Live it . Love it . Make it.: felt

Showing posts with label felt. Show all posts

Guest Tutorial: The Make Arcade - Felt Succulents

This week we thought we would hand over the Tutorial reigns to someone else for a change. We have been following Ruth for a while now with her company The Make Arcade. She holds classes, produces craft kits of all sorts and Sammy even has some in her shop Sew Crafty too. So without further ado, we will hand over.

Hi! Ruth here from The Make Arcade. Sammy and H invited me to put together a tutorial for their
lovely blog readers - so here goes, great to be here!

You can’t have not noticed the succulent trend that's happening at the moment - I love a succulent
as they are so cute but as someone who hasn’t a great track record at being green fingered I have
used succulents as my inspiration for a felt based craft project and created a felt succulent display!

They are a perfect subject for felt work as all subtly different - full of texture, inspiring colour
palettes and quirky character.

For this project you will need:
A selection of felt- for mine and got a muted colour palette (but
would work equally as well in brights or greys!)
Glue gun (I glued this project but you could sew it too!)
Scissors
Thin card
Display item - my wire basket is from Tiger - but you could use vintage kitchenware, enamelware
or wooden crate perhaps?

We will be making 4 different types of succulent design - you can make as many or as few as your
display item allows, they are quite addictive to make.

When you have made your lovely selection of succulents you can display them. Take your card and
cut it to the shape your your display unit (I drew round the wire basket). This is the basis for your
display. Place your succulents on the card, play around with the layout and take a picture for
reference before you start to stick! Stick all the pieces down, lift leaves to make it really 3D. I added
a few felt balls that I had in my stash too.

When all stuck down, cut away any card that you don’t want to see so you are left with the
succulent piece. I then placed this into my wire basket and secured it with a few blobs of glue. Voila
- one gorgeous succulent display!

So, what do you think? We hope you loved Ruth's tutorial as much as we did. We may be biased as we are succulent lovers - you may have noticed!

H & Sammy, xxx

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Make it: Geometric Heart Cushion + Free PDF Download

Love is really in the air as there are just 3 days until Valentines day. I have just added some yummy felt packs to my online store Sew Crafty Online so I wanted to make something to show what you could make out of them. I have been lusting after a geometric cushion for a while now as you can tell from our latest Pinterest board so I thought this project could be the perfect solution,

At the beginning of January I made a sneaky purchase with some of my Christmas money and bought a Cricut Cuttlebug machine. I already have a Silhouette Cameo (which I use a-lot) and have had a Sizzex bigshot in the past but I donated it to H's work as I used to find it was a little cumbersome and therefore didn't really use it. I love my Cameo but I wanted to do some work with foam and felt and due to the way that the silhouette cuts, you can't really use it well with felt.

I had heard great things about the Cuttlebug and loved the look of the compact design, what I also loved was that they brought out a limited edition one in stylish vintage green! It always helps to have pretty craft tools right.

I had some dies left over from when I had my Bigshot, I was a little annoyed to find that I needed to buy an extra 'C' plate in order to use them in the cuttle bug as it only comes with an 'A' and two 'B' plates. However some of my existing dies worked just fine and it came in the post super fast, then I was able to use all of them.

I had heard things about plates slipping and curving after time, but so far I haven't had any problems with either of those things.

If your not sure what the dickens I am talking about or what a die cutting machine does, it's basically a mangle with two rollers that uses metal dies to cut through paper, card, foam and fabrics. You insert your material and a metal die in between the plates and the rollers push down with even pressure to cut and emboss the shape of your die in to the material.

As I said I particularly wanted to use it for cutting foam and felt, both of which it does beautifully. The only downside for me is that I am limited to the dies that I can buy ie. those that others design in fixed sizes. I think I have been spoilt with the freedom that comes with the Silhouette design studio software of being able to cut any design in any size. Having said that there are hundreds of dies out there and lots come with multiple size options.

The Kirsty Allsopp model does come with a few dies and an embossing plate but I did buy a few new dies as well of course, I think my favourite has to be this two part bow one from dimensions, this triple butterfly and the roll up rose.

As you can see I have been going a little crazy with the bow one!

This heart one will be really useful for Valentines and beyond and how beautiful are these feather ones. I bought my cuttlebug and all these dies from Crafts U Love which is one of my favourite places to buy craft supplies online.

