Needle Felting Project : Peppermint Butler

Catching up on comics today!  Well.  Trying to, anyway. 

Loving the first issue of the new Adventure Time miniseries Candy Capers -- a noirish who-done-it starring Peppermint Butler and Cinnamon Bun.  Adventure Time?  Mystery?  Noirish?  I am so there.

Of these three on the cover, I'm not sure who weirds me out the most.  But hey, everyone likes tea time?
 

Reading this reminded me that I had never taken a good picture of my felted Peppermint Butler!  He's not my favorite character from the show (just... so... unsettling...) but he was definitely fun to make in my own style. Bows are always really fun to felt for some reason.  Trying to make them actually look at all ribbony is always a challenge!  

A new octo-ish felted friend says "hello!" Trying to get back to being creative and making things is tough after a long, uncrafty spell -- it's hard to get back into the habit.  So I hope you enjoy this guy while I try to get back to something resembling a productive schedule.

Thirty Days of Lists

This September I've decided to try my hand at participating in Thirty Days of Lists, a very cool creative project run by two inspiring bloggy ladies, Amy of Lemon and Raspberry and Kam of Campfire Chic. The basic idea of the 30 Lists project is to complete a list every day during the month of September in whatever format you want -- scrapbook, digitally, in as much or as little time as you'd like!  

I'm a huge lister (fan of lists? list-maker?), and the idea of this project was so enthralling that I just had to sign up. It's so awesome to see all of these interesting, creative people joining together around the simple art of listing and I'm excited to see what everyone comes up with this September. 

I was thinking about doing the project digitally, and still might use Photoshop to play around with my physical lists. Instead, though, I've decided to challenge myself and start with blank index cards.  I have a bunch of paper crafting supplies, and hope to combine these and illustration to make each list and card fun and unique. I'm going to house them in this cute little box that I bought at Staples so that the project seems complete and has a place to live after the month is over :)

I started simple, making a cute insert for the card box out of things from my It's Paper, Dear! August box, which was filled to the brim with super cute paper bits -- I hope to post a full review soon!

If you're interested in listing along, make sure to go check out the project's website, 30 Days of Lists!
 

How do you use lists in your daily life? Are you joining in on 30 Days of Lists?

Adventure Time SDCC Fan Experience Wrap-up!

If you follow my Twitter, you might know that a month or so ago I was lucky enough to be asked to send some of my needle felted Adventure Time fan art to be a part of the Adventure Time Experience fan gallery at the New Children’s Museum during San Diego Comic Con. It was such an exciting experience for me to have my felties in any kind of gallery setting -- I was flattered to be included alongside so many talented folks, celebrating such a mathematical show. 

Also exciting was finding the above picture of my stuff in the exhibit in the write up on one of my favorite comics blogs, Comics Alliance! Probably this represents my fifteen milliseconds of fame.

A couple days ago my art made it home safely, and I was happy to find that they had sent the gallery labels for each set of work back to me with my artwork!  I love the illustration on these, it's so cute and whimsical. Hot Dog Princess also approves.  

AND THEN!  A few days later, I found a mysterious package in the mail with a big Adventure Time label on the front. What in the what! Inside was this totally awesome Finn tote bag, a Jake necklace, a keychain, and the bossest thank you note ever!  

A hero of art! Why yes thank you. And all in rhyme!  What a super surprise -- it was a pleasure just to be included in the exhibit. I've already worn the necklace to work a few times.  Because I'm totally an adult and professional. Yes.

The Cartoon Network really went above and beyond here, I want to thank them for really providing such a terrific fan experience for me!  I can't wait for the next fan art whim to inspire me... maybe finally make that Lady Rainicorn... 

Aaaaadventure Time!

Weekend Craftiness

Weekend greetings! Now that I am in the process of reconsidering and revitalizing this blog, I thought it might be good to do some kind of weekly craft post or posts, showing either my own work or interesting bits and bobs from around the internet.

My newest felted creature, the fellow pictured below, is my largest felting attempt yet!  He's so large that it has been difficult to take pictures of him using my normal photography set up.  I managed to capture only a few, including these two:

I love making large projects, but they're quite time consuming! A needle felting project of this size generally takes more than 8 hours to finish, depending on the scale -- larger ones take several days of work to look "finished," or for the fibers to bind together and look "felted."  This dinosaur was made by wrapping fiber around a wire armature and the legs are semi-posable.

This guy doesn't have a name yet, so if anyone has any suggestions feel free to leave them in the comments!

Needle Felted Tree

Happy Wednesday, gentle readers! 

I am in love with tiny landscapes lately, and decided to try creating my own using needle felting supplies. I'm aiming to make some terrariums one day, but since I had a few of these small terra cotta planters left over from another project, this seemed like a good alternative.

 

There's something very calming about looking at tiny landscapes, for me -- terrariums, bonsai, and so on -- whether they're real, or crafted.  It's a joy, I think, to bring a tiny piece of nature into our lives and homes, and really make it a personal experience!

No Mail Day Tutorial: Little Egg Doll

Little Egg Doll 

(an easy needle felting tutorial)

Welcome to my first needle felting tutorial! This little doll is inspired by both Russian matryoshka nesting dolls, and also by Japanese daruma. Make a cute orange friend, or experiment and have fun creating your own design with different colors and shapes!

