Butterfly Peg People

Okay…here's my confession…I enjoy my craft time as much with my kiddies as without…

today while they were gone I pulled out the peg dolls and decided to play!  

Inspired by Spring and the promise of butterflies, 

(and a prayer that there are more in our yard this year than last), 

here's a little something I whipped up…

To make your own you will need:

wooden peg blanks

paint & paintbrushes

(whatever colours you wish)

wool felt in matching colours to your paint

glue gun and glue sticks

white wire

small beads

healthy dose of imagination and wonder

Line up your pegs…talk to them…see the butterfly emerging from within!

(I buy all my pegs from STOCKADE…they're a Canadian company and have great prices)

To begin paint your peg bodies and hair…this is how I did mine…

Next paint on your eyes, (toothpicks are great for making little dots)…

then a bit of beeswax crayon for the cheeks…

you can decorate with paint however you wish here…

I strongly encourage imagination!

Cut out your wings…I recommend using wool felt…

(cheap felt is fine too, but wool felt lasts longer, is more durable and SO lovely to work with)

If you don't feel up to the task of making up your own template, google "butterfly wing templates"

there are loads already all done for you!

Using a glue gun, glue on your wings...

Then I made them some headbands and glued on some antennae…

the antennae is composed of white wire with beads glued to the end…

the headbands are skinny rectangles of wool felt…glue the antenna to the back

of your headband, then glue the headband onto the head.

The inspiration for the little headbands came from the marvellous 

Mrs Bloom at We Bloom Here.

She has a book all about making peg dolls

which can be purchased HERE

(her creations and imagination just inspire me to no end)

Felt Food Class!

This past weekend my good friend Stephanie and I taught our first craft class together.  We're doing a "Homemade Holiday Craft Series" at our local art gallery.  The idea is for moms to get together to make beautiful things for their children for Christmas.  Our first session was a felt fruit and veggie basket.  We had 9 beautiful mamas show up and it was a fabulously productive afternoon of sewing and coming together in a spirit of creativity and craftiness!

Here are some of the mamas busy at work!

Here's some individual pictures of what we made, and some links to help get you started! 

Firstly mamas, I urge you to get 100% wool felt to do these crafts...if you've never had the JOY of working with Wool felt I'll tell you...once you start, you'll never go back to cheapy acrylic again.  The other thing is that the only thing in our baskets that was machine stitched is the banana.  Everything else was lovingly stitched by hand.  I think there is something just so beautiful about hand stitching.

For the pears I printed off the template from UK lass in US.  For our pears I had some lovely leather stems that we used at the top from Stockade.   To sew all of our fruit and veggies we use the blanket stitch.  It's an essential stitch to learn, and really does finish off your fruit and veggies nicely!

This same gal has an  apple on her site.  I did two things with this template...when used at regular size it makes a great apple, but when made smaller, the wedges make a fantastic little tomato.  It takes 4 large wedges to do an apple and 6 smaller ones to do a tomato. 

I found this super cool pattern for a banana in a peel from here.  My only word of advice with the pattern is that when I was cutting out the parts for the inner banana I made the template a bit smaller.  Isn't it just awesome though!

Strawberries!  This is a wonderful strawberry pattern...they're so darn sweet.

Orange section...I do mine a bit different, (go up to see the picture)...cutting out a piece of yellow felt for the circle and smaller wedge shapes. 

Here's a tutorial for some carrots.  The ones we made are similar, but I made longer tops for ours.  To sew the tops on first I use a gathering stitch to gather up the top of the carrot, then roll up the "leaves" and blanket stitch them on!

The mushrooms are tweaked from our toadstool tutorial...brought down in size and only stuffed with stuffing.  If you want to get fancy, you can do some lovely embroidery on the underside, to make it look mushroomy!

And finally some sweet little felt peas.  When I saw them I just knew we'd HAVE to have some in our baskets!

I smile when I think of all of the lucky kids in our area who will be receiving such wonderful gifts crafted with LOVE!

If you're in our area and are interested in attending on of our classes you can check them out HERE.  We only have a few spaces left per class, so sign up soon!

Sewing sweet felt food is highly addictive...once you start, it's so hard to stop!  Do a google search for "felt food tutorials", and you'll see that there are all sorts of possibilities beyond the fruit and veggie basket!

Happy holiday creating!

xo maureen

Leaf Spirits!

I've been dreaming of these little leaf spirits all week!  I wanted to come up with a sweet little craft that was simple, enchanting and that evoked the magic of Autumn.  Bring forth the leaf spirits.  As I was making these, Ruby says to me, "I think I've seen these falling from the trees before."  

I just think they capture the magic of this season...I know I've always been captivated by this time of year and can't help but feel the "magic" in the air as the trees change colour and the leaves shower down from the canopy overhead!

To make some leaf spirits of your own you will need:

wool felt in Autumn colours (red, orange, yellow, brown)

wool roving (in matching colours)

pipe cleaners

small wooden beads, (mine are 3/4 inch)

glue gun

acorn cap, (optional)

thread for hanging

To start...trace a leaf shape onto your felt, cut 2 of these shapes.  I cut off the stem bit and shaped it like a "u" to make a neckline.

Take your pipecleaner...about 5 inches or so long, and fold it in half.  Using hot glue, glue it down to the backside of one of your leaves. 

Using more hot glue, glue your bead onto the top of the pipecleaner and then glue the leaves together...sandwiching the pipecleaner in between.

Glue on some roving for hair and top with an acorn cap!  I tied my string to the top of the acorn cap so I could hang these lovely leaf spirits up to be enjoyed!

