We are celebrating Felt Week here at the big O. We'll be sharing felting projects and artists we adore all week long, with tutorials, inspirational photos and more.
We are starting off with this incredibly cute bunny from Fit To Be Loved. This sweet guy has his own, super-detailed photo tutorial over on the Fit To Be Loved blog. I love the realistic eyes and the shading on the ears. I also like that he seems like he's so securely felted that you could actually give him to a small person as a gift.
As part of our Felt Week celebration, we'll have extra discounts on wool roving and tools in our shop. Check it out here or visit us in the real world at our store in Raleigh.
Updated to include tutorial instructions and a kit purchase option!
This past weekend I decided to make something with my girls. It had been a while since we'd done a big, cover-the-kitchen-table crafty morning and I needed it. I think they needed it, too.
My girls and I make things all the time, but as they've gotten older, they are much more independent in their making. We may all be in the studio, or the kitchen, creating, but we are not often creating the same thing. It was fun to work through the steps together and have them each, independently, making their own versions of the gnomes. My seven-year-old decided the gnomes MUST have feet and arms. The wine cork bodies weren't enough. She got out 16 gauge wire and wire cutters, a bench block and hammer, and beads to make tiny feet wearing bead 'boots.' My eleven-year-old grabbed colored yarn and made hers with stripey hair, to match a favorite Manga character. Then she added feet wearing roving-wrapped boots to hers. We shared scissors and a glue gun, passed the seed bead jar around and tried not to stick ourselves with the felting needles.
My crafty momma-heart was in heaven.
I could have made gnomes all day, snug around the table with my daughters.
Yarn and fabric and ribbon scraps for the scarves, we have ribbon mix bags here that would be perfect
Wine corks (we had those lying around, but if you don't, try asking a friend or checking with a local wine store, they will have them!)
Scissors, glue gun
I will publish a tutorial for these on Friday (12/20/13) and you can receive a free copy in our Newsletter (subscribe here.)
I'll also be teaching how to make this gnome at our shop, December 20-24th. We are having a Crammin' For Christmas make-a-thon and this is going to be one of the fun make-n-takes. Join me if you can!
UPDATE
click the picture for the full tutorial
Shop for kits, including paper hats and tiny paper instruments right here.
Saturday night I stayed late at the shop and, with the help of my business partner/husband I made a stick chandelier. It's just a blue-painted crepe myrtle branch with five winsome felted fish hanging from it. There's also a printed paper lantern that completes the scene, with grass and flowers and trees and soaring birds.
It makes me smile.
The fish were felted by McLeod Skinner, an artist who I am proud to say teaches felting classes here at the shop from time-to-time. She also sells her work on her etsy site, MilePost13.
Here's a quick Vine video I tweeted of the chandelier that night...
One of the best things about working with my husband as my business partner is that he understands why I might want date night to consist of making a stick chandelier. He's cool with it.
Our date night went like this: We ate dinner with my mom and the girls, then we changed our clothes and walked out of the house. We passed lots of swanky couples heading out to fancy dinners here in Glenwood South. We just kept walking, into the store. We turned on the music and I opened him a beer and then he got out the REALLY tall ladder. We took down the old light extravaganza over the work table. After a lot of discussion, we worked together to create this one. He kept me from (possibly) starting a fire with some of the lighting combinations I wanted to use and I tried not to stress him out too much with my crazy ideas.
It was fun.
Sometimes people will say 'I don't know how you can work with your husband! We'd kill each other!' and I have to say, I don't know how I could NOT work with my husband. Ornamentea wouldn't be the place it is, heck, it wouldn't even exist without him. He moves the big ladders, keeps me organized and keeps the whole place a bit safer. I paint the sticks and remember that we have beer in the fridge.
The tutorial instructions will show you how to make a felt ball necklace with ribbon ties...and if you take advantage of the special offer you can get a MissMatch packet of ribbons (4, 1-yard lengths) to use when making your own ColorPop necklace. Click the pictures...
I write about this every year. I can't help it. Somehow spending a whole day in the kitchen, drinking red wine and sprinkling sage on anything that doesn't move makes me want to be crafty. I take that feeling out on my dinner guests. I call it Forced Crafting.
Since they come back each year, I guess they like it, too.
If you are spending Thanksgiving with family and want to do something other than talk about politics or football or, heaven forbid, hit the 'early bird' sales, you need to craft. It's the best option. After the dinner is over just commandeer the dining table for an hour or two of MAKING THINGS. Your family and guests will thank you.
I promise.
Try making decopatched soap dispensers. Load up on some inexpensive pump-style soaps and get a mix of decopatch papers and glue. Cover the dining room table with an old shower curtain. Turn on some jazzy music. Get your uncle to do the paper-tearing, and let the kids cover the bottles in glue. Watch this video to prep for the experience. These make good teacher gifts, by the way!
Warning: this IS messy. Fun, but MESSY.
Create tiny snowman ornaments. This project is not messy. This project involves sticking a piece of wire through some felt balls. And using a permanent marker. These tiny snowmen are perfect for tying on gifts or just hanging around the house as snow-day good luck charms. See the tutorial for info.
One of the blogs I discovered when I did the Share the Love blog hop was the fabulous, felty Val's Art blog. Valerie and I both like sparkly nail polish and she makes the most amazing things with wool roving and a needle. Check out that super-cute snowman? He's adorable!
