Easter Project: Floral Wreath Stool

As it's the Easter long weekend, I thought I'd take some time to do a project that's been hanging around, undone, for far too long. And then I thought I'd share it around, so read on for a template and mini tutorial!

Illustrator Tips: Preparing your digital canvas

I often jump into conversations on twitter to help people asking for advice with illustration, so I thought I should start a little blog series dealing with some of the things I often see asked, or that I think might be useful.

So here goes:

#1. Preparing your digital canvas

When designing for print, it's important to know what specifications you are working to before you start. I can't stress this enough - a lot of clients won't automatically provide you with all the relevant information, and possibly won't see the necessity, but believe me, you'll save a lot of stress by getting this information out of them at the start. Ask! Keep asking! Explain to them that if you have to spend ages reworking pieces that end up the wrong size, it will increase their costs. 

For example, here is the cover for Feral Fergus. I had to create the cover long before starting on the book itself, for promotion purposes, and when I did (back in September) the book was to be printed in A4. But this changed to 8x10". No big deal in this case, but just look at all that white space down the sides of the cover on the left. I had to carefully paint in this area back in as seamlessly as I could, and think how difficult this could be if you have a really detailed background and a composition that won't stand for the alteration anyway! You can't avoid all such incidences, but it's best to at least attempt to make sure it doesn't happen.

Continue reading below the cut:

Needle Felted Plum Pudding Ornament - with Tutorial!

My mother needed a handmade ornament for the WA Quilters Christmas Party (not necessarily a quilted one). I needed my mother to write the family Christmas letter - so I did the ornament. And as a Christmas gift to everyone, I am posting a step-by-step tutorial on how to needle felt your own plum pudding here!

I posted these snaps as part of my Instagram Story - if you follow me on Instagram, do check out my Story, I post sneak peeks and all sorts of things in there!

Needle Felting a Christmas Plum Pudding Ornament

Step 1:

Use dacron toy stuffing (I'm using the filling from a cheap old pillow (well washed)) or core wool to create a ball the size you want your plum pudding. You can of course felt the whole ball in brown wool, but dacron is cheaper (and less tempting to moths). Felt the ball fairly firmly, you don't want it to shrink down too much further when you add the brown layer on. Make sure you move it around regularly while you felt, so that you get a nice even ball shape. I'm using a coarse (#32) needle here. 

Step 2:

Felt dark brown wool (this is corriedale wool) over the top of your dacron ball. You want to felt it very firmly so that it is all smooth. Start with a #32 needle, and move up to finer needle (I'm using a #40 spiral needle, but a #40 regular needle would be fine) so that the surface is smooth and compact.

Step 3:

Take some white wool roving (this is merino) for the icing. Take twists of the roving and lay them down the sides of the pud as drips - this way you can gauge how far the drips should go, aesthetically, before you felt them in. These twists will form a sort of map for where to add extra wool to build up the icing - you don't want it too thin or the brown will show through. I like to add extra wool at the bottom of the drips. When you've got the drips felted in, add extra roving to the top so that there is a smooth topping with no gaps. I used a #32 needle to start off the icing, and then smoothed them off with a #40.

Step 4:

It is at this point that you want to add your hanger. Take some string or ribbon of your choice - a nice thin ribbon is best, as it doesn't overwhelm the ornament itself. Tie a knot with each end of the ribbon to form a loop. Then take a needle and thread and stitch the knot down to the top of the pud, nice and firmly so it won't come loose. This can be messy, because we're going to cover it up.

Step 5:

Take some extra white wool and felt it over and around the knot, to cover up the fact that we didn't bother to do pretty stitching. 

Step 6:

Time for decoration! Use a #40 needle to felt tiny little red balls and green leaf shapes. Pick the leaf shapes up and turn them over regularly while you are felting them flat, or you will felt them into your foam. Step 6 of my Needle Felted Robin Earrings Tutorial gives more information on felting these shapes. Once you've felted the leaf shapes fairly firmly, you can trim off the edges with sharp scissors so that they are clean shapes. 

Felt the berries and leaves around the base of the hanger. It's up to you how many you felt, depending on how big you have made them, and how you want to arrange them. When you feel you've got enough, move on to the next step.

Step 7: 

I like Christmas tree ornaments to have a bit of sparkle to reflect the Christmas tree lights, so I took some glass beads - in clear, red and gold - and stitched them over the pud in a scattered pattern.

Step 8: 

As a final touch, I added some glitter - this is a frosty holographic glitter that I happened to see when I was delving in my craft cupboard and just couldn't resist. Sprinkle your glitter sparingly over the top of the pud, and then spray the whole thing with a light covering of fixative or hairspray, to help keep the sparkles in place. I'm sure they'll fall off eventually - although the texture of the felting will help keep the glitter on. I considered spraying on some adhesive, but decided against it - I didn't want a sticky pud!

Here are some more photos:

Here you can see that I added a single drip of icing on one side of the pudding.

Yes, it was a bit windy while I was taking photos!

Tutorial: Needle Felted Robin Earrings

Merry Christmas everyone! 

As a Christmas gift, here is an in-depth tutorial for some festive needle felted robin earrings. They're easy to make and should take about an hour - they took me an hour and a half, including taking photographs on timer and writing down all the steps on my ipad. 

