Wipes for Wee Ones

Awhile back, I saw an idea for making a baby toy out of an empty wipe box and felt. I thought it was clever and would keep baby Bert busy, but I never got around to putting one together for him while he was small enough to be amused by it.

Fast forward about a year, and I was looking for an idea for a small Christmas gift for a friend's baby. I remembered the idea (which I think was originally in a Family Fun magazine, but I searched for it and couldn't find it so I'm not sure.) The original version didn't require any sewing, just folding the felt so that a baby could pull them out, much like actual wipes, but the thought of making my friend pick up and refold dozens of squares of fabric seemed a bit like torture for a busy mom. So here is my adapted version.

I started off with an empty wipe box, and cut a rectangle of card stock that fit nicely in the bottom to use as my pattern for the fabric.

Then I dug through my box of fabric, pulling out an assortment of colors, both of felt and regular cotton fabric. Using the card stock pattern, I traced rectangles on the fabric and cut them out with pinking shears to help prevent the edges from fraying. I just kept tracing and cutting until I had a stack that filled the box about three-quarters of the way.

Next, I ironed all the pieces and arranged them in a stack. I tried not to over-think the arrangement, but I wanted to mix the colors and have the pieces of felt distributed through the stack.

And another shot, just because I think it's pretty...

Finally, I sewed them together, alternating sides so that they would accordion-fold back into the box.

Here they are, placed in the box.

I pulled the first one through, and had Bert test it out to make sure they came through easily for little hands. Now that I've seen him do it, he might not be too old to be amused by this!

I think this could also be really cute with coordinating fabrics, or if you chose prints with animals, shapes, or other objects that you could point out to little kids as they pulled them out. But I like to think the random assortment has a certain charm too. And I love a project that validates my border-line hoarding tendencies.