Button Up Apple Tree

The theme of our pre-K home schooling units for the past two weeks has been Apples.  For some fun themed button practice, I made this felt button on apple tree:

This was a very fast project to put together.  15 minutes of cutting the felt pieces:

And then another hour of hand stitching.  To make the project simple to contain, I tack each piece down with a dot of hot glue.  Then I don't have to worry about dropping a piece or forgetting what goes where.

I noticed that I didn't have the felt apples in the picture above, so here's what they look like:

Just apple shapes with a slit cut in the center for buttoning. 

You could just completely hot-glue the pieces to the background.  But...I have a confession to make.  I love hand sewing.  I love it from the depths of my being.  But not the complicated, fancy stitches.  Just the nice rythmic blanket or running or whip stitch.  On this little project, I also thought it needed a little more decoration.  Because my 4 year old boy really wants his learning aids fancy (hahahaha)

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