Showing posts with label felt-o-ween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label felt-o-ween. Show all posts

Thursday, 19 October 2017

9 Free Halloween Craft Tutorials

Are you planning some Halloween crafting? Here are nine ideas from my free tutorial archive you might enjoy...

1. Eyeball buttons. These are great for giving an old cardigan a spooky twist! You could also sew them in other places too - eyeballs are the perfect Halloween accessory, you know.

Felt eyeball buttons
 Eyeball button cardigan for Halloween

2. Sew some cute little felt candy corn ornaments...

Cute felt candy corn ornaments
 
... or 3. Make a giant plush candy corn!

Felt candy corn

4. If you prefer your Halloween decor more chic than cute, why not make some candy corn inspired geometric Halloween coasters?

Geometric coasters for Halloween

5. Dress up as an owl with this fun felt owl mask.

Felt owl mask
 Felt owl mask

6. Disguise yourself with a felt moustache.

Felt moustache disguises

7. Turn any outfit into a Halloween costume with a sparkly dripping wound brooch.

Felt dripping wound brooch

8. Make a fun Halloween card to send to your friends (includes instructions for how to turn your drawing into an e-card!).

Cute Halloween Card
 
9. Finally, invite all your pals to your Halloween party with these easy-to-make invitations. You could also use these templates to make a cute Halloween garland.

Halloween Party Invitations
 
Follow the links to find all the tutorials. Happy crafting!

You'll find eight more of my Halloween craft tutorials in Felt-o-ween: 40 scary-cute projects to celebrate Halloween - including a vampire, graveyard cupcake toppers, skull bows and more! (I am a teeny bit biased but I adore this book: so much felt-y Halloween goodness!). Felt-o-ween is available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, The Book Depository and many other bookshops, you can read more about the book and take a peek at my projects here. (Disclosure: those links to Amazon & The Book Depository are affiliate links).

Cover of Felt-o-ween

For more Halloween craft ideas, visit my Halloween Pinterest board!

And for lots more crafty ideas to keep you busy after Halloween, visit my tutorial archive or check out my books: Super-Cute Felt and Super-Cute Felt Animals.

 Cover of Super-Cute Felt by Laura Howard

P.S. Thinking ahead for Christmas? Check out my free Christmas Ornament Tutorials.

Wednesday, 2 November 2016

October in Pictures: Terrific Tiles, Seasonal Stitching and Lovely Leaves

The clocks have gone back, the days are misty and the nights are drawing in... helloooooo November! I've got lots of crafty goodness planned for this month, but in the meantime let's look back at my Instagram photos from last month.

October started rather brilliantly as I spent the day on a photowalk with friends, exploring the southern end of the Northern Line and taking lots and lots and lots of photos. You can read more about the photowalk and the places we visited over on Kate's blog (I'm sure I'll get round to blogging about it eventually!)

Two of my favourite photos from the day involved tiles. Gorgeous black and green tiles in one of the Art Deco Northern Line stations we visited...


... and some equally fabulous tiles in a south London doorway.


It was so much fun walking round London in a little group looking for things to photograph - it's amazing the details you spot when you take the time to really look, and really interesting seeing how everyone's photos turned out.

Later that week I headed to the Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra Palace, helping out on the Interlace stand for a couple of hours (aren't their bowls amazing?) then spending the rest of the afternoon checking out all the other stalls and soaking up some textile inspiration.

https://interlacetextile.com/

I also made use of my Network Railcard and my Art Pass and went to Brighton for the day. I'd been meaning to visit Brighton for about five years, and I'm really glad I finally did! I spent the morning walking along the beach and the pier, then went to the Royal Pavilion for lunch and a long look round (oohing over the fabulous decor and discovering the building's fascinating history).

With Halloween approaching, I shared photos of a couple of spooky projects: the felt vampire I designed for Felt-o-ween (which includes 40 scary-cute projects to make from felt)...

http://bugsandfishes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/my-projects-from-felt-o-ween.html

... and the cute bat ornaments I designed for the "celebrations" section of my first book, Super-Cute Felt.

http://bugsandfishes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html

I also shared photos of the kitsch stocking I designed for October's issue of Mollie Makes magazine (it's always such a pleasure having my work in this mag!). 

http://bugsandfishes.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/a-kitsch-festive-stocking-for-mollie.html

Dreaming of autumn leaves while I was stuck indoors working, I dug out a couple of my fave photos from last autumn - a splash of gold at Kew Gardens... 


 ... and the Thames looking kind of amazing during an autumn walk this time last year.

http://bugsandfishes.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/an-autumn-walk-along-thames.html

I also looked back at a few Nice Days Out here on my blog - visits to an art exhibition in Reading Prison, Kirkgate Market in Leeds and a walk through Bristol. Three very different places, all filled with interesting architectural details!

I simply had to Instagram these beautiful church floor tiles I spotted on my Bristol walk.


When I wasn't busy reminiscing about past travels, I was working behind the scenes on some new things.

I couldn't resist sharing a sneak peek of one of the patterns I'm working on. These auricula brooches are one of the design variations I'll be including in my Primroses & Auriculas pattern.


I've also been prepping for my November class at the Village Haberdashery in London (we'll be making these vintage-inspired felt Christmas onaments!)...

http://bugsandfishes.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/upcoming-class-make-felt-christmas.html

... and sharing lots of festive felt ornament tutorials here on my blog.

http://bugsandfishes.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/christmas%20tutorials
 http://bugsandfishes.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/felt-reindeer-christmas-ornament-tutorial.html

In my spare time my craftiness continues to revolve around the Christmas quilt I'm making for my sister.

