We have been interested in checking out some felt play food for a while - we have plenty of the block-based kind from Melissa & Doug and Haba - sliceable bread and veggies, tiny wooden mushrooms and chocolates in tins, a metal egg with a fabric white and yolk. Some things just seemed like they'd work better with felt.

But we really had no idea Lilly Bean's eats would look so tasty.


LillyBean is a maker of truly gorgeous wool felt play foods. Clever designs, great colors, nice details, and generous proportions set their stuff apart. A few things we love, did not request for review, and will probably buy soon:


What we did request, and LillyBean was kind enough to send us, was their salad mix, their pita sandwich, and a set of asparagus spears. We expected it to look nice, but seriously.


A few closeups.


Cukes come on the veggie pita, along with a lettuce leaf, two tomato slices, a cheese slice, and a pita pocket.


This thrilling cherry tomato garnishes the salad, which includes two kinds of lettuce (one is shown below), spinach (topping the bowl of salad above), and carrots (more on those shortly). But just one? More tomatoes! We think they could even sell these in a set, maybe in a little mesh bag. Or maybe we are just nuts about cherry tomatoes - we have a garden full of them, or rather of the plants, which are still working on those tomatoes.



These carrot pieces, most likely intended to represent baby carrots, were the one item we thought could have been better designed. They could have been made as rounds, like the cucumbers, but they would have bee pretty small and it would probably be hard to do justice to the subtle ring of the carrot's core that so define carrot slices. But as they are, they are a bit of a strained interpretation, unlike anything else we saw in the set. For the moment at least we have decided to treat them an unusual species of ravioli.


Gorgeous, firm asparagus spears. Sold in a three-pack, tied with a piece of string.

These sets are all packaged very nicely in ways that will make gift-giving with LillyBean a pretty obvious thought when you get your first order. This is not something we tend to notice as we're tearing into product samples, but each of the sets was packaged in its own type of plastic packaging that was clearly selected to show it off, tied with a small ribbon, and had a cardstock tag tied to it with a piece of string. The effect is one that combines professionalism and consistency (something that might be unfamiliar to people who own a couple of pieces of grayish, hairy felted toys) with an essential hand-tended feel.

You can buy Lilly Bean felted foods at the Lilly Bean store.

This post from the ZRecs Archives was originally published on May 5, 2008.

Hilary writes:

Inspired by your homemade mailbox, I made one, too! A photo is attached. I made it for a toddler who lives on the other side of the country, and I enlisted several mutual friends to make postcards "from their kids" and send them to me to be laminated.

The hardest part was finding something to use for the actual box. I wanted it to have a slot but also be easy to open. After searching unsuccessfully for an appropriate cardboard box, I went to the craft store and bought one of those paperboard "books." If you turn it on its side it looks sort of like a mailbox! Then I cut a slot in the side and covered the whole thing with some handmade paper I had remaining from another project and mod-podged the whole thing to make it a little sturdier. The lip that holds the cover onto the book got accidentally glued in place and I had to cut it out, which turned out to be a good thing in the end because there's a no way a toddler could have manipulated the cover open and shut the way it was originally constructed. Without the lip, the box stays shut but is easy to open.

The bag is upcycled from a baby blanket. The postcards and letters are laminated with sheets of plastic that I got in a big box at an office supply store many years ago. (While I was at it, I laminated a bunch of those cardboard fake credit cards you get in your junk mail and put them in an old wallet for my son.)

The little red flag is removable, but I realized after the fact that it's probably much too difficult for little hands to get the flag back in.

And they're hard to see, but each piece of mail has a "stamp" that I made in Photoshop with a picture of the recipient on it and a postmark.

Thanks for the fun idea - I had a great time time making my own version!

Thanks for sharing, Hilary. Your mailbox looks great, and we love the idea of the mail from friends! This special touch would make this a great gift for a young child with friends or relatives who are not close at hand.

Have you made a craft project you discovered on Z Recommends? If you do (you can browse our craft projects archive at our previous blog location here), send us a photo and note and we'll share it with other readers!