Friday, October 19, 2012

DIY How to make a Christmas tree decoration

It's about time to start thinking about Christmas gifts and home decoration ideas. If you plan on having a Christmas tree it's a great time to make an ornament for your tree with your own hands. It will be a small gift for your Christmas tree. I hand felt home decoration items and am happy to share how to create a simple Christmas tree ornament.

Christmas tree felted ornament ball

You will need a plastic ball and felting wool of different colors. For felting you will need plastic wrap paper, water and soap. To complete your ornament you will need a needle and a thread.

felting shar ball

To make the ornament cover the plastic ball with layers of white felting wool. Make a pattern you wish to have on the ball by adding small pieces of dyed wool here and there. Colors that work well for Christmas include red, green, brown. Once your wool is layered wet the ball with soapy water and cover with plastic wrap.

how to felt a christmas decoration

Start felting by pressing and caressing the wrapped ball. Be careful not to mess up the original pattern. You will always be able to fix it at the early stages of felting before the wool felts completely. Add water and soap if needed. Continue felting until the wool attaches well to the ball and all the design details are firmly felted in.

DIY felting ornament

Rinse the ball in fresh water and gently squeeze the ball to get rid of extra water. Let it dry overnight. Once your ball is nice and dry attach a thread to the ball. You can glue the thread or if you want it to be more eco friendly make a whole in the ball to let the thread through. Thus, you won't need to use any glue.

Happy crafting!

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Exotic felted flowers by Roltinica

We all get inspired by beautiful flowers. In spring and summer with so many flowers in bloom we get positive energy just by stepping out into a garden or walking in a park. It’s somewhat harder to find flowers in winter though. I’ve recently came across an amazing artists Elena who makes exotic and beautiful felted flowers. She helps us stay surrounded by flowers during cold winter days.



Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
My name is Elena and I live in a beautiful city of Naberezhnye Chelny, Russia. I love flowers, nature and bright colors. Our nature is some what reserved and we don’t have exotic flowers and plants growing in our gardens and forests. Felting unique looking flowers is a way for me to compensate for the luck of nature diversity and complexity.



How did you start?
It all started with my daughter Tatiana once coming across a felted purse tutorial on the Internet. The idea of felting a purse was quite inspiring and we ended up making one. That’s how I started hand felting.

Russian traditions of felting date back centuries and these days there are a lot of books and tutorials on how to felt pretty much anything. After experimenting with making a purse and other items I tried to make a flower. The process absorbed me completely and I make mostly flowers ever since.

I felt pretty much every day and experiment with felting a lot. I’ve come up with my own technique of felting flowers so that fluffy wool turns into smooth and soft yet firm flower petals. I try to make my flowers look real and the only thing that makes them different is a lack a scent.



What inspires you?
My family supports and inspires me in everything and I’m very thankful for that. My mom is my most authoritative critic – if she does not like the flower, I will remake it.

Nature and flowers are great sources of inspiration for me. I experiment with felting a lot and new techniques and fibers offer new possibilities and let me create different and unique items. On top of wool silk is another fiber that is great for felting. Mixing wool and silk I make interesting textures that become exotic flowers.



What are your creative plans for the future?
I wish there were more that 24 hours in one day! I plan on writing a master class for flower felting. People are often curious to learn how I make my petals and stamens that look like real. I’ve been experimenting a lot with felting to get to the point where my felted flowers look fresh and live. I’ll be happy to share my knowledge with other felt loving artists.

Thank you, Elena


Monday, May 21, 2012

DIY How to make felted watermelon earrings

To make bright and happy summer inspired watermelon earrings we will need felting wool in bright red, green, white and black, soap, pure water and bubbled wrap paper.



To make a watermelon we will need to lay out wool in a shape of “hot dog”. First we cut a piece of red wool of about 5 inch. We mix red wood with a bit of black wool to make it look like our watermelon has seeds. On top of red wool we lay white and than green wool. As a result we will have a green wool “hot dog” that inside will have red, black and white wool.



Once our “hot dog” is formed we wet is with water and soak it in soap. As it gets wet and soapy we start rolling in on a piece of bubbled wrap. We roll it on a plastic wrap for about 15 minutes until it gets firm. The wool will shrink by about 30%. Let our felted piece dry well.



Our next step will be to cup our “hot dog” into equal parts. You can cut it with scissors. As a result we will get round pieces of felted wool that will look like freshly cut watermelon. If you attach pieces of felted watermelon to simple earrings hooks you will get nice and fresh watermelon earrings.



The watermelon earrings look fun and bright. They will be a truly hand made item as I doubt you can buy anything like that in a jewelry store. The fact that you've created them with your own hands will make watermelon earring even more special.