I found this tutorial for fortune cookies and thought I’d make a few for my son for Christmas. CHECK. I traced a CD, sewed the full two layers together, and then folded and sewed a spot with my machine. You can make them single layer, too (lighter weight for mailing!). The double layer hold up better for play, however. They were really fast and didn’t require a lot of skill to make. Definitely a beginner project.

They were so much fun, I made almost one hundred of them for a get-together and filled them with funny food related fortunes. After I got started, I decided I wanted the bowl to be full of color, so went crazy on the very non-traditional fortune cookie colors. Then, still not tired of making them, I made another thirty or so for mama friends.  Those, I stuffed them with inspirational (and funny) quotes about motherhood. I’m still not tired of making them, but how many felt fortune cookies can one person reasonably need in a lifetime?!

 

My son enjoys unstuffing and restuffing his cookies, and the mamas I sent them to loved getting a little something in the mail. It made me realize that we mamas don’t get many things in the mail JUST for us! Consider sending a mama friend a letter, or maybe even a fortune cookie.

Here are a few of the quotes I used to get you started:

“You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.”  ~Dave Barry

“There is no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one.” ~Jill Churchill

“I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them.” ~Phyllis Diller

“A first child is your own best foot forward, and how you do cheer those little feet as they strike out. You examine every turn of flesh for precocity, and crow it to the world. But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after—oh, that’ s love by a different name.” ~Barbara Kingsolver

“Thus far the mighty mystery of motherhood is this: How is it that doing it all feels like nothing is ever getting done.”  ~Rebecca Woolf

“If John Lennon was right that life is what happens when you’re making other plans, parenthood is what happens when everything is flipped over and spilling everywhere and you can’t find a towel or a sponge or your “inside” voice.”  ~Kelly Corrigan, Lift

“The trouble with being a parent is that by the time you are experienced, you are unemployed.” ~Author Unknown

“When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out.”  ~Erma Bombeck

“Parenthood: That state of being better chaperoned than you were before marriage.” ~Marcelene Cox

“If your baby is beautiful and perfect, never cries or fusses, sleeps on schedule and burps on demand, an angel all the time, you’re the grandma.” ~Theresa Bloomingdale

“No one is ever quite ready; everyone is always caught off guard. Parenthood chooses you. And you open your eyes, look at what you’ve got, say “Oh, my gosh,” and recognize that of all the balls there ever were, this is the one you should not drop. It’s not a question of choice.” ~Marisa de los Santos, Love Walked In

“You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they’re going.”  ~P.J. O’Rourke

“Any child can tell you that the sole purpose of a middle name is so he can tell when he’s in trouble.”  ~Dennis Fakes

“The quickest way for a parent to get a child’s attention is to sit down and look comfortable.” ~Lane Olinghouse

“Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he’s buying.” ~Fran Lebowitz

“Raising kids is part joy and part guerrilla warfare.”  ~Ed Asner

“All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them. ”  ~Erma Bombeck

“People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one.” ~Leo Burke