Felt hat and bag

 I tried my hand at making a felt hat out of wool roving this month, I wanted a 20's look it was a little tricky and was a mixture of both felting techniques ( needle felting and wet felting) but as a first attempt its not bad!

I had to felt the wool directly onto model it wasn't as simple as thought it would be...  

 At this stage my son kept saying "it looks nice ...but a bit like an army helmet".. Great!

 And a few needle felt lilies to finish..

The felted handbag...

I really enjoyed making this ( again i used a wet felting technique to make the basic structure of the bag ( and the flower heads).

Finally I needle felted the inside and added some handles.... I'm pretty pleased with how this came out and I've got someone in mind to give it to as a handcrafted Christmas present! I hope they like it!!!

To Market, to market to buy a.....

Newport Boutique Market...

 I took the felt pincushion cakes to sell at '
The Sessions Market' in Newport yesterday evening...

 Yes, one or two people did come over to look, thinking I was selling home made food!

..and walked away again disappointed ...and still hungry. 

 Everyone commented on the beautiful bunting I used (which I brought from the herbie hen ), it really sets off  a tea party! take a look at the cupcake bunting... 

Strawberry key rings.. 

'Nibbs' the felt cat came to watch...

Needle felting

So, I've been trying my hand at needle felting.

 I ordered a needle felting kit and a few balls of fluffy merino top wool and spent the weekend trying not to impale my fingers!!

  I started with a simple cat I thought it would fairly easy,... it wasn't...

 My first efforts didn't quite turn out the way I'd hoped but they're ok for inital attempts. (Oh! and yes I wished I brought some finger guards before I started!)

Then, inspired by some of the blogs I follow (Robin Andreae and Barby Anderson),  I tried my hand at a wired creature... I was thinking along the lines of a cute 'Mr Mouse.'

freeze! the cat's around here somewhere!!!

"Run!"

Sadly, I ran out of white wool (I only had pink left) so he wasn't as fat (or cute) as I'd meant him to be.. 
So he's more of a 'Mr scary white lab rat does a bit of shopping'....

.....

 Oh well time to order more wool and fatten him up....

"Thank you"said Mr rat trying not to look too odd.

Felt cakes

I decided to try my hand at making felt food, I'd seen a few tuturials (thanks to you tube) but didn't like the idea of gluing felt or using card. So I ordered some pure wool felt (recycled too),  a very soft felt, thicker than nylon and no heavy chemical smell either. I tried out a few designs first making them out of paper then worked my way up to slices of cake...

a piece of cake....

 Yes, ok so I went a bit mad as I began to think of all my favouite cake varieties!!!

 I had to teach myself a few new techniques ( up until this point I only knew tacking and back stitch!!!) Pretty soon I mastered the french knot!!! Hoorah!

 Then came the fruit....

 I decided these would all make fab pin cushions... then I began to think about the pins to stick in them, inspired buy a few blog ideas I had a go at decorative pins too...

My first pin topper turned out to rather more fiddly than I'd expected...... They looked quite pretty in the cake slice cushion!!!

 I even tried a Christmas design.. dancing gingerbread man and sugar canes....

all this, and no calories!

soap cakes.

 I got together with a very good friend of mine a while ago and we made soap 'Cakes' for a stall at a fete, we decided to give it a vintage look, the cakes ended up looking so real someone actually tried to eat one ( a strawberry tart! in fact). thankfully they were stopped in the nick of time!

 We put the soaps out on doilies and china cake stands, it smelt great!

 More tea vicar?

herbie hen: Mobiles

herbie hen: Mobiles

"Mum can you make a dress out of sweet wrappers?".......

This is the Malteser dress I made for my daughter's prom in july.. 

It took alot of sewing, a lot of pinning and a lot of eating enough maltesers to have the 174 packets needed to complete the dress..... I was heartily sick of the sweet by the time I'd finished!!! 

                                                    

                     

                

She was pleased with the end result and I was  a stone heavier!

Sugar paste cake decorations

My sugar paste fairies with rolling the hair was fun!!

I made this one for a good friend of mine after we ran a stall  selling soap 'cakes' at a fete together, I loved making the bunting and all the tiny cakes and buns. 

(check out her fantastic crafty blog, 'herbie hen' she's very talented!)

Father Christmas was tricky as Rudolf 's antlers and his naughty and nice list tended to snap easily. But several repairs later....

My Dragon cake...

The Fairy and Dragon cake ... 

a little fiddly to paint at times, but very therapeutic too...

STAR WARS COSTUMES!...

Here 's a few of the costumes I made for a STAR WARS convention a while ago...in a galaxy far far away.....They were extremely fun to make.

I used an awful lot of foam lagging, duct tape and fur fabric.

ENTER THE DRAGON!

Chinese new year...

I made the head dress out of cereal card, and scrunched up carrier bags sellotaped into place for his nose and eyes.

Then I painted a thin layer of p.v.a glue and applied pieces of  gold tissue paper and decorated with paper beads, sparkly pipe cleaners and shiny fabric .

the 'body' was an old fleece sofa throw, folded and sewn at each end (leaving a small whole for the head at one end). and again I went to town on the decorations, shiny fabric scales and gold fabric pen...