All in all I would highly recommend this model if you are thinking of investing in a die-cutting system and can't commit to an electronic one. I love that you can use almost all of the other systems dies with it and for me the compact design means I am far more likely to keep it on hand and actually use it on a regular basis now. I am looking forward to trying out using it for some faux letterpress projects too as I have seen a few kits that you can use with these machines. Keep your eyes peeled for when I share my experiments.

I hope that helped if you are on the fence about getting one of these. Have you ever had a go with a die-cutting machine? Ever been fascinated to try one? Do you have one that's your favourite? Let me know your recommendations for places to buy dies from too please, I am a little addicted! I am looking for some good alphabet ones next.

Sammy xxx

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Make it. Reusable Easter Pinatas with Blooming Felt

It's Easter, lets get crazy with some bright colours and egg shaped things, Yeh!! Traditionally Piñatas are covered in strips of fringed paper, but this means they are quite fragile, and you go to all that effort of cutting and sticking for it to be destroyed. So I thought if I made some in felt, I can use them over and over again. Plus they will look so cute on the centre of my dining table for Easter Sunday lunch.

You will need: Felt, a cardboard egg, glue, sharp scissors, ribbon, some chocolate goodies for inside.

Start by taking your felt sheet and cutting it into strips, it is best to do all the cutting before you start gluing. Cut your strips about 1'' wide. Next is to cut your fringe, cut up into each strip leaving about 1/4'' uncut at the top. Also cut yourself a small circle of felt to add to the very bottom of your egg, cut it in half so you have two semicircles. At this point you may want to try one of your chocolate eggs, you know, just to make sure they taste OK.

Once you have all your strips cut and fringed you can pop some glue onto one side of your egg, add your semicircle to the bottom. You may want to try just one more of those chocolates.

Start layering up your fringe strips. trimming away as you go and making sure to overlap the layers by about 1/4''.

Keep adding layers until you reach the top of the egg, munch on another chocolate egg, then repeat the steps to cover the second half. You are then ready to add your ribbon, take some glue and stick it to the inside of one half of your egg. Give yourself a little reward and eat another chocolate egg before you fill up your piñata with any that you have left. There you have it, an Easter gift that can be filled up year after year.

These were so fun to make and they look awesome... Although they may be empty before they make it to our dining table! I am going to have to find something else to fill them with before Sunday.
What would you put in yours??

Sammy xxx

We would love to see if you have a go at this. Like with all our DIY's if you do, take a picture and share it with us on Twitter or instagram with the hashtag #livelovemake

Make it. Felt Garland with Blooming Felt

We are starting a little series today with the lovely Blooming Felt. We thought we would start simple with the first of our collaborations with this super easy, spring time Floral Garland. Blooming Felt has some really lovely felt shapes on their website, we just loved these retro flowers and thought they would make a great garland to cheer up some empty wall space.

As bloggers it's really nice when you get to review some new products on the market and so when we were contacted by the lovely Rebecca from Molly Coddles Kitchen recently about her Mystery Pack, we jumped at the chance to have a look see. Plus she resides just up the road from Sammy, so it's good to have a local crafter to review too.

The Mystery pack is full of Molly Coddles Kitchen goodies, with a value of at least £20 for the price tag of only £5, bargain. The Mystery Pack includes at least 6 items. These cute surprises may include a felt accessory, ring or bracelet, as well as earrings, magnets, hair clips, brooches and more. But you just never know until you receive yours what you will get - fun hey!

Ours came in a lovely Surprise black and white paper bag and what we found inside was: 2 pairs of button earrings (yellow and pink), Button ring, plastic Rose ring, cat keyring, bunting coffee cosy, felt flower brooch and flower hair slides.

All of the items are handmade by Rebecca herself in her Kitchen no doubt - hence the company name. The curled up felt cat keyring chain is super cute with a good quality keychain attached.

This felt flower brooch would make a lovely gift or to brighten up one of your own outfits. It's a really lovely put together piece once again.

These earrings and rings are definitely staying firmly with us, love button themed jewellery, it must be a crafter thing!

These hair slides will look great for all these weddings coming up and they are blue so that always helps to match most outfits for H.

This felt coffee cup cosy is a handy addition to the morning coffee run. Again, Rebecca has put this together really well and it is a fun item for the coffee addict.

