Kleas

birthday season

There are less than six weeks of preschool left before we begin our summer break and my project list just went through the roof.  Mother's Day gifts and Spring Festival preparing should be enough to keep me busy but we also have fourteen (yes! 14!!) birthdays yet to celebrate.  I need to get busy making.  The most difficult part for me is creating something that is meaningful.  I did get great ideas from some of you here (in the comments) which were helpful, but I get stumped sometimes.  

Yesterday we celebrated little Miss F turning five.  I have a strong connection to this quiet little girl.  Such a sweet, gentle soul, a lover of nature and all things small and precious.  I knew exactly what I wanted to give her so made her this Salley Mavor inspired doll.  She comes with her own nature bag to keep her treasures in.  I included a mini poppy pod that we pulled while playing in the garden last month.  She helped to scatter the seeds from the pods and little seedlings are already appearing.

With much needed luck I hope to be back sooner rather than later with more birthday posts.

creative spaces-needle felting

It's been a while since I've needle-felted, but when my teaching partner brought her new book, Wool Toys by Laurie Sharp to the preschool the other day I starting browsing and was inspired to have a go at it again.

There is something so satisfying about jabbing and stabbing all those little wool tufts and turning them into a sweet doll.  Sharp's instructions for making a pixie are easy and straightforward and it was quite fun making this little guy.

And another one is waiting for a face.  Don't know if I'll be able to stop at just two!

More creative spaces here.

A Little Angel Swap

Margaret of We Bloom Here hosted a swap of little angels and has connected bloggers from all over the world.  You can see all the beautiful hand created angels right here.

Here is what I made for my partners (most of whom live in Australia).

It's funny how these little angels all started out to be the same, but as I individually hand-stitched each one, they seemed to take on their own personalities.  I guess this is just how it is when creating a doll.

Each one is stitched from white wool and vintage trim embellishments and beads.  Each is holding something unique in their hand or arms: a cluster of bells, a mother-of-pearl star, a vintage stamen bundle and an acorn bird nest with eggs.

I've already received two lovely angels and will be sure to post them once they all arrive.

(Thank you Margaret!)

two are now five

We had a birthday celebration at my preschool yesterday.  A brother and sister both turned five.  Five. Such a magical age.  It means they will be starting kindergarten next year. I wanted to make them something special, something that would maybe remind them of their days at Willow House.  There were so many ideas spinning through my head and I finally decided to make each one a little doll.

Not in the photo is the mini dried poppy pod that I placed in the arm of each doll.  Poppies grow all over our preschool garden and I can thank this now five-year-old girl for helping to plant them.  One of her favorite things to do in the backyard is shake the seeds out of the pods once they have dried.  I can't wait to see how many blooms we'll get next year and you can bet I'll be missing her when they flower.

Last summer the children's mother donated heavily to our annual garage sale fundraiser and as I was sorting through some of the items she brought I found these two blouses she no longer wore.

Pink is a favorite color of the twins.  I put them aside thinking the fabric was too sweet to give up for the sale and knew immediately I was going to somehow use it for the kids.  It's not too obvious as the dolls are pretty small, and the print on the floral fabric is large, but I used a piece of their mom's blouse to make the shirt of each doll.  A little bit of their mama in each one.

Puppet Camp-final day

 
I was overly ambitious for Puppet Camp last week.  My plan was to have the children experience a wide variety of puppet making.  I quickly realized after day one, that I would have to tone it down a bit.  After-all, I am working with four-years-olds.  For the last day I planned a pop-up cone type puppet (kind of like one of these), but again...too ambitious.  The night before I thought up this simplified version and was thrilled how easily they came together.

Supplies:

• wool felt
• chop-stick
• 1.25 inch wood bead with hole on one side
• glue
• rubber bands
• (needle + thread optional)

 
I drew up a rough pattern sheet...nothing fancy...but it could easily be printed off.  The large oval is the body, the circle the collar (cut it fringe like, or scalloped...depending on how you like it) and the triangle is the hat.

 
Fold the hat piece in half and stitch (or glue) up the side.  (Here's a nice blurry version of me doing that)

 
Next, take a rubber band (or elastic) and wrap it securely about one inch below the pointy side of the chop-stick.

 
Assembly is easy after that...simply slide on the body piece, then the collar, then the head, glue on hat and you're done!

 
The kids were playing with them in minutes.

more gnome knitting

I posted this knitting wip photo last month.  These are parts of gnome dolls I knit up over the summer.  When it was time to sort them out, I found I didn't have enough matching pieces and for whatever reason I felt I really needed the colors to be the same or at least similar.

I ended up knitting more and more pieces to create dolls that came together in a matching color scheme.  Finally I started the slow process of stitching up the dolls. 

The pattern comes from The Gnome Craft Book.  I love using self striping sock yarn just because they come out so colorful.  I also made a few more of these (pattern found here).

Instead of stuffing and stitching up the body, I left it open so they could be used as puppets.

 
I worry that I may be having more fun with these than I should.

little angels

No Black Friday shopping for us.  We are all still in our pajamas enjoying eachothers company and working on projects.  'Tis the season for ornament making and I've been busy cutting and stitching and stuffing.  I think I will dedicate next weeks posts to all the ornaments I've put together.  First in line though are these sweet little angels I made for Sarah's First Annual Ornament Swap. 

Seems like I have a tradition of making dolls for at least one swap of ornaments.  First there were Pixies then my red-haired angels and now these.  I didn't come up with this design, Julie Collings did.

