Finger knitting is a wonderful craft for the little ones. They pick it up super fast and can make lovely things with it. It’s very good for hand eye co-ordination and left brain/right brain functioning.
This craft has become a spring tradition for us. We help the birds to make the most comfortable and prettiest nests by leaving yarn scraps out for them in the spring time. My kids love to know that they are helping baby birds hatch.
Please visit my Spring Craft Page for many more lovely and fun DIY spring crafting tutorials.
Let me tell you about the felt I use. I think it’s vital to use the highest quality felt with all felting projects. You can buy the most beautiful wool felt at an online shop called A Child’s Dream. The owner, Debbie, has been a ‘fiber friend’ of mine for many years and I can vouch that her felt is always superb. She offers beautiful, high-quality felt in such lovely colors. My favorite of all are the organic, plant dyed felts… there’s nothing quite as lovely as the natural hues you get from nature. I use nothing but 100% wool felt for my crafts. There really is a BIG difference between cheap felt and high quality wool felt. If you are going to spend valuable time and effort making something, you owe it to yourself , and your creations, to use the best possible materials, always. The outcome will be SO MUCH more beautiful.
Method ::
1. Draw a stencil on a piece of paper to help cut the felt. My fairies are 2 inches wide by 2 inches long. You will double the stencil for the front and back of the fairies dress.
2. Cut out the stencil and pin it to the felt. Cut around the stencil to cut the perfect shape from the felt.
3. Unpin the paper, leaving the felt dress.
4. Fold the dress in half and snip a tiny hole in the middle for the neck.
5. Fold a pipe cleaner so that it is the right length for the arms (about 1 inch each) and joining at the neck. Twist the neck pieces together.
6. Position the pipe cleaner arms inside the dress and the neck through the neck slit.
7. Sew the sleeves of the dress together with a needle and thread. Sew the seam to about half way down the length of the dress.
8. Use the sharp ends of the scissors to carefully make a hole in the felt ball. Put a little glue onto the top of the neck pipe cleaner wire and insert it into the hole in the felt ball. Her head is now in place. Use glue to stick on the small wood beads for her hands.
9. Use glue to stick on the wool roving for her hair. Cut a long, thin piece of felt for a headband. Use glue to stick it in place. Use needle and thread to sew a hanging thread through her felt ball head.
10. Use glue to stick the feather butterfly onto her back for her wings.
11. Use glue to stick a bead or crystal onto the front of her dress.
12. Hang your pretty spring fairies somewhere special.
I’ve picked a few bare branches from my peach tree to put in handmade pretty yarn mason-jar vase from a DIY tutorial a few years ago. My felt fairies are dancing on them with joy. I’ve also put a few felt blossoms on the branches and some additional feather butterflies. They all look so beautiful on my windowsill.
A word about the felt. I think it’s vital to use the highest quality felt with all felting projects. I get my wool felt from a gorgeous shop called Felt On The Fly. The owner, Janet, has been an Etsy friend of mine for many years and I can vouch that her felt is superb. She has every color imaginable… do yourself a favor and check out her shop. I use nothing but 100% wool felt for my crafts. There really is a BIG difference between cheap felt and high quality wool felt. If you are going to spend valuable time and effort making something, you owe it to yourself , and your creations, to use the best possible materials for a couple of dollars more. The outcome will be SO MUCH more beautiful. Trust me on this. Get high quality wool felt from Felt On The Fly.
Step 1 ::
Cut a heart out of paper, about two inches big.
Pin it to the felt to use as a stencil.
Use sharp scissors to cut a perfect heart from the felt. Repeat until you have FOUR identical felt hearts.
Step 2 ::
Arrange the hearts in a circle, overlapping slightly, so that they look like petals of a flower.
Use hot glue to stick them together where they overlap. Be careful with the glue… we don’t want it to show.
Step 3 ::
Cut a long strip of brown wool felt, about 3 inches long and half an inch wide.
Use sharp scissors to cut small incisions in the brown felt. Incisions should stop about half the width of the felt so that it has a fringed look.
Step 4 ::
Measure the fringed brown strip of felt so that it can fit around the felt ball. Trim it so that it does not overlap.
Put hot glue along the bottom (uncut) side of the fringed brown felt strip and stick it around the circumference of the felt ball.
