Hello there! Maddy here, and I’m going to update you on my latest craft! most of the crafts we put on here are all Fimo or all felt or other crafting materials, but this one uses both felt and Fimo, oh, and a jar.

Here it is, a pretty Easter basket (to put pretty felted Easter eggs in, coming soon).

Start with a jar, a big lump of Fimo (I did brown but you could do anything, pink, purple, lime green would look nice too) and a rolling pin (it doesn’t actually come in at any point in the instructions but it’s good for warming the Fimo up), some felt (same colour as the Fimo and some more for the flowers) a pipe cleaner, a needle and thread and some Fimo vanish. roll the Fimo into two long sausages of equal length, then press the ends together and twist them as in the picture, the longer the sausages the harder and fiddly-er this part will be but the more time and care you put into it the better it will turn out (to be very honest I rushed mine a bit but it seems to be OK!).

Now you have a long twisted sausage, wrap it around the jar starting at the bottom and ending at the top, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t reach all the way. bake it in a oven at 110 Celsius for thirty minuets, let it cool down and then varnish the Fimo, leave it to dry (this will take about an hour depending on the amount on varnish you put on).

Now cut out the felt flowers, what I did was use four different colours and out of each on make one big flower, one small flower, one big dot and one small dot (you could also make leaves), then sew all dots and flowers together (the dots go in the middle of the flowers) then make three strips of the felt the same colour as the Fimo about 15cm long and 2cm wide, then make two more strips 6cm long (doesn’t matter how wide) and sew one across the the ends of the three long ones as shown, then plat the three strips but make sure you don’t do it tightly and keep it flat, then sew the other short strip across the ends, next cut the pipe cleaner in half and push it through the plait making sure it doesn’t show up on the other side of it.

Now its time to start decorating! stick the flowers with fabric glue on the basket and plat handle. bend the handle into an arch shape and glue the ends on to the basket (don’t worry, it’s just decoration and isn’t supposed to be used as a actual handle) and leave it to dry. there you have it! a beautiful basket!