Love Bug Craft: Sewing With Kids

Looking for the cutest love bug craft?

Well these little love bugs are colourful good-natured critters and are a fun Valentine sewing project that even kids can make.

Filled with rice grains, or any other weighting material, they are soft and squishy and will fit snuggly into the palm of your hand. They make gentle loveable companions who will happily live in a pocket or sit quietly on a desk while you work.

Kids love hand sewing. Even better, learning to sew is a great activity for improving kids hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills and concentration. It’s also just a really fun way to build self-confidence and independence by showing kids that they can create some amazing things.

If you’ve thought about sewing with your kids but just don’t know where to begin this Sew with Kids post will tell you everything you need to know.

So, time to sew yourself some cute, little Valentines love bugs.

Below is a step by step photo tutorial and at the end of the post a video tutorial.

What you need:

Thread

Rice grains

Glue

What to do:

Download the Love Bug Template.

Cut out a 5″ square from the red felt. Use the heart template to cut out a heart from the pink felt.

Handy Hint: Thread the needle using about 30″ of thread, then bring both ends of the thread together and tie in a knot. This stops the thread slipping from the needle, which is helpful when your child is sewing.

Sew a running stitch down the middle of the pink heart.

Pin the pink heart onto the red felt.

Using a chinagraph or 3B pencil, draw on legs. If you want, you can cut out the template with the legs, place it on the red felt, and trace around it to help you position the legs.

Sew the two pieces of felt together by sewing around the heart. Leave a 1½” opening…

…and fill your love bug with rice grains. Pin…

…and sew the opening closed.

Cut off the remaining red felt to complete the love bug’s shape and glue on wiggly eyes.

Valentine love bugs are a common sight in my home at this time of year. Their natural instinct is to search for and find a lifelong friend so if you’re lucky enough to have a single love bug in your home please make him or her a companion ASAP…here’s my little fellow happy and content with his newly found soul-mate:

P.S. You don’t have to use the colours I’ve chosen. Kids love to experiment and they come up with really interesting colour combinations. Also, if you don’t want to use wiggly eyes you can make you own eyes very simply from circles of felt and attach them with glue or a single stitch.

And if you’re interested here are lots more fun Valentines projects to sew with your kids or perhaps you’ll love these simple to sew projects in my book, Sew Together Grow Together, which has 20 similar projects to make with your kids.

Happy Valentines Day, Trixi