Second Time Around

You may remember me posting a while back about trying out needle felting.  While I enjoyed it, I didn't really get the feel of it.  I did pretty well adding details to things like birthday banners but, I just couldn't seem to get the hang of the 3 dimensional needle felting.  That all seemed to change last Sunday. 

I had run into the craft store for a few supplies (we recently moved to Frankfurt so I was craving something familiar.) and I came across the felting section.  I quickly snapped up a foam block, a few needles, and an assorted bag of wool.  (all for less than 15 euros)  That next day (Sunday) I felted the entire day.  I didn't really start out with a plan I just looked around on Pinterest for some "pinspiration" and started felting. 

Now first of all let me say...I'm totally not an expert in needle felting.  That said, this little project turned out so much better than I could have hoped for. 

The Wonky House

It also helped me see where I might have gone wrong before.  So here are a few felting tips based on my (totally unprofessional) experience.

1.  Use the material.  Seriously.  Last time I remember thinking "I don't want to use too much wool" and that was totally stupid.  You're supposed to use it.  Quit being cheap!

Interior detail.

2.  If you're making something 3 dimensional with walls and you think they're thick enough...they're not.  Double the thickness and you may come close.  With this house I realized after I attached the walls to the base that they were not thick enough.  I "cheated" this by making another wall section and adding detail for the inside and putting those layers together.  It would have been waaaay simpler to just make them super thick to start with. 

Two walls stuck together.

3.  Use quality wool.  Now, I'm not saying you should spend a fortune here (my wool was only 7 euros)  but you want it to look like it came off an actual sheep.  The roving I had purchased in the US was not the same quality I bought here.  It was too shiny and too "perfect".  This stuff LOOKS like it came of a sheep and was dyed funky colors.  I could have totally imagined this but the wool here looks less processed.

4.  The more you mess with it...the worse it looks.  Less is totally more with this free form stuff.  I like tightly felted beads as much as the next guy, but structures look better with less felting.  (again my unprofessional opinion)

I really like the furry little details.

5.  I think the most important thing to remember is that you'll probably suck at first.  How unfair would it be if you were just great at everything on the first try?  Try it again.  And again.  And again if you have to to get the hang of it.  The wool really isn't that expensive. 

Those are really the main lessons I learned with felting.  It was so much fun and I can't wait to get more wool (my house needs furniture).  And I'm thinking I want to try one of those play mats too.  I'll keep you posted of course. 

Oh and don't poke your finger! 

Kristin

Borrowers: The Beginning

Hello all and Happy New Year! 

We made it to Germany about 2 1/2 weeks ago and have been slowly coming out of our travel haze.  Yesterday was our (the kids and I) first real get out and adventure day.  We were on a mission to find fireworks.  (turns out Germans really like to blow stuff up on New Years Eve.  Really.  Craziest thing I've ever seen as far as booms go.)  Anyway, we found them, had fun blowing them up and staying up late.  Today has been rainy and cold so we decided a movie day was in the cards.  (cause we haven't had any of those lately - she says sarcastically.)  Since I've seen all these movies I decided to craft...

Okay, you need a little back story first.  We are starting The Borrowers by Mary Norton as a homeschool book project.  It's a fantastic book if you haven't read it and I was more than a little obsessed with it when I was a kid.  I like little things.  Fairies, gnomes, pixies, borrowers, etc.  Anyway, when we moved here (we're not here forever FYI) we left all our stuff and 90% of the kids toys at home in Colorado.  So part of our Borrower project is to make a Borrower world to play with.  (Kill two birds with one stone?  Yes please.)  This will be ongoing and probably my favorite project ever so expect more Borrower posts. 

I feel like my last few posts should come with a cuteness warning and this one is no exception. Cuteness alert!   Here we go.

Oh yeah.  It's a Borrower bed in a blueberry box.  That just happened. 

