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Halloween Finger Puppets in Felt – Tricky Set

October 20, 2012 by Merry Leave a Comment

Having done our finger puppets last week in a nice easy style, Maddy decided to take it a step further and make a more complicated bunch. The result is a truly monstrous bunch of felt finger puppets that I think you will really love!

This would be a tricky bunch to describe step by step. We’ve done a pattern guide sheet but it was drawn after the event (I will redo it at some point) and so although it is a good guide, you will need to tweak some sizes and shapes a little possibly. However, in a nutshell….

Skeleton is two white pieces and the pattern stitched on in black thread.

Witch is a body with a face stitched on (you could glue) and hat stitched on top. The cape was actually pieces sewn on to the sides and back fbut we’ve simplified it into a single cape.

The devil can be made by sewing or stitching the face on but sewing will work better. The horns can be done as two triangles but Maddy did a crescent and stitched it behind the face. The tail and trident are blanket stitched and then attached.

Maddy did Frankie’s head in two parts with a stitched detail scar and blanket stitch around the face to give character. The cape is like Dracula’s but a little smaller.

The Vampire has a stitched collar and cape in 3 pieces. You could adapt the witches cape to work though.

Click here Halloween puppet patterns.

Halloween Finger Puppets in Felt – Easy Set

October 15, 2012 by Merry 14 Comments

I got a little one to one time with my 8 year old the other day and she wanted to do some sewing. Since I was typing up a witch tutorial at the time but wanted to facilitate, I helped her create some easy Halloween finger puppets. The designs and ideas were really all her own, barring the ghoul which I felt compelled to make too 😉 All I did was cut out her designs and help her with some of the fiddly face bits but otherwise she made them and did all the stitching.

Each puppet is made from two pieces of felt stitched together. The ears are folded over on the mouse to give a bat look to them but otherwise the spider legs, pumpkin stalk and owl wings are stitched between the main body layers as you go round. The bat wings are stuck on the back and the face pieces are stuck on the front.

There is a story behind the bat. His body was originally a mouse and he was re-purposed after that project ended due to mouse fatigue. His wings are one set of butterfly wings (which can be printed here) which were also left over. Obviously you could just make your own wings to be more bat like but we rather liked the mouse-a-fly.

The Halloween finger puppet patterns can be downloaded and printed here except for the faces because frankly, I think you should make those up yourself! 😉

We’ve got a more complicated set of puppets under construction too, so hopefully they’ll be available soon!

Butterfly Shapes & Symmetry

October 15, 2012 by Merry Leave a Comment

Over the summer we had a lot of fun with some felt pieces cut into the shape of butterflies, exploring different shapes, patterns and so on. One theme that came up a lot was symmetry, a concept my eldest has a disproportionate amount of difficulty with and which was new to my youngest girl. By cutting out butterfly shapes and using the idea of cutting on a fold to get matching sides, we covered quite a lot of educational concepts. Then we cut out pairs of pieces of felt to decorate them and used buttons to embellish our efforts. It culminated in a summer butterfly picture but much fun was had along the way.

Here are just a few of what we designed. Although it was a simple activity it was a great deal of fun and the designs got more complex as the activity went on. We had intended to sew edges and embellishments to them and hang them as a mobile. It didn’t happen this year but I think we will do it, probably with a few other insects too.

Anyway, the purpose of this rather tardy post is to include the download of printable butterfly shapes I made. Each is a ‘half’ butterfly so you can cut them out on paper or fabric and work on symmetry yourself! 😉

Autumn Leaf Shapes Printable

September 30, 2012 by Merry 259 Comments

One of the things I always seem to want and can’t find (for free or in adequately easy to up and download form) are basic printables for nature shapes. I would use them for so many things; printing on coloured paper and cutting out from fabric to name just two. So I finally got round to making a printable page of leaf shapes which I hope you’ll enjoy using as you need.

