DIY Cute Pumpkins for Halloween

We will felt a few cute pumpkins for Halloween. Our pumpkins could be great gifts for friends and family. They will look wonderful in your living room or your kitchen as signs of beautiful Autumn and approaching Halloween.



We will need some orange felting wool, a glass of water and a piece of soap, black thread and a needle. We will felt our pumpkins with water and soap so it makes sense to do it on surfaces that don't get damaged by water. A kitchen table should be a good place once it's covered with a water resistant tablecloth. You won't need too much space. The amount of water you will use is minimal.



Take a piece of orange wool and form a ball in your hands. Water your wool and add some soap to it. Now gently squeeze the piece of wool a few times. Start rolling it between your palms. Keep rolling for 5 to 10 minutes adding water and soap if needed.



Once your ball has become somewhat firm and solid rinse it well and let it dry. The goal is to make the ball not too firm so that you will be able to get a needle through it once it's dry.



Once your orange ball is dry it's time to turn it into a pumpkin. Take a black thread and a needle. Start in the middle of the orange ball adding loops around it. Six loops should be OK. At the end it makes sense to add an extra loop to serve as a hanging thread.



It's an easy DIY project that produces a great result. You will have bright and cute pumpkins made of natural materials. They could serve as small Halloween gifts for your friends.

Christmas gift ideas

We will make a Christmas gift that is an easy and simple DIY project.

We will need a wooden bracelet, a few nail polishes and a roll of masking tape. The wooden bracelet should be plain wood. Such bracelets could be purchased on-line or in craft shops. I suggest you try it on before starting a project. It would be a disappointment if once you finish painting your bracelet won't fit.



Look at your nail polish collection and select a few nail polishes that match. We will use them as our paint. They are very durable and have a nice luster. Masking tape will help us paint the pattern we design.



To start apply masking tape to the bracelet. Make sure the tape is adhered well to the wooden bracelet. Otherwise you will have paint spills and the bracelet will look messy. I will paint a pattern of stripes on my bracelet, thus, I'll apply the tape so that there are stripes of untreated wood. I'll leave 4 or 5 untreated wood stripes on my bracelet. Now color wooden stripes with the same hue of nail polish.



Once the polish is dry slowly remove the masking tape. You will see nice colored stripes on the bracelet. Now apply a new set of masking tape to color the bracelet with a new nail polish shade. Repeat as many times as nail polish colors you have. Make sure the nail polish is dry and the masking tape is adhered well.



I like to mix colors without any rule or pattern, thus, a dark red color may be followed by a golden hue and then by a dark purple one. Then I change the order. I change stripe sizes as well to make my bracelet look special and creative.

DIY how to refresh an old necklace

I've recently bought an old necklace in a vintage store. It looked pretty dull and uninspiring but I somehow liked the beads and thought I could remake it into something fresh and new.

I first disassembled the necklace and separated all the beads into three piles. I washed all the beads thoroughly in a soapy water to remove all the dust. I dried the beads on a piece of paper.

I decided not to use red beads this time as I didn't really like the original combination of charcoal grey, golden and red. I put them aside for the next project. Instead I decided to go with gray and golden beads.

I threaded all the beads in a particular pattern with two gray beads followed by one golden bead. With a regular crocheting hook I crocheted beads one by one into a necklace.

The necklace is about 40 in. long and I can wear it as one or two strings depending on my mood and my dress:).

Since the necklace is rather long I can wear it as a bracelet or a head accessory. Its neutral colors go with pretty much any dress and it works ideal with a business casual or an office outfit.

Winter flower

I found this simple flower walking by my house on a snow day. The color combination chocolate brown flower on white snow caught my eyes. I simply couldn't walk by:)

DIY How to recycle wool scraps

I felt a lot of scarves, bags, brooches and, thus, I have a huge bag of wool scraps. The bag sits on my shelf. It's not heavy but takes a lot of my space! To somehow use all these bright and cool scraps I came up with an idea to turn them into felted wool brooches. Scraps will serve as an organic filler to make my brooches nice and puffy.



I have many scraps of different colors as I felt scarves in different techniques using different types of felting wool. Wool scraps are very nice to touch and they are totally eco friendly. I first decided to separate them into small piles by their color.