About a year ago I made Piper this tiny little Rapunzel for her birthday.  (I made Eugene too and I imagine we'll see him when we make up the boy room.)  I used Sally Mavor's book Felt Wee Folk: Enchanting Projects which is super awesome.  Tiny Rapunzel is one of the 2.5 inch dolls.  The perfect Borrower size.  Peg people would work for this project also.

 

 

I've been knitting a lot lately and decided to make up a blanket for her little bed.  It's nothing complex or counted or measured.  I basically made a gauge sample.  

 

We brought a small bag of scrap fabric and sewing notions for just such an occasion.  I hand stitched  a tiny mattress and pillow to fit in the blueberry box.  I used fluffed up cotton balls for the stuffing.

The crayon props up the lid.  You could use anything.  Corn dog stick.  Sucker stick.  Stick from the yard.  Crayon.  I thought the pink was a nice accent.

It all folds up nicely too.  If you don't want to commit to an entire world you can just have a tiny plaything for your purse or backpack. 

This may be my favorite thing ever.

This is going to be such a fun project...for me.  The kids will enjoy playing with everything even if they aren't super into making the stuff.  I may not want to share that part of the project anyway.  :)

Hoping you have a fabulous (and crafty) 2013!!

Kristin

Chess for Kids

Fair warning...I even surprised myself with this one.

I taught my sweet 7 year old how to play chess the other day.  He's a natural and we've played many rounds in the last couple of weeks.  Being a fan of the first Harry Potter movie he calls it Wizard's Chess and basically pounces on the pieces he's capturing.  That's what makes Wizard's Chess so fun!  Well, that also brought about casualties on our breakable chess set.

:(

I started trying to think of a way to save our pieces but still allow him his wizardy fun.  I also needed something more travel friendly.  (We're moving to another country in three days.  I know!)

Enter the peg person.  Now, these guys are no strangers around here.  We use them for all sorts of fun.  Game pieces, calendars, our gnome tree house, etc.  You can pretty much find one in any direction you look at our house. 

I have quite the stash of peg people so I dug around and actually had enough on hand to create one side of the chess set.  (I just got the other side finished last night)  I also had wool felt and all the necessary stuff to sew up little chess themed hats.  Since this is a kids set we chose their favorite colors and set to work.

It's so cute I can't stand it.

The purple side King and Queen have
purple stitching around their crowns.

 

 

Green side = green stitching

Now to tell you about our board.  I was inspired here by this book from my childhood.  (My mom let us borrow it on our last visit.)

yes it IS from the early 80's.

It has some really fun ideas in it but I especially remembered this one.

We have a HUGE supply of bandanas on hand.  I just grabbed one we had that went with our colors and used a paint pen and some acrylic paint to make the squares.  Now full disclosure here, if I had it to do over I would use a fat tipped sharpie (or the paint pen) and NOT the thinned acrylic paint.  It's a little too stiff but it works.  (and I may redo it one day)

When you are finished playing you just tie the whole thing up and toss it in your suitcase.  (or just put it on your shelf)

Cute. as. pie.  These would make a great Christmas gift for the young chess player in your life.

Kristin


p.s.  as I mentioned earlier we're moving soon so my posting here will be more sporadic as we get settled in.  See you on the flip side!

The Beginnings of a Good Knight

Have you missed me?  I know, me too.  This summer has been a hectic one.  I live in Colorado Springs and we've seen damaging hailstorms (yes I need a new roof), an epic firestorm that burned 346 homes, and now mudslides and flooding on the burn scar have become a major problem.  That's a lot.

You may remember my daughter was diagnosed with asthma a few months ago and well, smoke isn't good for her.  So when the wildfire moved into town and started burning down homes, along with it being very scary and stressful, the air quality became dangerous.  We needed to move up our vacation.  So we hopped in the car and drove to NC to visit my family (then I got to sneak off for a week in Italy with James).  While I've been enjoying the travel this summer, I haven't been crafting.  Anyway, I'm back now and feeling inspired to craft things again. 

