Showing posts with label felt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label felt. Show all posts

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Felt Mushroom Tutorial

Here's a little tutorial for the felt mushrooms I made-
 
Supplies needed:
-large circle of red felt
-half of a Styrofoam ball
-cardboard circle, cut same diameter as Styrofoam ball
(I used a floral foam ball because that's what I had on hand- a regular Styrofoam ball is the way to go for this project, though, I think)
-circle of brown felt, slightly smaller than cardboard circle
-long rectangle of cream felt
-small circle of cream felt
-handful of small cream felt circles in various sizes
-fiberfill
-glass stones, beans, lentils, or something heavy
-tacky glue
-embroidery floss
-needle
 
To start, stitch a running stitch halfway around the red felt circle.  I used very small stitches- larger stitches make the felt lumpy after you gather the felt around the Styrofoam. 

 Once you have stitched about halfway, place the Styrofoam ball and cardboard circle in the middle of the red felt.  Start to cinch the felt around the ball by pulling on the thread.
 
 Once you have stitched all the way around the red felt circle pull the thread very tight and tie off.  You might need to adjust the felt a bit to get it to lie as flat as possible.
 
 It should look like this when you are done.
 
To make the base: sew the short ends of the cream felt rectangle together forming a tube.  Sew the small cream circle onto one end of the tube forming a cylinder.  I used my machine for this part, but you could stitch it by hand if you wanted to.
 
 Turn the base out so the seems are facing inside.  Fill with fiberfill and something heavy.  Beans or lentils would work well for this- I used glass stones because I had them on hand.

 Attach the cream base to the center of the brown felt circle.  I used embroidery floss and a blanket stitch to do it by hand, gathering the cream felt slightly.
 
From the top it will look like this.
 

And when finished it will look like this.
 
 Now attach the base to the rounded red top at the edge of the brown felt circle.  Again I used a blanket stitch with fairly small stitches.
 
 After you are done attaching the base it should look like this.

 Now glue the small cream circles onto the top of the mushroom.  You could sew these onto, too, if you wanted them to be really stable, before you start gathering the red circle.
 
 When the glue is dry your little mushroom done!
 
These little mushrooms live under our woodland theme Jesse Trees this Christmas.  Where are your mushrooms growing?

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Jesse Tree cont.

So here is my Jesse tree setup.  Actually I used three little trees that I picked up from my mom in her massive Christmas decor downsizing.  I think she got them from Hobby Lobby.
As you can see I put a bit of a woodland theme spin on it.  The felt mushrooms were a quick addition...
This is a reindeer my husband made when he was kid- he never wants to pull it out with the Christmas decorations, but I think he is super cute.  So he is living in our little woodland tableau...
 Each Jesse tree ornament is wrapped in it's own lidded box.  I wrapped the lid and the bottom separately so the kids don't actually unwrap any of the boxes, they just slip off the ribbon and open the box.  That way we can reuse all the boxes again next year. 



We've been reading from the Jesus Storybook Bible for as many of the ornaments as we can. 
Here's the list of the readings we are using:
Day 1: World - "The beginning" p. 18
Day 2: Apple & snake - "The horrible lie" p. 28
Day 3: Arc & rainbow - "A new beginning" p.38
Day 4: Camel & tent - "Son of laughter" p. 56
Day 5: Lamb - "The present" p. 62
Day 7: Colorful coat - "The forgiving prince" p. 76
Day 8: Ten Commandments - "Ten way to be perfect" p. 100
Day 11: Slingshot - "The young hero and the horrible giant" p.122
Day 15: Crown & dove - "Operation 'No More Tears'" p. 144
Day16: Sheppard crook - "The Good Sheppard" p. 130
Day 17: The Cross - "Operation 'No More Tears'" p. 144
Day 20: Fiery furnace - "Daniel and the scary sleepover" p. 152
Day 21: Brick wall - "Get ready!" p. 170
Day 24: Angel - "The Light of the whole world" p. 184
Day 25: Nativity - "He's here!" p. 176

 

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Felt Jesse Tree Ornaments

Last year my friend Mandy posted her beautiful set of Jesse tree ornaments on her blog, Everything Beautiful.  They are truly gorgeous, don't you think?  This year in my continual attempt to bring more meaning into Christmas I shamelessly copied her ornaments for our own little Jesse tree.  I thought briefly about trying to come up with my own Advent tree curriculum and ornaments, but it made my head hurt.  Thanks to an early Thanksgiving I had a whole week to whip these up, and now on December 1st I am almost done. 
Here's my version of the first six...
Day 1: The World - symbolizes Creation - read Genesis 1
Day 2: Apple and Snake - symbolizes the Fall - read Genesis 3
 Day 3: The Arc and the Rainbow - symbolizes Noah - read Genesis 6:9-8:22
 Day 4: The Camel and the Tent - symbolizes Abraham - read Genesis 12:1-7

Day 5:  The Lamb - symbolizes Isaac - read Genesis 22:1-18

Day 6: The Ladder - symbolizes Jacob - read Genesis 28:10-22
 
I will post the rest after I finish them up, hopefully soon! 
 
In reading a bit about Jesse Tree/ Advent traditions on the Internet I found that the Jesse Tree is actually an older tradition and there are a lot of variations of the theme of following the lineage of Jesus through out Advent. 

Friday, December 9, 2011

Felt Christmas Stockings

I've been a busy little elf working on products to sell at Sprout this season.  I just dropped off more Christmas stockings.  If you are a Durango local stop by to check it out!


Monday, February 14, 2011

Handmade Valentine Gifts

I couldn't get it together to do much for Valentine's Day this year, but my mom made wonderful handmade gifts for the kids this year. She is amazing!
This is a felt "Lightning McQueen" for my Cars crazy oldest. Awesome! She is thinking about trying to sell plush felt cars and trucks on etsy. What do you think? I think they would be a hit!Knit pink bear for D. She named her Ruby.And a hanging triangle toy for baby M. It has ribbons and plastic toys dangling and batting.

My kids were thrilled! We've been playing with them all week.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Valentine Garlands

I'm taking a tiny break from cleaning up to make some seasonal decorations... Valentine's Day heart garlands! Actually this first one is probably not technically a garland, but I don't know what to call it- a hanging? I got the idea from a Paper-Source catalogue.Here's how I did it:

1. Pick out paper. I painted a piece of sketch paper with water colors when my kids had their paints out. A medium weight paper works well.2. Cut into strips about one inch wide.3. Fold in half.4. Using a pen (or dowel, knitting needle, etc.) roll the paper tightly up to the center fold.5. Take the pen out- it should look like this.6. Repeat with the other side. The paper will form a heart that looks like this.7. Cut a length of thread twice as long as you want your hanging to hang. I strung a small glass bead onto the end to give the whole thing weight. Then thread a sewing needle onto the the thread. Using the needle, pull the thread up through the bottom of the paper heart. 8. Using a small piece of double sided tape or a photo mounting square, stick the top of the heart together, making sure to catch the thread in the tape.It should look like this when you are done.9. Follow this the remaining paper hearts, stacking them on top of each other. The finished project- stacked paper heart "garland."

And this is the simple felt heart garland I made. I cut out all these hearts to make embroidered felt conversation hearts, but it was going to take way too long. I just ran them through my machine and made the garland instead.
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