cat pouch necklace

a.k.a. the 'cat guardian secret keeper' - taken from the craft tutorial by Cat Rabbit in the latest issue of Frankie magazine (which has a special craft section! on similar paper to their cake recipes section in the previous issue).

(this was supposed to be a birthday present for a friend, but i can't get over how cute it is.. so now it's not a present..)

etsy/crafty links

going through a handmade plush phase (etsy)! will remember to browse those sections next time i'm in kino!


anyway, here are some etsy sellers that i've come across and couldn't stop stalking their sites and saving pics of their creations (i'm not crazy).
- My Paper Crane (plushies: etsy, website, flickr, Kidrobot collaboration: on blog & shop)
- amiamour (amigurumi/crocheted toys & patterns: etsy - including this REALLY cute Kero (from Cardcaptor Sakura) amigurumi!, website)
- Memi the Rainbow (rubber stamps & other things: etsy, blog)
- Dandyrions (super cute bear rug coasters and "wrapped fox" shirts! etsy)
- SarabiRose (crochet-hats for cats! etsy)
- Pysselbolaget (mouse toy/coin purse tutorial on blog)

fimo rilakkuma-さん

before & after baking:

felt sloth

made this for an upcoming friend's "silly headgear"-themed party ;D (yes, the sloth will be sloth-ing on my head XD!)

it's supposed to be a three-toed sloth, but i didn't want the claws to poke my head / fall off from being handled too much, so temporarily (or more likely, permanently, since i'm too lazy to add the claws) it's a no-toed sloth!

as usual, i used pipe cleaners to make the internal scaffold: one for the body and a loop at one end for the head, and one each for the forelimbs and hindlimbs (looped around the body pipe cleaner). and then i just wrapped a bunch of wool fibres around the pipe cleaners, kinda like applying a thick bandage, and then just poked it with the needle until it's tight enough. and then just kept on building with more wool fibres until it had the right shape and the right colour. and i also added some green wool on the surface, since sloths are so slow-moving that they have moss growing on their fur XD!

wiz & jack-jack

meet needle-felted wiz & jack-jack! they're birthday presents. my friend collected some of their actual fur for me to use, which was so soft compared to the wool i was using, but it was hard to incorporate them with the needle since the hairs are so short! so i just used them at the end and trimmed the excess hairs sticking out with scissors, so they wouldn't look too messy-looking..

temporary house :D

update: here are some stolen fb photos of the felt bunnies with the real-life buns!

felt brooches

made these needle & wet felted brooches recently as gifts.

this rose brooch idea was taken from the spotlight inspiration room website. basically twirl some wool fibres with whatever shades of colour you want into a small circle, and needle felt them onto a felt sheet (i used dark green). then cut around the needle-felted fibres to make a rose shape. do the same thing, but with green wool fibres and cut it into a leaf shape. sew the leaf & bloom together. sew beads onto the centre of the flower. and finally sew a brooch back / safety pin thing on the back.

this next one was taken from the felting for baby book by saori yamazaki (amazon, book depository)


this one is just a matter of needle-felting two balls, doing the same with the green leaf as the previous brooch (but this time i wrapped the green wool fibres all around the felt sheet, instead of just needle-felting it on to the front side). to attach the two balls together without seeing any stitches, i just ran a threaded needle (cream/pale colour) through both the balls' centres a few times, but making sure to make only a small distance between where the needle exits and re-enters the ball, so that i can just cover the thread that is visible on the surface with some wool fibres (just grab some surrounding fibres to cover the thread & needle felt to cover it). and then did the same thing to attach the leaf to the balls. and then sewed on a safety pin back (sew it higher than what's in the photo, or else the brooch will be too heavy & droop when it's worn).

i actually tried both a dry and wet felting method to make the second brooch. so i needle-felted the fibres into a ball, then i dipped/soaked the ball into some soapy water (a small container of warm water with a small drop of detergent - not too much or else it'll get really bubbly). then i transferred the soaked ball into a zip-lock bag (or just a plastic bag) and squished it a few times in the corner of the plastic bag so that the soapy water can get all the way to the centre of the ball (basically the soapy water acts like the needle to lock the wool fibres together). then i squished the ball in a towel/cloth to get excess water out.
i repeated this process a few times, adding new layers of roughly needle-felted wool on top if the ball wasn't big enough.

i thought this method would be as easy as what's shown in this blog, but no. you can't just magically shake a bunch of wool fibres in a container of soapy water and it somehow transforms into a neat ball.
but oh well, i ended up making the leaf the same way. the advantage of this versus just plain dry-needle-felting is the fibres/ball ends up much neater.

ok. back to studying. bye.

craft & quilt fair

yesterday i went to the craft & quilt fair at darling harbour! it's on every year but this was the first time i've been to it & the place was HUGE! there were aisles A-K in 3 halls including a gallery of quilts, hsc textiles works, stalls for the exhibitors, workshops, demonstrations and a food/drinks area with tables. most of the stalls were, unsurprisingly, dedicated to quilting - selling patterns, "fat quarters" (materials with different prints for quilting) etc and there were also electronic sewing machines that can create complex embroidery automatically! (i can only hand-sew, so i found those so high-tech) but i think the best thing is knowing where to get craft materials besides from the 2 main craft-supply stores that are in sydney.

