THANKSGIVING WREATH

Thanksgiving is here, and here is a little craft that will welcome guests at your door. This wreath is a simple, affordable yet beautiful way to greet your guests. I love ginkgo leaves especially in the fall so I decide to make this wreath with a golden yellow felt and a lemon yellow felt.

All you need is:

-An 8 in embroidery hoop. (I separated the inner wooden hoop and save it for another project)
-Felt in the color palette of your choice (above Lemon Yellow and Golden Yellow)
- A Hot Glue Gun
-A sewing machine

-First cut the felt into rough ginkgo leaf shapes that are around the same size. I cut the tops of the leaves individually so they have a more natural ginkgo feel. I used 20 but it all depends on spacing, the closer together the more you will need.

-Then I lined the leaves up along the 8 in wooden embroidery hoop that was my base and decide layout and spacing, I alternated one lemon yellow, and then one golden.

- Once you have the layout you can sew them all together on the sewing machine. In the past for a green leaf design I just sewed a straight line down the middle of the leaves to form a garland. A small strip of tape along the back can hold them all together while you sew.
The ginkgoes are a little more complicated because I wanted to make them look more like real ginkgoes, so I used my sewing machine to sew small chains of leaves with the veining in the leaves of each gingko.
-Then once you have all your chains sewn together, hot glue them all around the top of the embroidery hoop. To make it a little more harvest festive, I added the a small bunch of baby indian corn in the center as I hung it on my door with yellow embroidery string.

FELT CREATIVE

I stumbled upon needle felting about a year or so ago and decided it was a technique I just had to learn. I love learning new techniques and playing with new materials. Needle felting is a technique where you shape wool roving by stabbing it repeatedly with a barbed needle. The direction as well as the amount of stabbing dictates shape. I first started with a kit, "a sealed Ziploc of a everything" I would need to make a Boston Terrier. The results where good however I wanted to investigate more. I receive a great Japanese book from my thoughtful boyfriend (Animal Mascots Made of Wool) and picked up another great book (Sweet Needle Felts by Jenn Docherty) and then I was off. I gathered from these books certain techniques and began to create my own style. It is a wonderful technique, although quite painful when that barbed needle misses the soft felt and plants itself deep in your skin. Since that first Boston my technique and style has developed and become my very own. So I decided to open an Etsy shop, below are just some of my creations.A day or two after my first post I was thrilled to receive an order for a hedgehog family of three, a birthday present for the buyer's mother. So I came up the birthday card and packaging you see below.Each felted hedgehog set comes with a family album, that includes a photo of the hedgehog couple, followed by the hedgehog baby and then a family portrait. It came out quite cute and I was quite proud. I hope they loved it, but I guess I ll never know seeing as they left no feedback:( but honestly who couldn't love that adorable family unit above! Feel free to stop by the shop ifeltcreative.etsy.com and check back soon for some holiday felties as well as postcards, and mobiles. I also encourage everyone to out and get some needles, wool roving and stuffing or just go to the library/ local bookstore and start to read about and learn a new technique. You never know where it will take you.

HALLOWEEN DREAM

This Halloween my boyfriend had a request,

"Could you make me a big awkward costume? Something round and cumbersome?"

I recalled a certain commercial where people are dressed as planets that my boyfriend giggles at every time, so I thought how about a planet!? He loved the idea and we went off to shop. As we were looking around I saw a pack of dinosaurs that had caught my boyfriend's eye and thought WHAT ABOUT A 'PREHISTORIC EARTH' WITH DINOSAURS AND A METEOR CRASHING INTO THE SIDE!!! He loved it and before we even knew what the earth would be made off we where purchasing dinos.
The pics below are what came out of that idea. The structure ended up being three hula hoops duct taped together. On top of the hoops is a blue plastic tablecloth, the continents are green foam sheets from the kids craft aisle and the clouds are that spiderweb stuff you can get as decoration around this time of year. It came out cute if I do say so myself, the pictures don't even do it justice and we ended up laughing for hours!