By Guest Blogger Annabelle

Annabelle Short is a writer and a seamstress of more than 5 years. Annabelle is a mother and she loves making crafts with her two children, Leo (age 9) and Michelle (age 11). Annabelle writes about crafting, sewing, and parenting. She splits her time between London and Los Angeles and writes for Wunderlabel. You can visit her blog to learn more about her and her work.

Crafts are a great way to teach children everything from their colors to their numbers to some of the cutest critters around. And, one of my favorite things to do with my kids is forest animal crafts.

Rather we are creating an adorable, cuddly rabbit or a beautiful, prancing deer – each forest animal craft is unique and gives me the opportunity to teach my children a little bit more about yet another animal lingering in our forests.

Keep reading for the step-by-step how-to instructions for two of my favorite forest animal crafts: the rabbit and the deer.

Rabbit

We love to do this craft around Easter to incorporate the Easter Bunny into our craft. Holiday crafts are just so much fun!

We also always make a cute little felt bunny with a vibrant egg to accompany it.

For these crafts, it is important to note that you can add the details such as the face or design at two separate stages – if you are sewing them on, add them before you sew the front and the back together. But, if you are drawing them on you can simply do that at the very end.

First, start by grabbing your crafting tools. You will need: scissors, felt (colors of your choice), plush animal stuffing, thread, a sewing needle and printed labels to give your bunny a name.

Next, you will start by cutting out the shape of an egg – you will need two pieces so you can have a front and a back. Then, you will also do the same for your rabbit. Cut out the outline of a rabbit – you will need a front and a back.

For this third step, you might need to help your child a bit. This step is where you sew together the front and the back pieces. But, be sure you leave a small section open so you can fill the egg and the rabbit with the stuffing.

So, now comes my favorite part – stuffing the egg and the rabbit. Fill your craft with your plush toy stuffing and watch them come to life!

Lastly, finish sewing them up and add the finishing touches. You can sew more felt pieces to give the rabbit eyes and a mouth and add a design to your egg. Or, you could use glue and other crafting resources. Or, you could even decorate them using a marker.

But, we can’t let our rabbit be all alone in the forest. So, let’s make a deer to keep the rabbit company:

Deer

For the deer, we will follow just about the same steps as we used for the egg and the rabbit. Let’s get started:

Start by grabbing your crafting tools: Scissors, felt, thread, and a sewing needle.

Next, cut out the shape of the deer. Be sure to incorporate little ears into your cut out and also use another color of felt to cut out his antlers – these are a staple part of the project.

Now, it is time to stuff the deer! Just like you did with the rabbit craft, sew the front and back pieces together, leaving a small opening to stuff it.

Finally, close it up and add the finishing touches!

How did yours turn out? Share pictures of your finished product with us in the comments!