Tools
Felting needles or a felting tool
Foam block or mat

Materials
Polyester fiberfill, about a handful
Wool roving in dark orange, light orange, light pink, and black, less than 1/4 oz. each

I usually get my wool roving from HiFiber Kits!

Birds and birds and birds!

Welcome back to blogging, Another No Mail Day!

My main craft these days has been needle felting, and Spring has been pretty inspiring! I've tried out several styles of bird, and experimented with wire legs; they've turned out pretty well, for a first try and wire work. Once I get more into the blogging habit, I hope to create a few tutorials on making some simple felted friends for everyone to try out -- I hope to make this website a good place for people to find answers to their common questions about the craft in a fun, simple, creative way!

Anyway, on to the birds!

Mermaids & mermaids

Lately I've been dabbling with making watercolor mermaids, for some reason. They always end up with long torsos because why not! Mermaids! I'm kind of on the fence about whether they wear clothes or not (Do they? Why would they? Should they? Who knows? Questions!), and while I'm inclined to say they don't, one of them just wanted a traditional pink pearly top.







Trying to work on improving my inking has been a challenge, since I find it really easy to make mistakes that are difficult to fix. It was also a tough journey trying to find materials that gave me the result I wanted -- even finding something that would stand up to watercolor without changing or smearing took a long time. Not to mention that the scans always come out looking sort of lifeless in comparison to the original. But overall, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, and am looking forward to making heaps of non-mermaid things and silly fan art in the future :)

Two friends...

Oh, hello!





Two pink friends on a cloudy, impending snow day. The left is the result of a night's needlefelting, and the right is a pink daruma I bought while visiting Miyajima a few years back.

Meet my newest needle felted friend and first attempted Cephalopod! This nervous little octopus decided he's going to go to school and become an art teacher, and who am I to stand in his way? Good luck, octo-friend!

Wheels and Plastic

Another belated illustrated outfit post! I've pretty much worn the texture off of those cords but they're so comfy and great for shopping or relaxing days. On 2/3 I went out and ended up buying a bigger cage and wheel for the hedgie. Ira wasn't thrilled at first, but since the first night he's become a wheel-running maniac! I'll go to bed to the sound of him running, and then wake up in the middle of the night and hear him still running like mad. Is there something inside little critters that helps them know how to use a wheel? Will he eventually become the buffest hedgehog ever known?

I've been thinking more about putting some items up in my neglected etsy shop, and experimenting with shrink plastic again with varying amounts of success. The results are so wildly different each time that it drives the perfectionist in me crazy trying to keep the shapes consistent. On the other hand, it's always fun to anticipate what's going to come out of the oven next ^^



Just a few cute ideas for now! Next up, a hamster for iamchubbybunny!

bunny magician friend

Recently I've discovered a new hobby, needlefelting! If you don't know anything about it, it's basically just stabbing wool with a barbed needle until it binds together into the shape you want. Which is, (un)surprisingly, terribly satisfying, as far as hobbies go.

One of my felted friends, the bunny magician:





I am considering turning myself into a felting machine for the winter months.

Here's a video of one of my Capybara-san toys -- the larger ones are still in storage, so for the time being it's just me, this little guy, and his pint-size brother. I wonder if these little guys are still popular in Japan these days?




The Kapibara-san/カピバラさん/Capybara-san flickr group has a lot of great pictures of these cute little toys!

Here are a few thrifting finds from the Care and Share today -- no good clothes, but a couple of neat miscellanies. The yellow and white fabric is for one of Johnny's projects, but I'm hoping I get to use some of it too to make something cute. The pin looked kind of interesting mysterious, I'm wondering if it is a logo pin for something? Probably just my imagination :)






I've had four people look at the yellow fabric but no one can figure out what the pattern on it actually is -- if anyone has any ideas, please let me know! Current suggestions include chickens, candies, and baby rattles.

It's been raining here and so I decided to try to crochet a teru teru bozu last night! Though really I like the rain, so... maybe I should hang it upside down like it says to do in the wikipedia article. He came out pretty well for the first ami I've made without using a pattern.

I used to love seeing these little guys around when I was living in Japan! Lately everything has made me feel really nostalgic...





Teru-teru-bozu, teru bozu
Do make tomorrow a sunny day
Like the sky in a dream sometime
If it's sunny I'll give you a golden bell

Teru-teru-bozu, teru bozu
Do make tomorrow a sunny day
If you make my wish come true
We'll drink lots of sweet rice wine

Teru-teru-bozu, teru bozu
Do make tomorrow a sunny day
But if it's cloudy and you are crying
Then I shall snip your head off!

Bunnies are brown
Bunnies are white
Bunnies are always
An Easter delight!

On a beautifully sunny but bitterly cold day, here's another fellow from Amigurumi World, and my first attempt at making a full animal with arms, legs, and ears. Actually, it's more like my second or third attempt, thanks to the sneaky animals I live with. Up until recently the dog had been working in collaboration with the cat to get CDs, books, and small stuffed animals off of shelves and tables and into his waiting teeth. Either they're starting to get tired of this trick or I'm starting to get wiser -- this bunny actually got finished without incident.

The arms and legs on these little amis are the hardest part for me to make because of their small size, but the head, body, and ears were a breeze. Getting the hang of something new is a nice feeling!