Roses are red (and pink)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I teach English to two little girls. During the lessons they get points for answering correctly or doing their homework. At the end of the lesson they have the option to either save their points or use them to "buy" little gifts. The gifts started out as pencils, erasers, little notebooks, etc. that were bought from the ¥100 store. At some point, I decided to make pudding out of felt and offer it for 200 points. (Each lesson they earn roughly 25 points, so that's quite a few lessons.)





It was a huge hit and the girls started requesting things made from felt. I really had no idea what I was doing, but figured their requests couldn't be too difficult. I was wrong.

Their requests kept getting more and more ridiculous - a slice of roll cake, a plate of cookies, French macarons, a tea cup of milk tea with a strawberry on top. Dear me. Unfortunately I don't have photos of these (at least not on this phone).

The requests haven't stopped. Recent ones include Santa's face (requested in October),



the bunny on the cover of her pencil case,







and most recently a "red rose, but with a little bit of pink and none of the green part." These girls must think I'm some sort of wizard or something.

The above rose is what I came up with. I showed it to the girl who requested it yesterday and she was stoked - mission accomplished!!

It took me ages to think of how to make the silly thing. I finally decided to use Wilton's instructions for making a rose out of frosting - the center bit, then three petals for the first layer, five for the next and seven for the last.

I cut out 16 circles all the same size, cut one of them in half, and ironed all the others in half.




Then I got crackin' with the sewing machine and sewed and stuffed each individual petal.





After all the petals were made, I took the semi-circle and made a strawberry shape (thank God for the milk-tea-with-a-strawberry-on-top request from months ago) and sewed it onto a larger felt circle. Then I just sewed the petals to the larger circle by hand and voila! A rose started to form. In the end, I decided that all 15 petals would have been a bit much so I stopped at 12.



It ended being easier than I'd anticipated. Once I got the idea to use the Wilton rose technique, it all came together.

I can't wait to get the next request - I'm sure it will be awesome.

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