I know he's technically a Christmas decoration but here in North Carolina we usually don't get snow until February. I think I'd felt a heart on his chest and give him for Valentine's day.
Visit Valerie's blog here. She's a painter who works with fiber. Or a fiber artist who uses fiber like paint. You decide. I just love that snowman...
I love this sweet felted-egg tutorial over on Twig and Toadstool. Those crafty mamas always have really sweet family crafts that use quality materials to produce lovely objects.
My children are always in major production mode. Whatever craft they are currently working on WILL result in many, many multiples of the project. Beaded hair clips? My older daughter made 34 in a week. Tote bags complete with pocket but sized for an 18" doll? They made about 20. Resin magnets in bottle caps? We sent 50 out as gifts this past year. Teeny weeny books are the current obsession; we have a library of 1" books fit for a miniscule Alexandria.
I'm a big stickler for giving the kiddos sharp scissors, good colored pencils, decent beads and nice fabric scraps. Why? Well, good ingredients give you a good product. Yeah, you know that with your adult crafts, but have you ever wondered why we stick the kids with the scissors that don't cut, creativity-zapping foam stickers, tacky plastic beads and garish ribbon? Is it because we want them to make us awful-looking objects?
We have a foam-sticker-free studio at our house. My girls have a giant basket of wool roving (cost $25 max and the # of projects is incredible!) We'll be raiding that basket to make some wool eggs for family and friends. Perhaps that can distract them from the itsy-bitsy books.
We've restocked our wool roving and felted balls. We received 11 giant boxes from Nepal on Friday and if you heard loud cheers and whoops of joy, that was us, opening box after box of bright, wooly beauty.
This sweet felted bird project by Andrea Sousa is a wonderful way to use wool roving, NOW with spring just around the corner a bird on a nest is a wonderful way to welcome the season.
A few other great ways to use felt and wool roving in the spring:
A new exhibit opening later this month at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design at NCSU has me very excited. Traces is an invitational exhibition with works by some of the most engaging artists currently working in fibers of all kinds. Featuring sculptures, assemblages and amazingly dyed or woven creations this exhibit promises to be one of the best of the year here in Raleigh.
There is a symposium on March 24th - 26th where textile art and craft will be discussed, tours of related exhibits will be offered and the state of textile craft will be debated. If you are an artist working in fibers of any kind this symposium is not to be missed. If you are a lover of contemporary fiber arts and interested in taking your own work, whatever that may be, in a new direction the weekend should be very stimulating. Visit the Gregg's page for more information or to register. I will be there.
This cute bit of decor is perfect for keeping your family busy after dinner on Thursday. What? no, really, why not hand them the wool, the directions and a few felting needles. You can go take a nap. Perfect.
Yes, I know the babies are adorable. Just focus for a moment, okay? The talented ladies at Yankee Crafty B*tch have created a lovely mobile that took way longer than they thought it would. No, the babies weren't eating the felt balls. The project just got away from them and things didn't go as planned. Has that happened to you? Yeah. Go over and read their blog post and you can even enter to win a box of goodies from us just for sharing your own 'took me way too long' story and pictures.
No, the babies aren't part of the prize package. I already asked.
You can see the blog post and the directions for making your own (now fool-proof!) mobile here.
These easy decorated hair bands are keeping my girlies cool in hot weather. We sew them together by stitching right through the hair elastic with a needle and some thread. The sewing is pretty simple; my 7-year old can do one in about ten minutes. Her 4-year old sister has trouble getting the needle through the felt flower, but she picks out the color combinations. Get some flowers of your own, right here.
This lovely how-to was created by Andrea Sousa just for us. Welcome spring with this sweet project-all the directions are right here for you at Ornamentea.com.
We have gotten a few inquiries from folks asking if we make these rugs for Anthropologie. We don't. We do have lots and lots of felt balls, and the rugs are made of thousands of felt balls, sewn to a cotton backing. The balls make for a comfortable and bouncy floor covering. I have to say, I have been tempted even though I have a comfortable and bouncy floor covering already in my home (a ten-year-old, 10x14" Tenango that still makes me swoon, thanks Crispina!)
Lo and behold, we received notice that a favorite customer of ours, the talented Claudia, is making a felt-ball rug of her own. She is making the rug in a mix of browns, blacks and whites that will be so lovely when finished. Claudia shared her process photos with us and I am sharing them with you.
Claudia begins by sewing her felt balls into long strands, mixing up the colors as she goes. I didn't ask her if she has a planned-out 'random' for the strands but I think it would work just fine to make them really, truly random.
After she has the individual strands sewn Claudia sews the strands to one-another. She has tested the rug out, too, although it's more of a runner at this point! She estimates that it will take 7000 felt balls to make the rug she wants. Since my floors are pretty covered I am thinking that some placemats would be really cool, or maybe chair pads? So, what are you making with your Ornamentea crafty ingredients? Send us a message and let us know...
Thank you, Claudia, for sharing your photos with us!
Edited on 7/19/12 to add:
This video shows how to sew them together...just a needle and thread, albeit a strong thread, will do the trick! These coasters are a great intro project, too!
The felt balls are available on our website (see the link above.)
.png)