I remember when she first blogged about her book, Pretty Little Felts, but it wasn't until I picked it up at Joanns and flipped through it that I knew I had to have it.  I wanted to buy directly from her, and that's exactly what I did.  Here. 

It came signed and so prettily packaged and she included such fun kits of felt and trims to play with.  Such an inspiring treat to get in the mail.

 
It was the angels in Julie's book that first drew me in (although ALL of her projects are WONDERFUL!).  It was something about the glittery heads...I just loved them!!  And they made me think of vintage swim caps. 

 
I needed to make ten of these girls and decided production line style was the way to go.

They were fun to make, and I'm sure my house will have glitter floating about for some time.

 
 
Getting ready for their trip South. 

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Christmas Ornaments

I got an early start to making my ornaments for Amy's annual Christmas Ornament Swap.  Interested in trying something new, I went with Fimo, something I have very little experience working with.  And, I had angels on my mind.  Here's how I got started.

Little heads and limbs all baked up and painted.  It was much harder than I realized to try and keep all the body parts in equal proportion.  Before baking, I had inserted the eye pins for hanging on the tree.  Then the girls all got their faces.

Next step was to embroider their little dresses and I added some thrifted pearls for buttons.

Limbs attached and all sewn up. Last step was to add their wings made from tulle and wool hair.

Photographing is never quite as much fun unless you have a little helper.

Counting them first in English, then again in Spanish.  Yep, all there.

Background watercolor painting courtesy of Peanut. 

Ready to fly off to their new homes.  I just couldn't refuse Martha's adorable little boxes to package them in.

Settling into their new homes.

Finally, ready to go.

Funny how although I tried something completely new, they ended up looking a lot like my pixie doll ornaments from last year.  Hmmm.

Felt Craft

It's really starting to feel like autumn here.  Today was a perfect October day and the leaves were blooming in beautiful fall colors.  It inspired me to bring out the wool and do some hand stitching.

Felt balls...

(The beautiful wood bowl was made by my brother)

...and jesters.

Patterns for both of these came from this book...

which I bought a few years ago and am finally putting to use.  There are so many tempting little creatures from here that I would like to make, I may be back with more. 

Would I be interested in a swap?

...asked Michelle of Green Kitchen.  Would I ever!  I love to swap and if you've been a visitor here you probably already know that about me.  I was thrilled!  Something I've never mentioned here however, is that Michelle was one of the reasons I began blogging in the first place.  When I first came across this crafty-blog world eleven months ago, I found Green Kitchen almost immediately and noticed (at the time) she was fairly new out there.  I loved her craft, her artwork and knew I had to join this community, so shortly there after, I jumped in too.  So, when she invited me to join an ornament swap with seven super talented women, I felt completely honored.

All I knew for sure is that I wanted to make my ornaments using one of my favorite mediums-felt.  Then I was stuck for a while.  (Believe me, I am no Alice!)  Then I came across some of the sweetest trim I have ever seen. 

And I fell in love with all the adorable little Pixy Dolls found at Maileg where the trim came from.  With the trim as inspiration and using Salley Mavor's doll design I came up with my own little Christmas elf girls.

They were so much fun to make, and I'm happy with how they turned out.  I think if I were to make these again however, I would definately find a needle small enough to pass through the hole in the beads (about 20 beads per doll I have to add).  I did this the crazy way...make a stitch, take needle off thread, push thread through itty-bitty hole, re-thread needle, make another stitch and so on.  I felt like I was losing my mind just a wee bit and it did take me forever, in fact I was the last to mail, but it looks like everyone has received theirs.

Now I can show off what I was sent by these talented women.

From Stephanie:  

The softest, sweetest, most natural beautiful reindeer.  So perfectly stitched.  I just LOVE him.  I photographed this just as she sent it because I love how she attached him to this striped paper over foam-core.  See more of her gorgeous reindeers starting here.

From Alice:

 

She named him Octophrost.  How cute is that?   I am immediately drawn to his adorable eyes and perfectly stitched tentacles.  And I can certainly appreciate all the sequins and beads she added.  He is such a beautiful creature and I couldn't be more inpressed that she designed him herself.  Read more about him here.

From Meg:

One of her original button wreaths that began a button wreath making craze throughout craft blog world.  I love how the buttons catch the lights from the Christmas tree and really sparkle.

From Bethany:

This little guy really steals my heart!  He's all of 2-3 inches!  Such perfect little itty bitty stitches.  I just adore this sweet pooch.  Bethany has inspired me to check out the patterns and make some more of these great animals myself.  Check out all the the tiny felt creations she made here.

From Tricia:

The Artic Fox bringing me a treat.  How I LOVE this!  The different fabrics, the gorgeous hand stitching.  All the attention to detail.  Such an adorable piece.  See the rest of her creations here.

From Cassi:

Such a sweet felt flower with a tiny stitched drop hanging from the end.  The colors are beautiful together and it's design is so lovely.  I've long admired Cassi's felt creations and now I have one of my own.

And finally, from the wonderful host of this swap, Michelle:

You can't imagine how delighted I was to open this package and see this most enchanting blue haired snow woman.  The painted face, hand crocheted body and scarf detail, and well, that hair!!  I just LOVE her hair!!  She is wonderfully made and is an amazingly creative piece by Michelle.  And I love her bird card she included.

Thanks to you all for such wonderful ornaments!!  This was an unforgettable swap. Also, a huge thank you to our wonderful host, Michelle.

I'll be heading out of town in the morning to celebrate Christmas with my family.  See you next week sometime.  Happy Holidays!