as writing, I figured that this would be a fun way to forget the academics. Pretend play could ultimately reach our students without realizing what we’re doing it for to strengthen both physical and mental abilities.

Truthfully, pretend play has been that stimulation that has helped the students in class as well as my own kids at home learn to sequence and problem solve in a natural setting. The connections that come along are so exciting to see. I genuinely love these project ideas for that reason.

Without further ado, let’s get to creating a slice of butter with felt.

*I’m not affiliated with the places I offer information about getting supplies. It’s just where I’ve gone for things in the past.*

For the optional items, some people like to create stencils so that they can go back to them at a later date. I don’t usually do this with smaller projects, but we can here for learners that need it.

Remember, we’re not making the stick of the butter, we’re making the face of it. The measurement there is about an 1”x1” square. However, the slices for this project that I’m planning to sew together are both for durability and weight so we’ll need a rectangle that is 2”x1”.

Card Stock Stencil Creation

Using your ruler, measure out from the corner of your page for your width: 1” and make a dash with your pencil over the 1” line.

Turn your ruler to line it up with the corner you started with to get the length. Measure up from it 2”. Using your pencil, make a dash above the number to indicate your length.

From there, measure out 1” and mark it with your pencil so that your points make a rectangle.

Using your ruler, line up the points. Use the edge of the ruler and your pencil, trace a line along the ruler to get a straight edge to the measured mark. This will be where you cut your stencil after.

Do the same with the other mark, turning your ruler to make the appropriate line.

Now you will have a rectangle.

Using your scissors, cut out the rectangle from your card stock.

Clean up the area you’re working with, removing the remaining paper.

Replace with the yellow felt.

Using your card stock stencil, lay it flat, lining up the corner with the felt corner.

Hold your stencil down with two fingers.

Using your pencil, trace the line against your stencil onto your felt.

* If you find that the pencil didn’t pick up the graphite as well as it could, reapply pressure to the area with the pencil.

* If that doesn’t work, you can either use the groove that the pencil made in the felt or grab yourself a marker. I don’t really like to use the marker on felt because it takes a lot of extra patience and effort for me to make sure that the ink stays off of the project.

If you’re like me and looking to do more than one, you might want to pick up the stencil, reset the corner against the line that makes a new corner for you and repeat the process on the felt.

After you’ve traced your lines, grab your scissors and cut along the lines.

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Directions for DIY: Slice of Felt Butter

For those of you DIYers that don’t need the stencil, simply eyeball and cut a 2″x1″ rectangle. Cut as many of these as you desire for your activity’s needs.

The image here shows a slice of felt butter that is complete at the top and the 2″x1″ rectangle needed for this project on the bottom.
Also in the image is my leg as the desk. I typically work on the go. A lot of my projects will have different backgrounds while I follow my kids around the house.

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Now that everyone is caught up, go ahead and thread your needle.

I like to use two strands for these types of projects as we are relying on the durability of these finished pieces. To thread your needle like I do, make sure that after the thread has gone through the needles eye, or hole at the top, that the thread’s length is a length you feel comfortable with working with. Once you’re satisfied with the length of the thread, you’ll match up the side you pulled to the second length still attached to the spool. Cut it so that the lengths are the same on both sides.

Match up the thread’s ends, and tie a knot. I found that I needed to tie three knots in the thread for this project to hold. If you’re unfamiliar with guiding the thread into the initial knot created, simply keep the knot lose and guide the looped thread back down to the initial knot with your thumb and index finger until you can feel the first knot. Pinch the area and pull the thread so that the knot tightens with the other side. You’ll feel the knot ball up the more you do this. That’s how you know it worked.

Next, fold your felt in half so that the 2″ length becomes a 1″ length.

While pinching the folded felt slice with one hand, hide the knot of thread in between the felt fold by feeding the needle in one inner side of the 1″ squares. Tuck the thread’s tails down into the opening, then begin sewing the edges together.

You can sew this however you feel the most comfortable. I like to use the blanket stitch for all of these sewing adventures, (if I can). I just find that it does give the project the proper reinforcement that I’m looking for so that I don’t have to go back and make new items all of the time.

Once you have the stitch in mind that you’d like to work with, go ahead and go around the sides of the slice of butter to sew it shut.

You will notice this was my second attempt at creating a slice of felt butter and I didn’t realize I was close to the fold in the fabric.

Honestly, this part is up to you on whether or not you would like to sew the entire slice, all the way around. I liked the way the fold was curve, so I left it and stuck my needle through the fold to get to the other side. Either way works.

Once you get to the end of the fourth side, tie off the thread as close as you can to the slice of butter.

After you’ve sewn your sides together, cut the thread and close to your knot to release the needle.

And there you have it!

Repeat as desired.

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Remember to have fun on your DIY journey.