And there you have it...some lovely little leaf spirits.  I'm sure if you let your imagination lead you, you could come up with some delightful stories about these "spirits" and the adventures they have.  Here's a little story to get you started called The Anxious Leaf.  It's one story that captures how a leaf may "feel" when it's time to fall from the tree.  And here's another little gem of a story from Reg Down called The Life of a Leaf which follows a leaf on its journey.  I hope these offer some inspiration!

In the "spirit" of Autumn!

xo maureen 

Felt Pumpkin Tutorial!!

Here's another quick and easy craft to bring Autumn "in"!

You will need:

Wool felt in orange and green

(I suggest using wool felt because it outlasts cheap felt, is heavier and just lovely to work with)!

stuffing

small twigs

embroidery floss in orange

glue gun and glue sticks

To start trace some circles onto your orange felt...I used a small bowl, a cup and a lotion container, so I'd have 3 different sizes.

Get a very long strand of embroidery floss...now start doing a running stitch all the way around the outside edge of your circle...

Pull the thread tight...

and stuff...stuff until you can stuff no more!

Now stitch it shut, (not all the way, but as tightly as you can...like so)

Take your needle and put it through the "top" part of your pumpkin, now bring it out in the bottom, near the middle...this will create the look of "sections" on your pumpkin...tie off your thread.

Cut out some leaves out of your green felt...and cut some short lengths of your twig.

Now fire up the glue gun and glue the twig in place...put some glue all over the bottom of the twig and stuff it into the "top" of the pumpkin as far as it will go.

Glue on your leaves...press them down around the exposed top of your pumpkin...and there you have it!

These are super quick to whip up and just look SO darn cute on the nature table!

I think I'm going to have to make a little pumpkin gnome to tend our ever growing patch!

xo maureen

It's Flower Power Week...Let's make Felted Flowers!!!

I would like to introduce someone who inspires me greatly ~ my sister Rebbecca!!! This vibrant flower she created is a wonderful representation of the bright, beautiful soul she is. As my big sis she has graced my life with so much encouragement, inspiration and wisdom. She is an amazing mother to nine  children and her patience, creativity and joy she exudes are a true gift to be around!  I have many a handmade gift from this crafty gal ~ seems she always has a project on the go. Here is her latest...

Enjoy! 

Rebbecca with her youngest ~ sweet Nadia ~ modeling her flower 

~Rebbecca's Felted Flower Tutorial ~

I love "upcycling" or repurposing things. I must take after my Grandma Betty. She saved and re-used everything....and I mean everything! I think she saved every bread tie that passed through her house in 50 years! Seriously. Having gone through the Great Depression in the 30's, she saw the importance of being frugal...to the nth degree. I don't carry things that far, maybe, but I definitely think we all need to do our part to reduce the amount of garbage we are piling up in landfills.

Which brings me to felting. How many of you have inadvertently sent a 100% wool sweater through the regular wash, only to find that it has shrunk to fit the size of your 6 year old? (ok, ok...yes...I've done just that). My daughter was thrilled to find out that mommy's sweater was now hers...but how many thick wool sweaters can one girl own. :) I discovered there are many ways to make use of that now-too-small felted sweater, rather than tossing it, and one of my favourites is...felted flowers.

They are simple and oh so gorgeous.

Here's a list of what you will need...

100% wool sweater that has been "pre-felted" (washed in a washing machine in hot water and laid flat to dry)

buttons (vintage ones found at thrift stores are great!)

needle

thread

pins

scissors (preferably sharp)

templates for the petals found on this page

Here's the full video tutorial found at  www.diydish.com , but basically you pin the templates to the felt, and cut around them.  Next, you thread them one by one onto your needle and thread, securing them together with a button on top of all the layers.

Here's my daughter, Sophia, with the finished product. Too cute, eh?

You can use these flowers to embellish just about anything. Here's one on the front of one of my felted purses...

Or look at how sweet this one is,  perched on the front of Luna's wool beret!

Here are my girls sporting all of the things we made from one felted sweater!  Anna (on the left) is wearing a skirt made from the body of the sweater,  and arm warmers made from the sleeves, and a hairband made from the cowl neck. Sophia (on the right) is wearing a dress with the bodice made from the main body of the sweater and, of course the funky flower we made today from yet again the same sweater. Oh so thrifty....oh so FUN!!

Big thank you to you Bec for sharing one of your many funky, fabulous creations!

We look forward to having you back and and keeping the inspiration wheel turning!

In flowing flower sister power

~Shanti~ 

A Family of Twig Gnomes!!!!

I LOVE simple crafts that have a great end result!  Here's a quick and simple way to make some twig gnomes of your own.  The inspiration comes from "The Gnome Craft Book" by Thomas and Petra Berger.

We started by going out and cutting some fallen branches from our yard.  We found a thick branch and then a thinner one.  Cut them into various lengths, (on an angle), and then sanded them, so that they'd have a little space for a  "face" in front.

I used a small electric sander, which was super fast!

Then, paint some little faces on them...(they're starting to come to life now!!)

Next cut out their hats out of felt...this is how we did ours, you'll have to play around with the width, (depends on the width of your twigs)...basically you want something you can just glue up the back, (and the little arch in the front is so there is room for your gnomes face to be seen!).

So...glue the roving to the front of your twig...to make a beard and a bit of hair...then wrap the hat around and glue up the back...I used a hot glue gun for this part.

And there you have it...a little family of gnomes!

My kids were so excited to find these little enchanting toys this morning, they were immediately scooped up and off on an adventure! 

Happy gnome making!

xox maureen