Click here to download the pdf

Alternatively, you can access the tutorial and others on the Resources page of my website.

Have fun! Any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. 

Needle Felting a Cloud

Here's a mini-tutorial on needle felting a fat little cloud.

Apologies for the photo quality, I took these progress snaps on my ipad. 

Step 1

Using either filler-wool of your choice, or (as I'm using) dacron stuffing, felt a rough cloud shape, as above. Don't felt it too firmly, it should still be fairly squishy, as we're not done with it yet.

I'm using a #32 standard (coarse) needle and a #36 star needle. Coarse needles are best for beginning felting, as they produce rough shapes from roving very quickly.

Step 2

Cover your cloud shape roughly with roving in the colour of your choice (I'm using a natural creamy white). I used the #32 and #36 star needles again. If you are using the same colour right through, you can skip this step, it's just to cover up the dacron core.

Step 3

Start defining your cloud. Felt firmly at the edges to indent and form round areas, and add small felted balls to the sides so that it becomes more 3D in shape. Add extra wool where needed so that your cloud begins to look as though it is constructed of spheres stuck together. You want to see nice smooth round surfaces from every angle.

Step 4

Clean up your surfaces so that all of the felting is smooth and firm. By this time my cloud requires a lot of pressure before it can be squeezed out of shape. 

I use a #40 (fine) needle and a #38 spiral needle for this last stage. The give you nice smooth surfaces, but felting takes longer using them.

And here is the result. Nice fat clouds, ready to be strung up!

Tutorial: Needle Felted Star

I thought it was about time I posted another tutorial for something, so I took a few snaps while I was felting a very simple star this evening. They're not the prettiest, I was felting while watching tv, and as it wasn't very precise work I didn't have an extra lamp, and I couldn't be bothered getting up to get my camera, so used my iPad to take the photos. I think they serve their purpose though. =)

This tutorial is for a small star, like these ones, which I am using for a baby mobile I am putting together for one of this year's many babies. 

Needle Felted Star

Materials: 

• Dacron Stuffing (any that hasn't been treated for anti-clumping)
• Wool Roving (I am using merino)
• Felting Needles (Just one will do, but I am using three, a coarse 32, a medium 36 & a fine 40)

Time:

• Between 30 and 45 minutes

Step One

Grab a loose handful of dacron stuffing (any that isn't treated for anti clumping) and start felting it into a rough flattish circle using a coarse needle (this is a number 32). Stab the dacron all over, turning the ball as you go, to ensure even stabbage. This ball in the photograph has already reduced in size by roughly half.

You want to eventually get the ball down to the diameter that you want for the outer points of your star. This ball is not quite spherical: the sides are flattened somewhat, so it's between a disc and a sphere. We'll call it a bloated disc.

Step Two

Now that you have a rough base to work with, start defining the points of your star by stabbing repeatedly into small areas on the edges of your bloated disc, so that the felt compacts further and you end up with a flower shape. I am still using a number 32 needle here. Make sure you felt into a small area, so that the compacting is clearly defined.  

Step Three

Now turn your attention to the sides of the points of your star. Stab your needle into the rounded sides of the petals of the above flower shape, until your points are at your desired level of pointyness. In this instance, I wanted them fairly rounded, because this is for a baby mobile, and cute is good there!

At this point I alternated between the #32 and a #36 needle (which is a bit finer) but I wasn't too concerned with being really neat and precise, because the next step involves obliterating this shape somewhat.

Step Four

Choose some wool roving to cover your dacron star. I chose yellow, because I'm being semi-realistic here. Wrap it right around the star shape, and stab it in a few places to prevent it from unravelling on you. The points are tricky to cover, but you can always add more roving there later, so don't worry when they keep insisting on remaining bald. Then everything is felted down a bit more, just grab some extra roving and felt it into the corners. 

I started felting the roving onto the star with a #36 needle. At this point the #32 is a bit coarse for the job, as the dacron is tightly packed and prefers finer needles. 

Step Five

When I had the roving generally felted down, I switched to a #40 Spiral needle (it could just as easily have been a #40 plain triangular needle, but that snapped a couple of nights ago and I am yet to dig out another one) so that I could get the finer detail and smoother surface that a really fine needle allows. 

Et voila:

Needle Felting: Guppy Tutorial

Want to know how to needle felt this guppy?

I put together a tutorial for a friend a few months ago, as she was having trouble felting a fish for a birthday present, and rather than have it just gather dust on my hard drive, I figured I should share it before I forgot all about it. 

It's a bit rough as I put it together very quickly, and haven't gone back and edited it or anything. I haven't mentioned needle sizes, but you can generally tell what I'm using from the photos: the needle in the holder is a #38, the plain tip is a #36, the pink tip is a #32. The yellow tip is a star needle, but I'm not sure of its gauge. 

Any questions, please feel free to ask!

The tute is a pdf, you can view it here. 

Alternatively you can find it in the Fun Stuff > Resources section of my website, where there are a number of other tutorials. 

The instructions are just for a flat, one-sided guppy, suitable for framing or making into a magnet or brooch etc, but can easily be adapted to make something that is viewable from both sides. It's flat because I didn't have much time, pretty much. To make a 3D guppy, make the fins and tail first and sandwich them between two body shapes. Felt those together, building up as necessary, and then add the details to both sides.