Felt Hearts...and a duck

"Be like a duck.  Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath."

--Michael Caine

Imagine if you will...

The big Valentine's party is tomorrow.  O has worked hard all day signing cards for her friends.  

"Let's do something special for my teacher, Mommy!"

Ok! 

But then I got distracted by my much too busy day and suddenly I was kissing her goodnight.

"Oh no, Mama!  I forgot my teacher's present!  Can you still make something?"

What else could I say but yes?  

"Oh, and, Mama?  Can you fix my duckie's leg too?"

So...I gathered my tools--my felt, my thread, a needle, a little Dr. Who--and settled in for the evening.

First thing first, let's fix that beloved duckie's little leg.

Voila!

Oooooooo!  Cookies!

Now, get inspired.  

I pinned these pretty little felt hearts ages ago.  I love them!

You can head over here to FeltSewGood for a very nice little tutorial. 

I mainly used the picture for inspiration and made them my own.

Simple and beautiful...happy.

"Duck love is recognizable in any language." --Edmond Manning, King Perry

Happy Valentine's Day!

Linking up!

Halloween Haunts

 In case you missed it, here is the project I posted over at Doodles and Doilies.  

Remember my Felt Dot Garland?  I love it.  Really, I do.  But it is Halloween and it needed some spookifying.  

Here's what I did:

I added some haunts to the garland.

Here's how I made them:

The first thing I did was find a circle cookie cutter and trace out 3 circles.  Then I sketched out the faces that I wanted.

I'm going to focus just on the ghost for the sake of space.  Hopefully, that will give you the basics enough to run with it, but if you need help or advice, please feel free to contact me!

Once you have your sketch/idea in mind, move on to some felt. 

Trace out and cut 2 circles.

Using the sketch, cut out the features for the face.

This was the mouth for my ghost. 

Please ignore my chipping nail polish.  It was late at night and I really wanted to finish this.  I figured it was better to have unfinished nails than an unfinished ghost.  I hope you'll understand.  =)

Now, using black embroidery thread and a running stitch, I sewed that mouth into place on one of the circles. 

On the second circle, I drew the letters.  BOO! 

Then, with the black thread, I embroidered those letters.

Now, it is time to create the ghost.  

I grabbed some purple ribbon to hang it with.  Place it on one of the circles in the position you like and pin it (take a lesson from me, pin on the right side so you don't lose your pin).   

I also grabbed a scrap of tulle, folded it up into a kind of a messy gather and pinned that in as well.

To sew the two pieces together, I used white thread and a running stitch again, being careful to keep my knots on the inside.  I was also very careful to make sure that my thread caught the ribbon and tulle to hold it in place.

Before you close it up, stuff it just a little with some fiberfill... 

which, by the way, was pretty much impossible for me to get a good picture of with my little camera.  You get the idea, though, right?

Finish sewing it up and, *bing*, you're done. 

He's kind of cute!   

For a ghost.

The possibilities are endless.  You can use any design you want!

These could even work at Thanksgiving (how cute would a turkey be?) or Christmas (reindeer?)  

What would you make?

I'm linking these haunts up here!

Halloween Polka Dots

Last year, I opened up my Autumn/Halloween decorations box in anticipation of setting up all of my fun decorations and inviting the holiday mood.

I was sorely disappointed.

The box was filled with old costumes, most of them saved from shows I have done (just in case), a paper lantern, a pumpkin treat bucket, and a witch hat.  

That was it.  

I don't know why it took me so long to realize I am so lacking in the Halloween decoration department.  Last year was our second Halloween in this house.  But, the year before I was 8 1/2 months pregnant.  That may have had something to do with it. 

Anyway, I made a goal last year to spend some time collecting or making more decorations.  I hit the clearance at Target on November 1 and got a few fun items, but, other than that, my collection is still pretty sad.

Enter the new blog and the accompanying motivation to make stuff!

The first thing I did, was gather up some felt:

This is my felt stash.  I look at that pile and think, "Wow, I have a lot of felt!" at the same time I'm thinking, "Wow, I need more felt!"  These are the complexities of my mind.

I pulled out the colors that seemed Halloweenish.  I didn't really want to stick with just orange and black.  While they are good colors, I like to pull in other colors too, to brighten things up a little.  Also, I didn't have much orange and black felt.

Anyway, I used that roll of tape as a template and trace the inside of it, several, several, several times, on the felt, like so: 

Then I cut them out.  

Now, let me make sure you know that what follows is not my original idea.  I have seen it in several different places and I filed it away in my mind long, long before I ever thought I would do a blog.  So, I don't have any inspiration to refer you to.  But, if my little explanation doesn't help, do a search for "felt circle garland" and you will find all sorts of help.

*UPDATE*  My sister, Erin, reminded me where I originally saw the felt circle garland idea!  My cousin's wife, Lori, has a fantastic blog.  They have a a beautiful family and have a lot of fun together.  Also, she is a master at family movie making!  I always want to go hang out with them whenever I read her blog.

Anyway, she made a circle garland and posted the tutorial here.  Her's is a bit more complex than mine and, as a result, more sophisticated.  It's very pretty.  Go check it out!

Ok, back to my post.

Here's what I did.

First, I piled all the dots in a basket.

I wanted to be sure I was using them randomly.

So, I reached in and randomly pulled out one dot at a time.

I sewed a straight line from one end of the dot to the other, but before I reached the end I put the next dot in line.  

As I reached the end, I lift the foot just a little to let the next dot in and then kept on sewing without cutting the thread in between. 

I kept doing that, sewing continuously, until I ran out of dots.

That's it!  The result is a fun felt dot garland!

And, since pictures always look better when taken outside, here is the result hanging on the dead tree (because it's Halloween) in my yard. 

And here it is hanging over the doorway to my kitchen. 

Any ideas what I should put on that little empty stretch of wall?

Happy Halloween!

P.S.  I just finished my project for American Crafter!  I'm so nervous!  Voting opens on Friday morning and I'll definitely put up a reminder.  Spread the word and get those voting fingers ready!

Linking up!