You know how you get an idea in your head and completely drop everything else to start working on it? Yeah, that was me yesterday.  We got a birthday party invitation for a sweet almost 5 year old we know.  It's a Knight and Princess party and I immediately became all sorts of consumed with making a knight costume.  (We've got the princess thing covered already) I found all sorts of amazing inspiration online for chain mail, helmets, armor, sword, scabbard, and shields.  Here's where I started...

Knitted chain mail arm bracers.

Now I am still just a beginning knitter and I wanted these to be quick and easy.  Could they be done in the round?  Of course.  But I went with a rectangle that gets sewn together on the long side.  Easy.

For my 6 year old (who is on the small side - but don't tell him I said that) I used US13's and loosely cast on 30 stitches.  Then I just did the garter stitch until it was about 5 inches long un-stretched.  Bind it off leaving a long tail and sew the long edges together.  Done!  This was so simple and so fast and I'm not a very fast knitter yet.

I think we'll do this costume together in stages...

Back on the crafting wagon,

Kristin

Repost: The Tooth

** This one was originally posted on The Fipper Show July 6, 2011.**



Oh. My. Goodness. Would you look at that face! Can you see what's different? He has graduated to the official "big kid" ranks. That tooth was so wiggly for SO long. But today... it came out.

I realized YESTERDAY that we had to be getting close. I mean, that thing was barely hanging on. So, in somewhat of a panic, I started looking around for what kind of tooth fairy pillow to make him. He's a gigantic fan of the game Angry Birds (who isn't really?) so I decided to see what I could find online. I found this link yesterday afternoon and saved it to my favorites. About 10:00 last night I started gathering up all the ingredients. I didn't have some colors in the fleece but substituted wool felt. I was finished by 11:45. Just in time.

The only change I made was to add a little pocket on the back for money. It's pretty cool and a very simple tutorial. I see lots of Angry Bird making in my future.

After I finished it up last night I wrapped it up in one of our play silks. I was thinking a present waiting in the wings would help motivate him to pull it. But no, he kept telling me he wasn't going to do it. I think he was just afraid it would hurt. Enter Clif Bar's Z bar. I gave him one of these delicious little treats on the way home from the store and with the LAST BITE...the tooth came out. You know what that means?? Present time.

He figured out it was an Angry Bird right about here. 

And was SUPER excited.

Of all the things I have EVER made him, this one was the most successfully received. He was beyond thrilled. (It was very satisfying for me as I had just stayed up super late to make it.) They played with it for quite a while and he has declared he's sleeping with it forever. (which may look weird in college??)

(this is my favorite picture of the boy and his bird - taken with my ipod.)

Our boy is growing up!

Love,

JKFP and Fisher's tooth.

A Big Announcement!

Things are starting to look a little different around here.  I have big news...I'm finally doing it!  After so many of you suggested I open an Etsy shop, I'm jumping in.  My shop will officially be open and taking orders Monday, April 16th.  What kind of things will you be able to purchase from the shop you ask?

Gnome perpetual calendars

My Memory Games

Knit/Crochet project bags.
They are reversible!

An Organized Knitting Bag.
Also reversible!

Hooker pouches.
I'll also offer knitting/crochet sets.  An Organized Knitting Bag with
a project bag AND a hooker pouch.

Various sizes of my fabric baskets.
I'll also offer nested sets.

Diaper pouches

Birthday Banners!
These will be custom orders only and will require 6-8 weeks for delivery.

This is what I'm planning to start with.  These first items will be added to the shop over the next week.  I plan to eventually add flannel backed baby quilts, zippered pouches, knitting needles, knitting needle rolls, iPad/iPhone sleeves,  nook covers, an alphabet matching game,  reusable snack sacks, etc.  Also, if you have something specific in mind just message me and we can set up a custom order. 

After the shop is up and running I think we'll do a couple giveaways to celebrate so stay tuned...


Kristin


p.s.  I'd like to thank my sister Carly for giving the extra push I needed.