To make a wool felted brooch I cover a handful of wool scraps with felting wool and felt it in soapy warm water. As a result I get a base for my brooch that pretty much looks like a white pebble stone.



Once the brooch base is ready, I let it dry. Now it's time to turn it into something unique and beautiful. I embroidered a tree of life design adding small glass beads in blue, red and green. It's a great opportunity to use your imagination and come up with something totally different and special!

DIY How to make Halloween black cat felted coasters

It is so much fun to decorate your home for Halloween. If you have children it is even more fun as they usually love Halloween and craft projects that go with it. I have come up with an idea of making Halloween themed glass coasters. I already tried scary pumpkins. This time around I'll put a black cat on my coasters.



To make felted wool coasters we will need white, black and orange felting wool, water, soap and bubble wrap plastic paper.

On a piece of bubble wrap plastic paper arrange pieces of white felting wool so that they form a circle. You can put one layer of wool for future coasters to be thin or a few layers for them to be thicker. Don't forget that wool will shrink by about 30%. Depending on the size of future coasters add 30% to their original size.



Once the white circle is there start working on a black cat. Let one piece of black wool be the cat's tail, another - its back. Form a circle out of black wool and make the cat's head. Decorate your cat with additional features like orange eyes, whiskers made of black thread, etc. Use your imagination to make your cat funny, scary or cute! It's important you arrange all the details carefully so that they don't mix up later on.



Once the cat is ready start felting. To felt add soapy water and cover the wool with another layer of bubbled wrap paper. Make sure the original image of the black cat stays as much intact as possible. Start carefully rubbing the plastic paper. Felting shouldn't take long. Once all the wool fibers attach to each other the coaster is ready.



Rinse your coasters well and let them dry overnight. If you wish to make more that one coaster keep in mind that it's almost impossible to completely replicate your original image. You can more or less follow the steps of replicating your original design but at the end all cats will look different. If you love handmade and are ready for all your cats to look special and different go for it!

DIY How to make a maple leaf brooch

Let us make a felted brooch in a shape of a maple tree leaf. Autumn will be here before we know it. Fall inspired accessories will look great on our coats and outerwear. The maple leaf brooch is relatively easy to make. You will need a table to put a piece of bubbled wrap paper. It's great if the table's surface can endure water and soap as with felting you will get your table wet.



You will need felting wool in red, burgundy and brown. For felting you will need soap, water and bubbled wrap paper.



On a piece of bubbles paper arrange five pieces of burgundy red felting wool. They will be our maple leaves. In the middle add a piece of brown wool. To add color put a few small pieces of bright red wool here and there. I suggest you experiment with colors and add a bit of green, black, dark brown or ever blue. Colors will add volume to the leaf and make it look bright.



Once the leaf is arranged wet it with soapy water and cover with another piece of bubbled wrap. Start gently rubbing the plastic paper. The leaf is felted when all the wool fibers stay intact and attached to each other.



The brooch is almost ready. Rinse it well in water and let it dry. Attach a safe pin at the back of the leaf to turn it into a brooch. You can wear this brooch with pretty much any outfit. It will look great on winter coats and outerwear.

DIY How to make Halloween ghost home decoration

Some of us will most probably decorate our homes for Halloween. I would like to share an idea of a DIY project of making felted ghosts for Halloween.



We will need white and black felting wool, a glass to use as a form, soap, water and a piece of bubbled wrap paper.



On a piece of bubbled wrap paper put an empty glass upside down. Slowly start to cover it with white wool. It makes sense to water the surface of the glass beforehand so that our pieces of wool could stick to it. Once the glass is all covered with wool it's time to wet our wool with soapy water. It makes sense to water it slowly so that our wool doesn't fall off the glass and stays there covering it nicely. Once white wool is wet we can start making our ghost's "face".



With a piece of black wool make an eye and attach it to our white ghost. It's much fun to experiment with sized and eye position as our ghost's face expression will change dramatically depending on what shape and size ghost's eyes will be.

Once all the wool pieces are at place we can start the felting process. Carefully wrap bubbled paper around our glass and start rubbing it. Be gentle so that our wool doesn't fall off the glass. Once wool fibers become inseparable and our white form turns into a firm piece of felted wool it's time to rinse it.

