Cooking and Play: Felt Pizzas

I am constantly working on new features to improve the threefootcooks blog in order to make it a one stop shop, so to speak, for cooking with children. If you are a regular follower of this blog you will see some of these new features over the next few months.

The first one is a monthly feature on ways to include cooking in your child's play. Bear and Bee both like to cook for all sorts of situations. Whether its pretend baby food for their dolls, playdough cupcakes or a 'barbecue' on the cubby house deck Bear and Bee can spend a lot of time cooking.

So when I spotted an idea for felt pizzas on Pinterest I knew I had to make a set for each girl (seeing how they both love real pizza). My inspiration came from here on the Learning for kids website. I didn't worry about a pizza box as most of our pizzas are homemade anyway. However I am sure if you asked nicely at your local pizza shop they would give you a clean one. Instead we set up a cardboard box oven and "cooked"our pizzas.

One tip I have learnt recently for cutting felt is to draw the design on freezer paper and then iron it to the felt. Once you have cut out the pieces you need the paper just peels off. This method eliminates the need for pins and make the process a whole lot easier. Freezer paper in Australia needs to be purchased from a craft shop. I believe it is an American product and is different to the freezer paper/plastic that is sold here in our grocery stores. It is very handy stuff to have in your craft cupboard too - think printing directly onto fabric using freezer paper and your inkjet printer plus lots of other uses too.

I drew mushroom, capsicum, pineapple and salami pieces onto the freezer paper before ironing it to the felt. You could just cut them freehand from the felt but as I was doing enough for two this was a simpler option. For cheese and ham pieces I cut rectangular shapes straight from the felt.

Thankfully their real pizzas aren't set out like this!

There are many versions of felt pizzas, including some as busy bag activities. Check out the threefootcooks Pinterest Cooking and Play board for more ideas.

Now off to make more pizza!