Shrink Plastic and Felt Broaches

I know shrink plastic is hard to find at the moment.

So if you find some, buy some and hold onto it.

It can be cut with scissors or with your 

Spellbinder or Sizzex dies.

Here are the tools that I used to make the broaches.

Co-ordinate your felt colours with your embroidery thread colours.

A bead needle and two strands of embroidery

thread will make your life easy when you

sew on the seed beads.

I used Sharpies to colour the images on the shrink plastic.

Remember if you do the colouring before you shrink the plastic,

you will have very intense colour.

The step by step of these broaches are in the 12th edition 

of the Creative Hobbies magazine that are on sale at the moment.

Felt Broaches in Purple and Pink

It's Friday....wow..

Tomorrow I am attending a Flower making class.

I am going to learn how to make huge 

flowers out of Crepe paper.

I am very excited. Hope to share my creations with you!

These are the felt broaches that I am busy making 

for an upcoming market.

 I think they would also look lovely on a headband.
Felt was never really my "thing" but
I really like doing the free hand embroidering on it. 

On my studio table I have a few projects going.

Cards for an upcoming class,

a decorated tin that is nearly finished 

and the art journal techniques and samples

for the students.

Have a creative weekend. 

Revamping the old sand bag.

The sand bag in my laundry was looking terrible for a long time

and it was time for a new cover.

These pieces of fabric are off cuts that I bought 

at "Kamers vol geskenke", or as they are now known,

KAMERS.

Heavy duty upholstery fabric is from Design Team.

A South African based company that prints

beautiful designs.  

Some of the pieces of fabric I cut smaller and 

others I left the same.

Then I stitched them together and ironed the seams.

Then it was time for the top stitching.

I did some more measurements and sew along the long edge

of the bag, then stitched the short ends. 

Then I turned it inside out and slided the 

old bag into it's new cover, through the opening I have left at the side.

It was so quick and easy, 

but you do need the right fabric. 

I plan to make some coasters with the pieces of fabric that are left over.

But for now I will be taking a break for a couple of weeks.

I hope to see all of you again in the new year. Have a wonderful 

holiday and take good care of yourself.

xx

A Felt Mobile

On Sunday we took the trip to fetch my mother in law.

The round trip took us eight hours.

She will be spending the holidays with my sister in law.

Because she has Dementia it is not always easy and there are challenges.

She also spends hours in her room at the old age home which 

she shares with a room mate. 

To brighten up the room a little bit, I made this butterfly mobile.

It still needs the strand from which it must hang and maybe a few beads 

to catch the sun. But hopefully it will brighten up the window a little bit.

The red and blue flowers are both needle 

books for my Crafting friends. 

I am still finding my feet in the free style embroidery

field, but I am enjoying it. It is relaxing.

I think I now understand why women loved ( and still love )

the craft of embroidering and crochet so much.

All the small cloths made by grandmother and 

aunt, they are all cloths of sanity.....

They did it to keep their sanity.

It reminds me of the pin:

I knit so I don't kill people.

Keep crafting is all I can say!

xx

Needle books as gifts

A few of my crafting friends also do needle work, 

so I decided to make them each a needle book.

These are the two that I finished and there are many more to make.

. 

Each book has two white felt pages inside that are 

just smaller than the cover.

The back page is the same color as the front and

also out lined with blanket stitch.

Beads... of course there must be a bit of bling so 

all those beads from our stash came in handy.

(so did a few buttons and charms)

Working with the invisible thread to get the beads in

 place was a bit of a challenge, but worth it.

xx

Small Shopping Tote

This is a Christmas gift for my niece.

Instructions:

1. Make a drawing on paper just to help you get started.

2. Cut out the felt circles by hand.

3. Arrange them on the tote. 

4. Make a note on your drawing of what goes where.

5. Use Blanket stitch and French knots on the Flowers.

and Back stitch for the stems of the flowers.

There is a little secret to embroidery these days.
It is a FriXion Pen. You draw directly onto the cloth
and embroider over it. When you are done you can
just put the heat of a hairdryer onto it and the line will
disappear. 

Felt Needle Book

This little book started it all.

I needed a place too keep my needles while working on 

a small shopping tote for my 2 year old niece.
I had a look on the internet and got a few ideas.

It had to be a quick and easy project, 

because there were other projects waiting.

The last embroidery work that I did was about twenty 

years ago. That was candlewicking. Before that it was in 

High School, in Mrs. van der Walt's Needle Work class.

It was a table cloth on which I spent hours!

During one Home Economics class I would not stop talking and

we were busy at the stoves learning how to make 

Koeksisters, so she threw a piece of dough at me.

I think the whole class remembered that day although 

I can not remember how the Koeksisters turned out!

Now the felt embroidery bug has bitten me and

there are more projects that I will share with you soon.