To dry it well I let it sit on a glass overnight. Thus, the original form of the glass will be preserved and whet our ghost is nice and dry it will stay firm and round. I've attached a thread on top of it so that I could hang it anywhere in my room or outside. My little white ghost turned out to be not scary at all. But it's all in your own hands. Designing the ghosts face is the most creative part of the whole process!

Savory Hungarian Cheese Biscuits Pogácsa Recipe

My husband Andrei is an avid baker. Being born in Hungary he has close ties with this country and occasionally bakes Hungarian pastry. We would like to share a recipe of Pogácsa our favorite Hungarian savory cheese biscuits.



Ingredients:
- 250g cottage cheese
- 100 ml milk
- 1 level tablespoon of sugar
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp yeast
- 600g flour
- Two sticks (250g) butter
- 1 cup sour cream
- 2+1 egg yolks
- 200g shredded cheddar cheese plus some more for topping



- Microwave the milk for 20-30 seconds until warm, but not hot. Add the sugar and yeast, mix, let stand for 5 minutes.
- Mix the salt into the flour.
- Mix two egg yolks with the sour cream.
- Mash the cottage cheese with a potato masher, add the milk and sour cream and mix into an even mass.
- Cut the butter to 5mm (1/4 inch) cubes, then mix it into the flour. Crumble the butter pieces with hands or with a pastry blender, until you get pea-sized pieces.
- Add the cottage cheese-milk-sour cream mass, mix quickly and make a dough ball. Don't knead or overmix. If the dough is not coming together, add more sour cream, one tablespoon at a time. Don't over-moisturize the dough.
- Let the dough stand for an hour at room temperature.
- Roll the dough out into a square ~1cm (1/2 inch) thick.
- Spread the cheese evenly over the dough.
- Roll it up tightly and let stand again for 30 minutes.
- In the mean time, preheat the oven to 200C (400F), line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and lightly grease with spray oil.
- Roll the dough out into a long rectangle ~2cm (1 inch) thick.
- Cut out the pogácsa biscuits using a 4-5 cm (1.5-2 inch) round pastry cutter and carefully place them on the sheets.
- You can collect and combine the leftover dough, roll it out and cut again. The resulting "second round" biscuits won't be as pretty as the first ones, but they will taste just as great!
- Brush the biscuits with the remaining egg yolk.
- Top each biscuit with a pinch of shredded cheese (optional).
- Bake the pogácsa the hot oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown.

Enjoy!

GIY Tutorial How to make felted bracelet with buttons

I still have some buttons left from my crocheting adventure. I don’t like nice items to rest idle on my working table in my studio so I came up with an idea of a felted bracelet with buttons.

To make the bracelet we will need undyed felting wool, buttons of different colors and sizes, bubble plastic wrap, a needle and a white thread.



I first started with felting a bracelet. If you don't feel like felting today you can always buy a prefelted wool in any of craft and supplies stores. If you decide to go with a prefelted piece just cut a rectangle shaped piece out of a prefelted wool. The measurements could be about 2 and ½ inch by 9 and ½ inch.



I prefer to felt a bracelet myself as, thus, I’m able to make it as soft and thin as I wish.

On a bubble wrap piece of paper I lay out pieces of wool to form a rectangle. The rectangle will later turn into the bracelet. Since the wool will shrink I make the rectangle about 30% bigger that the original size. I’ll go with about 3 and ½ inch by 12 inch shape this time.



Once the rectangle is formed I wet it with clear water and add soap. Liquid soap should be fine. Once the piece is all wet and soapy I cover it with the rest of bubble plastic paper and start the process of felting. I stroke and rub the plastic helping wool fibers to bind and felt. When the wool has felted I rinse my bracelet in clear water and let it dry completely.



On my bracelet I lay out buttons of different sizes and colors. I can color coordinate them and add some extra buttons here and there for the pattern to look the way I want it to be.

I sew on buttons one by one with a needle and white thread. It makes sense to sew largest buttons first. It will help you preserve the original pattern and distribute buttons evenly on the bracelet.



Once all the buttons are on the bracelet it’s time to make a snap. One of the buttons can easily be used as a snap. Just make a cut on the opposite side of the bracelet for the button to fit in.

The bracelet looks bright and unique! It can be a great gift for someone who loves buttons. One can always substitute simple buttons with vintage ones or use dyed wool instead of white one as a base.

Happy crafting!