Come Monday.....

Whew! This week has been so busy! I have been decorating the house for Fall, major cleaning (we are have D#2's birthday Saturday), getting auction baskets ready for the school, finishing up some crafty things so that I can decorate for Fall (will have some pics of that next week), & trying not to catch Dear Hubby's cold and I still have to bake a cake and make 50 sugar cookies before Saturday. But, I do have a detailed list of what I need to do and when, so....I'll get it all done, no problem! Tomorrow D#2 and I go on a field trip!! Johnny Appleseed's Farm (insert giddy dancing!!). I love those kind of field trips. You know....the fall kind that deals with apple seeds, pumpkins, hay rides and farm animals! I'll be back on Monday with some fun stuff to share.  Meanwhile, I'll leave you with a picture of a newly created mouse. He's reading a mouse size copy of the Poky Little Puppy under a quilt that Grandma Mouse made. He's not quite finished, I still have a few things to tweak, but here he is:

 

Have a wonderful day and rest of the week! Keep those 10 little crafty fingers busy!

Holly

Shake, Shake, Shake!

Materials:

12" wooden dowel, painted and ribboned

ribbon                              felt

           embroidered floss                airdry paper clay

           3/4" Styrofoam balls            empty matchbox 

          crepe paper                      pipe cleaner

 tinsel pom pom                    paint

6-8 small buttons                 stuffing

                 paper covered florist wire      book page for hat                 

Instructions for Surprised Pumpkin: Print pattern and cut out. Pin pattern pieces onto felt and cut out. Cut one 1"x 11 1/2" strip of orange felt for side of pumpkin. Stitch face pieces on.  *TIP: Position each felt piece correctly and then add a tiny drop of glue and let it dry. This will keep everything nice and neat while you stitch.

Instructions for Smiley Pumpkin: Ditto, except use a disappearing ink pen to draw stitching lines and then stitch on these lines (matching 2 strand embroidery floss) using a stem stitch.

2. Stitch side strip onto face. Now it is time to add the shaker box. I made my own box but you can use a small matchbox (I didn't have one, go figure....I usually keep everything! Note to self: buy some matches in cute little boxes). Add 6-8 small buttons. Tape shut. Cut an X on the long side of the box. Use a small amount of hot glue and glue the box to the back side of the face (see above photo). Make an small X on the bottom of the pumpkin. Now insert dowel through X in pumpkin and then into the matchbox. You may add a tiny bit of glue were the dowel meets the felt, on the inside of the pumpkin.

3. Now stitch the back on using a buttonhole stitch. Add stuffing when you get a little more than 3/4 of the way stitched. Finish stitching.

4. At this step you can add different lengths of ribbon. Glue them to point where dowel meets the pumpkin. Cut the collar out of black poster board or you can cut it out of a cereal box and paint it black. Add fringe to top and bottom starting and stopping at slit. Add collar to pumpkin, use tiny drop of hot glue or Aleene's tacky glue (I use this glue for everything! You just have to be patient with it.). You can add the party hat to the Smiley pumpkin at this point.

Spider: Cover 3/4" Styrofoam ball with thin layer of air dry paper clay. TIP *Keep fingertips wet to smooth out the clay. Let dry overnight or dry with fan or hairdryer (I used hairdryer but be careful! Don't get burned). Paint black and then paint face. Spider legs are paper covered wire painted black. You can find this in florist department in 12" lengths. Cut 8- 2" lengths. Tiny drop of Aleene's glue on tip of leg and insert into spider. Let dry. Add hat (smaller version of hat pattern). Glue onto pumpkin.  Bend legs when spider is dry and add sucker. Sucker: 1/4" x 2 1/2" strips of felt rolled together and glued at tip. Stick is 1" toothpick, glued onto felt sucker.

Bat: Ditto on paper clay covered ball. After paint has dried, add wings and ears. I used Aleene's glue, it is not as shiny as hot glue and you can paint over it if mistakes happen. Add hat to bat. Glue onto pumpkin. 

Please let me know if you don't understand something.

Hope you enjoy making a Pumpkin Shaker!