anyway, here are some photos :D

puff quilting? so cute! that tube on the left & the long flat rod is for stuffing the 'puff'

walls of pretty ribbons! from the Craft Queen stall

THE CUTEST STALL EVER! there were sock monkeys everywhere!! i so want to hug the big one! they also sold the hand-dyed red-heeled socks so you can give the monkeys red lips or red butts & books on how to make other animals. (these 'Rockford Red Heel' sock monkeys were from the Campbell's store, Morpeth stall)

what i bought: Penny Black rubber stamps (just the brand that was sold in a some stalls), Ashford pastel wool slivers (i think Merino is slightly softer, but i liked the colours) & some felt sheets from Krazy Kreations

some other stores that i liked: Kelani Fabric, BeBe Bold (contemporary Japanese textiles ie. cute patterns like Shinzi Katoh + kits for projects), By Lynette (they had a larger-than-usual bag of wool fibres for $4, but unfortunately not the white colour that i use the most. the lady passive-aggressively got mad at her husband for telling her not to pack more since they still have a lot at home haha)

Salmonella yo.

for microbiology, we have to make a 'visual learning tool' based on any bacteria covered in this semester. i chose salmonella! i just wanted to make something that's needle-felted, really -__-"
i first made a rod (bacillus) shape out of felt sheets that i stuffed & sewed together. inconveniently... there was only dishwashing sponges (those blue ones) to stuff the inside with, and so when i needle felted the wool to cover it, it was so difficult to poke, i managed to break two needle-felting needles. and i actually only had a single needle. so in between that, i had to go out to the city again, in the rain/cold, go to lincraft (after having spent a few hours there already that day) and buy some needles. anyway. the flagellae was made out of pipe cleaners with all the furry bits cut off (so only the wire remained) and pink thread wrapped around it. then i had to make deep pokes :( into the salmonella so i could jam the flagellae in.
the gas molecules are just made out of fimo & drawn messily with white out.
and to make the box more shallow, i used two toilet paper rolls cut in half (just the cardboard) and sticky-taped it to the back of the white background. and all the figurines are stuck on with velcro (cos i'm paranoid about sticking something on permanently. i don't even stick my stickers on with its own backing. i use photo magic dots.)






anyway, i hope it's accurate.. really can't be bothered changing anything anymore, i've had to redraw the info bits 3 times already T__T

my milk toof book - behind the scenes!

links!

(some are quite old)

the oatmeal: how to suck at facebook, 10 reasons to avoid talking on the phone.
the cherryblossom girl: venomous villains!
cuteoverload: i am not making a snowman!, dramatic audition
handmade weddings: vintage superheroes conquer the world
van gogh tilt-shift
map envelope
printing on post-its
drunken watermelon on tap
in new york, even the walls have USB

crafty tutorials

little library card notebooks - papernstitch
transferring an image to fabric with gel medium - how about orange
5-pointed paper snowflake - how about orange
quick mittens - anda lewis corrie (etsy admin)

つくりましょうー

i found this book while browsing the kino crafts section, and decided to make a few projects as xmas gifts!

source: ebay (click to see sample pages)

the first is a yaki-mochi! the grilled mochi bubbles out in a panda shape X)


first i stitched a rectangular prism made out of normal felt sheets in white, and filled it with felt cut offs, then i wrapped the wool fibres around and poked it with needles so the wool fibres interlock with the felt prism underneath. and for the panda, i rolled wool fibres into a ball, and poked it some more with a needle until it turns into a firm ball, added the nose/ear/black wool fibres for the eye patch/eye balls and then poked it to attach it to the mochi. the first time i heard of this technique, it sounded like magic! anyway..

next is grilled squid on stick!


i glued the base of a paddlepop stick onto one edge of a rectangular piece of cream-coloured felt sheet, and then rolled the sheet until the other edge meets the first glued end, and then stuck that on. then i cut out two holes so the paddlepop stick can be inserted through the squid. after that, i cut out three 'knife-scores' on the front, and filled it with cream coloured felt strips. and then wrapped purple-coloured wool fibres around the squid and needled it. and finally added a triangle-shaped purple bit on the top (don't know what part of the anatomy that is!) - i also used a felt sheet in the middle so it's easier to start needle felting the wool fibres on.

last is a wall hanging thing for a baby's room.


same method as before - roll and attach stuff to make the panda head, and then cut out shapes of stars & moon from a felt sheet of similar colour, and then wrap wool fibres & poke it with a needle. and finally just have to insert a string (i used double layer of thick cotton) through each item, and tie 3 knots on the base of each so that they don't slip down. and make a loop at the top for hanging.

and i put them in this gift box (instructions from an origami book) & added decorative sticky tape along the sides (you can decorate more/write/draw stuff on the box too, since it's just paper).


surprisingly it only took two days to make them all! i remember the first needle-felting i made (biscotti1 & 2) took like a week -__-"!