by maryann on December 6, 2010
Needle felted panda, cardinal and owl
These cute little animals are made of wool. Lightweight and lovable! Even beginners can make simple ones. The owl was my first attempt at needle felting and I was thrilled with the result. The panda was made by my 17-year-old son, who has had a bit more experience in needle felting.
wool roving
This is roving and is what wool looks like this before it is spun into yarn. The wool has been cleaned, brushed and dyed. Roving is what you will use for needle felting. A felting needle has tiny barbs along the side of the needle. By repeatedly poking the roving with the felting needle, the wool fibers are tangled and tightened. This gives shape to the ball of wool and creates the sculpted effect. To finish, small details, such as eyes, can be added with a fine needle using tiny bits of colored fiber.
You can see the long felting needle in this close up. The roving was rolled and balled up, then placed on a small piece of foam. Then the needle is poked into the ball repeatedly to form the shape. This white wool ball became the belly of the panda bear.
felting away
The store, Fancy Tiger, ( 1 S. Broadway in Denver) has several felting kits to help you get started. Each animal kit contains a few colors of roving, the felting needle, a foam square and directions. That’s all it takes to create these adorable critters!
Fancy Tiger felting kits
You can see that I took liberties with the design of my owl.
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by maryann on December 2, 2010
Making these gift tags is an enjoyable and creative way to spend an afternoon!
You’ll need vintage book pages (or magazines), a tag-shape punch or pre-cut tags, strong tea or coffee for soaking tags, scissors, glue stick or tape dots, string and optional embellishments (glitter, rhinestones, markers, stamps, etc.).
I started with watercolor paper and manila file folders and punched out the tag shapes with a punch I purchased at a craft store, then punched a small hole in the top of the tags. (You could purchase blank tags at an office supply store.) Then I soaked the tags for a couple of minutes in cold, strong coffee to give them an antique look. Lay them out to dry, and when completely dry, place them inside a heavy book overnight to flatten.
You can put your imagination to work creating phrases with words cut from your vintage papers. For adhering the words, I like to use the Scotch brand glue-dot dispenser to make this step easy, or you could use a glue stick.
When you have them assembled, tie a bit of string on the top, and they are ready to use for gift tags.
supplies for the tags
sample gift tags
I saw this idea in the recent Where Women Create magazine published by Somerset. The Somerset magazines are the BEST!!
The vintage poetry book was purchased at one of my favorite antique stores which is in Historic Downtown Littleton — The Pink Attic Cat. They have tons of great stuff!
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by maryann on November 22, 2010
Looking for a way to reuse your magazines? Here’s a clever idea to make your own gift bows. Experiment with different color schemes. I like the ones that show words on the bow.
To make these bows, you will need scissors, ruler, double-stick tape (or better yet – one of those dispensers with tape dots) and magazines.
Jackie
Cut 9 strips lengthwise from magazine, each about 3/4 inch wide. Keep three of these strips at full length (usually around 10 or 11 inches), cut an inch off of three, cut two inches off of two strips, and cut one strip so it is around 3 1/2 inches in length (this one will be the loop in the middle).
Take each of the eight longer strips and make a figure-8 “mobias” strip. Tape both ends into the middle. Make sure loops are up. 
When all eight strips are done, start with the three longest and tape them on top of each other (layer) in a six-pointed-star pattern. Do the same for the next three of the shorter length. Layer the last two shorter ones on top. Make a loop of the shortest strip and tape into middle.
Barbara concentrating!
Makes a great group project! Lots of time to chat
Happy crafting!
Me and my gift bow project
Kathryn
Jackie, Maryann, Barbara, and Kathryn (seated)
Here's another great "green" gift wrap!
Added note on Dec 2: At book club’s holiday exchange this afternoon, my friend Diana had a clever “green” gift wrap idea. She used a holiday dish towel to wrap a book, gathered pine cones and greenery from her yard to decorate it, then wrapped it all up with twine. Beautiful!!
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by maryann on November 22, 2010
Kathryn Severns Avery came up with this beautiful swan project several years ago when she was a project designer for a major craft corporation.
Originally these swans were created using a pine cone for the body, but this time she decided to use styrofoam eggs.
The supplies are white, black and orange pipe cleaners, white chenille pipe cleaners (the ones that have fuller parts and slimmer parts), white feathers, styrofoam eggs, a clipper for the pipe cleaners, a glue gun or regular glue, and a pretty ribbon.
Bend a full length white pipe cleaner in half and poke the sharp ends into the top front (widest) part of the egg. Bend into neck shape. Cut off one section of chenille pipe cleaner with two “puffy parts” and bend in half. The bent end will be the beak, and wrap the end of the fluffy parts around the neck (overlapping the end of the neck) to form the head. Bend a very short piece of orange pipe cleaner around the beak and glue with hot glue or regular glue. Wrap a short black piece of pipe cleaner horizontally above orange beak. Poke feathers into rear portion of egg to form tail. When you are happy with the way your swan looks, create a small hook from a white pipe cleaner and poke into top of body, far enough back to have the ribbon clear the neck when hung. Tie ribbon onto hook and find a great place to hang your swan!
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