Happy Crafting,

Holly

Pumpkin Shakers

Pumpkin Shakers, perfect for Fall! Don't they look  fun? A little shaker inside them really makes noise! A little bat has landed on one pumpkin, who looks really surprised and a tiny spider crawls on the side of pumpkin #2. The construction of the pumpkins are based off of Elizabeth's (Creative Breathing) universal pattern for her felt creations. I will have the pattern and instructions up and going tonight. DH will have to help me format the flash card that has the pattern scanned on it. I will go ahead and give you the tutorial for making crepe paper fringe. I had the hardest time figuring this out. As far as I can tell there are no tutorials on line on how to make crepe paper fringe. If you know of an easier way, please let me know :)

Crepe Paper Fringe Tutorial

1. Sew (six) 12 inch lengths of crepe paper down the middle. I use the 3.5 stitch setting on my machine. This keeps the paper from bunching up.

2. Now cut fringe in 1/8" increments, stopping about 1/4" from stitching. Do this all the way down the paper on both sides. I believe that if you use pinking shears to trim the straight edge away before you cut would make cute fringe. I can't wait to try this method on another project.

Have a wonderful day and I will be back later on with the shaker tutorial!

Happy Crafting!!,

Holly

Fall Is In The Air!!

Fall is coming. The days are getting shorter and cooler. I love this time of the year! Here little mouse is collecting acorns for the coming winter. Maybe just one more will fit into his tiny wheelbarrow. The acorns are needle felted wool roving. They are pincushions. Well....maybe not the one he is holding.

Above: His sweater is made from a recycled cashmere sweater. My sweet sister sent me some scraps of wool a while back and I have enjoyed using them.

Above: See the tufts of grass on the ground? The tufts are made from wool. There is some sandpaper that represents dirt. Tiny little rocks are glued in place on the "dirt".

 

 

 

 

Above: In these pictures I was experimenting on lighting and focus.

 

 

Above: Wool bird with real feather. His feet and legs are made from vintage pipe cleaners. The little pumpkin is hand sculpted and painted. The party hat is made out of an page of an old book. Black crepe paper fringe is around the lid of the oval box.

Closer look.

Hope you enjoyed looking at my newest creations. Thank you for visiting.

Have a wonderful day,

Holly

 

 

 

A Frosty Kind Of Project

It has been a busy week but a nice and slow weekend. Today the weather finally turned a little cooler. The high was 75 F. I have been spray painting some things for the craft room. Hopefully I can get them finished and show some pictures. I finished this sweet little project today. It would probably only take a couple of hours from start to finish but I had to wait on a shipment of white wool felt. For some reason I ran out of the white. When I received my shipment on Friday I realized that I probably should have ordered more that 2 sheets of white. Oh well.....guess I will be placing another order to Joggles soon :) They have the best nonwoven wool/rayon felt hands down! And the price can't be beat. Anyway, the project below is a free pattern from Anne at Bunny Hill Designs under the "Free" title at the top. It is so cute. It reminds me of the quilt she designed called "Snowbound". It was a free pattern for the whole applique quilt a few years ago, but now you can purchase it. It is so adorable. I have blogged about my Snowbound quilt but alas, I have not finished it. I think I only have one block left. I guess I need to get it out of the UFO box and finish it!

 

 

Above: My hand drawn pattern, felt pieces (minus white for snowman). See the little bottle in the upper left hand corner. It is a bottle of baste it glue called Roxanne Glue-Baste-It. This glue is wonderful. I use it all the time and a little drop is all you need. I normally don't endorse stuff on my blog (mainly because what works for me might not for you) but I just had to mention this nice little bottle of temporary basting glue.  Right now Connection Threads has it 40% off for only 5.58 +shipping. It's the 2 fl oz bottle (which is what I have). Make sure that you get the syringe. I believe that with this size, the syringe comes with it.

Above: Finished bag. Isn't it adorable. Anne used star buttons but since I didn't have any, I just used vintage buttons.

 

Go on over and visit Bunny Hill and make that adorable snowpal. You could really use any type of felt if you don't have the wool/rayon blend. I bet it would make an adorable cotton fabric applique project.

Have a wonderful rest of the weekend and keep those ten little crafty fingers busy!

Holly