All in all, the Mystery pack is a fun and inventive gift for someone, or for yourself. The items are well made and very different and so there is plenty of treats to have. It's a lovely idea that you don't know what your going to get as it makes it a real surprise. Although for some people that might not be a good thing as they like to know, but I like it as a concept.

Rebecca also has a subscription package called the Stud Club, which you can get for 6 or 12 months. You receive 2 pairs (or more) of stud earrings each month. Again it is a surprise what you get but you can give guidance on colours to help with your selection. You can buy them from the Molly Coddles Etsy Shop.

If you get one of these packs, let us know via Twitter or Instagram using the #livelovemake and we can have a look what you get.

H

Make it: Children's Robot Jumper

A few weeks ago I thought I would get a bit creative for a friend of mine's little boy's birthday. There is something so nice about making gifts for children, especially when you know they will really appreciate it. I decided that instead of making something from scratch, I would customise instead.

So, I thought what better thing to do than to make a robot to applique onto a jumper that I had bought from H&M. If you want to do something similar, then here is what you will need: Jumper or T-shirt - you can find this jumper here, Felt - a few different colours, fabric glue, Googly eyes with shanks, scissors, pins, paper, pen/pencil, needles, embroidery thread, sewing thread and a sewing machine or very patient hand sewing skills.

Firstly, design your pattern on paper, I used squared paper to help with the straight angles for a robot, but use whatever works for you and your chosen design. Then choose the colour of your base layer, I decided to make the robot out of grey and use 2 layers to make it really durable for a child's jumper.

After I had pinned the pattern piece to the felt, I cut it out and glued the two layers together with fabric glue to keep them from moving around.

I then made some buttons and other bits to make my robot a little more fun. I glued these on and then made sure they would stay on, by sewing them on too.

I then cut two slots for the eyes and pushed my googly eyes through and attached the washers on the back. I used these type of eyes instead of stick-on as I didn't want them to fall off!

I positioned my robot in the middle of the front of the jumper using pins and then began to zigzag stitch around all of the outside of the robot and over the middle panel to make sure it was all secure. With hindsight I should have used Bondaweb to hold it in place on the jumper as it did end up moving about - even with using pins.

That's it. Quite a simple customisation to do in a few hours of an afternoon and it makes a dull jumper look great.

Have you done anything like this recently, let us know in the comments or show us on Instagram or twitter by using #livelovemake. We would love to see them.

H, xxx

Make it. Felt Photo Decorations

H came up with this cute Christmas D.I.Y. when we were thinking of something to make for all our friends who have had babies over the past year. She wanted to make a little something for all our new mum friends that they can hang on their Christmas tree, a little different than the usual 'baby's First Christmas' decorations that you find in the shops. So the result was these cute photo decorations. I don't' have any kids so I filled mine with pics of my loves, I even had one spare for Channing Tatum!

You will need:

Scissors, Felt, Embroidery threads, Needle, Scraps of ribbon, White card, Pencil and marking pen and the photos you want to use

Take something round to use as a template to draw around, I used the inside of my Sellotape reel and draw a circle onto your card.

Cut out your card with your paper scissors.

Take your felt and cut three layers big enough to comfortably fit your template on. Use your template to mark your felt a little larger than your card, then cut out all three layers where you have marked.

Take two layers and put your card between them. With the third layer cut out a scoop at the top (that will be where you insert your photo) and the aperture for your photo to sit in, you can see I cut mine in a heart shape.

Use your embroidery thread to stitch around the edge of your aperture, I used running stitch, but you could also use blanket stitch.

Pop your ribbon scrap in-between the two back layers to create a hanging loop.

Pop all your layers together and stitch all the way around the edge to hold all the layers together. The closer to the edge you can go the bigger the photo you will be able to fit inside.

I printed off some of my instagrams onto normal white paper and placed them into each of the decorations I made.

This one of Steve and I fits so well in the heart aperture.

These are so easy and fun to make, you could make them with your kids, for your friends, or like me make a set for yourself with all the people you love in them. If you are making them as a gift you could embroider a little message on the other side, like a date or a name to make it extra personal. You can hang them on the tree or make a 'family tree' garland to hang up over your fireplace.

I think they are adorable and will be making a set for my niece this year too.

What decorations are you planning on making this year?

H and Sammy xxx

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