I hit the halfway mark with the quilting (woohoo!) then did so much quilting that I got totally sick of it and had to take a break to stop myself going a bit bananas. I've got to get back to it soon though or I'll run out of time to have it finished in time for Christmas!


That wooden hoop is a massive 16 inches (about 40cm) wide - you use it to keep a section of the quilt flat as you stitch. I'm using red thread and hand stitching a grid of lines across the quilt, sewing one line either side of each seam.

Each line takes at least an hour and a half to stitch: I've got 30 lines sewn and 14 still to go! Then of course there's the binding, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Finally, we were lucky to get some sunshine at the end of the month and I got to enjoy all the autumn colour on my walks to the Post Office and my days off (hurrah!). Autumn sunshine and bright autumn leaves are a great combo.


Every year that yellow tree drops a whole carpet of yellow leaves and a few float over the road and onto these yellow lines. All that yellow makes me so happy!


I'll share another Instagram round-up next month :)

I'm lauralupinhoward on Instagram - click here to visit my page and follow me. You'll also find me on Facebook and Twitter.

Tuesday, 30 September 2014

Felt-o-ween: a Very Special Giveaway!

To celebrate the publication of Lark Books' awesome new Halloween craft book, Felt-o-ween* I've got a copy to give away!


(* Okay so I'm a teeny bit biased as there are eight projects by me in the book but it is such a fun book with a ton of cute projects to stitch! If you love felt crafting + cute stuff + Halloween then you're going to love this book!).

But that's not all, oh no. The lucky winner will also win a copy of two other holiday-themed felt books from Lark: Fa La La La Felt and Heart-Felt Holidays...

 
  
... and the "Devil-Made-Me-Do-It" pincushion that I made for Felt-o-ween.


Just leave a comment on this blog post for your chance to win!

Leave your comment before 10pm on Tuesday 7th October, and I'll pick the winner at random on Wednesday 8th October. I'll then post the pincushion myself and pass the winner's address along so the books can be posted to them.

Please make sure you leave a name or pseudonym (no anonymous comments please!) and leave a blog link, Twitter username, Etsy username or email address so I can contact you. This giveaway is open internationally. Yay!

If I'm unable to contact the winner within a week, I will pick someone else. If you're leaving a comment with your Blogger profile, please remember that you need to have your profile set to public & to have a contact email visible for me to be able to get in touch with you.

UPDATE: this giveaway is now closed. 

Felt-o-ween is published by Lark Books. It's available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, The Book Depository, Barnes & Noble and many other bookshops.

P.S. The Amazon and Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links.

Tuesday, 9 September 2014

My Projects from Felt-o-ween

If you're a fan of cute stuff, Halloween crafting and sewing things from felt then you're gonna love Felt-o-ween: 40 scary-cute projects to celebrate Halloween.


I blogged about this book briefly last month, but it seemed a bit weird to be talking about Halloween in August. It's okay to talk about Halloween in September, right? :)

I'm excited to show you guys the projects I designed for this book! I was rather chuffed to see that some of them made the cover - maybe you can guess which ones are mine before you scroll down?


First up, there's the Creepy Crawly Wreath. I had sooo much fun making this wreath and I was especially pleased with how cute the spider turned out as I am not usually a spider fan. If you don't want to make the whole wreath, a few felt spiders would make spooky-but-cute Halloween ornaments.


Next there's some Candy Corn Bunting: those colours are a classic Halloween combo!


Don't fancy some bunting? How about a Rainbow Skull Garland, instead? I think these skulls would also look great appliqued onto things like cushions (pillows) or even sewn onto a t-shirt to make a Halloween-ready outfit.


Dressing up as an animal this Halloween? You'll need some ears! These Ears-To-You Headbands are simple to make and great for costume parties at any time of the year, or for kids who love to play dress-up.

 

I don't usually dress up for Halloween but I love wearing something slightly spooky as part of my outfit for the day.. like these Skull Hairbows.

 

If you're planning lots of Halloween-themed sewing, why not start with a Devil-Made-Me-Do-It Pincushion? The little red devil design would also make a great Halloween brooch. 

 

Make your Halloween-party cupcakes creepy by adding some Graveyard Cupcake Toppers! If you enlarged the ghost templates and added a loop of white ribbon they'd make adorable ornaments.

 

I enjoyed making all these projects for Felt-o-ween but I think my favourite is this one - the Vampire Plushie. I had to keep my work pristine before sending it off to be photographed for the book but I just wanted to hug this little guy.


And of course there are 32 more "scary-cute" projects to discover in the book! :)

Felt-o-ween is published by Lark Books. It's available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, The Book Depository and many other bookshops.

[P.S. The Amazon and Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links]

Thursday, 7 August 2014

Introducing... Felt-o-ween!

I've got some fun news to share today - Lark Books have a new crafty book out, featuring eight designs by me! It's called Felt-o-ween and it contains "40 scary-cute projects to celebrate Halloween"... all made from felt, of course.

http://amzn.com/1454708514

Felt-o-ween is a follow-up to Lark's earlier seasonal titles Fa La La La Felt and Heart-Felt Holidays. 

Fa La La La Felt was the first craft book I contributed projects to, way back in 2009 -  doesn't time fly?? It's so nice to still be working with the same team of lovely people, and it was soooo much fun designing Halloween-themed projects this time round.

It's especially thrilling to see that two of my projects (the candy corn bunting and the creepy crawly wreath) made it onto the cover! I'll be blogging more about the book and my other projects for it sometime next month. In the meantime you can peek inside over at Amazon.

Felt-o-ween is out now in the US and available to pre-order in the UK (it's due out in early September).