I’ve spent a pleasant afternoon doing some simple embroidery stitches on some of the leaves to give them detail and definition. I cut them out of a variety of different felt colours and weights and then used variegated embroidery silks to back stitch, blanket stitch and over stitch on top of them. It made a huge difference to each leaf shape to vary the stitches and I really enjoyed experimenting. The variegated silks gave a nice dappled feel to the leaves and added to the autumn effect of them. I thought afterwards it would be nice to sponge paint some acrylic paint lightly on to the leaves first to add to that effect.

Once I had made them all inspiration promptly deserted me for what to do with them! Which is annoying, to say the least. Still, I’ve got quite a lot of ideas and a stash of pretty leaves gives me plenty to play with.

One idea was to decorate a plain piece of brown fleece with them to make a cute autumnal playmat for our baby. They stitch down really easily and make it look deliciously seasonal.Another idea is to stick them down on some green felt and embellish with buttons and beads to make a table decoration. It would look lovely with candle votives on top or perhaps some artfully placed berries, acorns and conkers.

Actually, this gave me another idea, to use them to make a linen nature collecting bag with these stuck to the front as faux applique. And THAT made me think that possibly I could try a bit of simple quilting with leaves on each square. I think it might look quite nice.

Various other ideas are presenting themselves, including sticking them to the outside of jars or vases, hanging them as a window display from threads interspersed with beads or buttons and various others. I think a picture with a tree trunk might look lovely too, using the leaves to make the foliage shape.

Whatever, it was a restful afternoon of stitching.

Here is the printable to right click on and print or download as a pdf.

Finally, no post would be complete without a pinterest link, so here is one to some Autumnal Leafy Crafts.

Hand Sewn Butterfly & Flower Felt Picture

September 4, 2012 by Merry Leave a Comment

Summer is nearly over and all those crafts are nearly ready to be put to bed for another year…. flowers, butterflies, rainbows and blossoming trees will soon give way to harvest, russet leaves, Halloween and fireworks. Even the glimmer of snow and Christmas doesn’t seem so very far away. I’ve got a few more pretties that we made this year still up my sleeve though and wanted to show the picture our summer header came from. It’s part of a set I’m making for the wall of our new baby boy when he moves into his own room, the first being the tree picture this site started with.

I’ve got a real soft spot for this sort of folky and simple hand stitched picture, particularly as it copes so well with a cheaty bit of gluing to keep it quick and easy. Blanket stitch (ooh, some interesting varieties there!) and back stitch or simple long stitches add detail to felt without having to be too slavishly careful and felt is very forgiving when being cut and shaped (along with being cheap!) so a few mistakes won’t matter.

Without being too prescriptive, since creativity is key rather than following a slavish pattern, cut out some daisy petal shapes and a circle, which I added long stitch detail to to give it some interest. Add some wiggly leaves or grass stems and glue them all into place. The butterfly is blanket stitched (from a template I will be providing here shortly) and the bottom is cut from a dark piece of felt the same size as the blue background and given a wiggly edge and some back stitched detail for interest. I love buttons, so sticking those on as flowers and butterfly pattern worked really well. If you are doing this with a child, it is a great opportunity to explore symmetry too. Once it is all glue together, it will look great inside a picture frame and popped up on a wall.

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Sewn Felt Tree

July 25, 2012 by Merry Leave a Comment

Creating pictures with felt, using a mixture of simple sewing, sticking and buttons as embellishments has been a great way of creating gorgeous wall art very quickly and easily. This picture was created using 3 shades of shop bought felt cut into rough circles. The circles were stitched with back stitch spirals, over stitch or blanket stitch for effect. They were stuck on to a brown ‘table tennis bat’ shaped background, also in felt and then on to a blue rectangle of felt. I made simple grass shapes and used a rabbit template from Super Cute Felt but I adapted the pattern and made simple eyes and embroidered ears. I blanket stitched the edge of the trunk base and then glued it all together with tacky glue. The frame was a cheapy from a local shop. There are Felt Tree Ideas on Pinterest.

This craft was first featured on Patch of Puddles. The aim of this site is to have step by step instructions of lots of crafts, however I am initially just collating all my previous themed crafts into one place as a starting point.

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