Step 5 ::
With hot glue, stick the felt ball/fringe to the center of the petals.
Step 6 ::
Turn the flower over and use one point of a pair of sharp scissors to make a hole in the back of the flower. Be firm in making this hole, but please be careful as if your hand slips you’ll can hurt yourself badly.
Step 7 ::
Put a little hot glue onto one end of the floral wire and insert it into the hole in the back the flower.
Voila! A pretty flower for your Valentine. Make a few more for a bouquet.
Here’s a step-by-step graphic for Pinterest so that you can save this project for later…
I’ve tried something new for you today. I’ve conquered my dislike of hearing my own voice and I’ve made a video tutorial… mini needle felted hearts so that you can make some for Valentine’s Day too.
I even painted my nails for the occasion!
These are the beauties you’ll be making. I made mine in red pink and hot pink but I love them in bright rainbow colors too.
Soon, Kitty will be listing prints of her gnomes for sale. This granddad gnome is one of my favorites. I’ll keep you posted as soon as they’re ready.
Hope you enjoyed the new project. I’ll be working on perfecting my video skills with new videos regularly.
Kitty has big plans for a room re-decoration. She wants to ‘cowboy’ it up… she’s into horses and cowboy boots. What a fun theme for an 11-year old’s room, don’t you think?
So, we are thinking of cool little additions to go with cowboys and horses… and still be girly and fun.
A dream catcher, of course!
We made a gorgeous lacy dream catcher with wooden beads, ribbons and white feathers.
Materials :
a crocheted lace doily (from a craft store)
a wooden embroidery hoop, 12 inches in diameter (from a craft store)
white goose feathers (from a craft store)
wood beads (from a craft store)
ribbon and cotton string (from a craft store)
a hot glue gun
We used our hot glue gun to attach the lace doily to the embroidery hoop, sticking the fabric all around the inside of the hoop.
We tied long strands of ribbon and cotton string to the bottom third of the hoop.
We used our hot glue gun to stick the quill of the feathers to the cotton string strands.
We threaded the wooden beads onto the remaining ribbons and cotton strands, letting them hang at varying, random lengths.
Voila… didn’t we make a wonderfully magical dream catcher?
And then we looked up the significance of dream catchers. They are a lovely tradition from Native American dream lore. They are intended to protect a sleeping person from negative dreams, while letting positive dreams slip through the holes of the dream catcher and glide down the feathers to the sleeping person below. The negative dreams get caught up in the web and expire when the first rays of the sun strike them. Isn’t that lovely!
We also made a colorful rainbow dream catcher for Teddy’s room a few years ago. You can follow our DIY tutorial here. It is a little different.
Picking beautiful flowers from my garden is one of the things that makes me feel the most awesomely accomplished.
I feel such enormous pride when I can make a vase of my very own flowers for my very own home. My Good Man laughs at me a little… he doesn’t quite get why it makes me feel SO good. But it does. And, my happiness swells each time I catch a glimpse of my beautiful flowers in a vase in The Sunny House.
It’s one of the everyday joys in my life. Fancy that!
Today, not only did I pick my own flowers for my home, I made a pretty vase for them too.
I think they look enormously gorgeous.
My gold vase was pretty easy to make. All I needed was :
* a mason jar
* a lace butterfly sticker
* washi tape (or masking tape)
* gold spray paint
Method :
1. I stuck the lacy butterfly sticker to the inside of the mason jar.
2. I wrapped the washi tape all around the outside of the mason jar.
3. I spray painted the inside of the mason jar with gold spray paint.
The washi tape kept the gold paint neatly inside the jar.
4. I carefully removed the washi and VOILA! My beautiful golden butterfly vase.
Kitty tried to steal my gold mason jar vase to hold her pencils.
It’s spring break and the kids and I spent some time today making this wonderful button flower bouquet in lovely pastel colors. Isn’t it pretty!
It was so easy to make.
Here’s our super- easy tutorial :
Materials you’ll need :
* colorful buttons
* wire
* wire cutters
Start by cutting the wire into strands about 10 inches long. These strands will be the stems of your flowers… so if you want them taller, cut longer strands of wire.
Thread the end of a wire stem through a button hole and back through another, bending the wire over to keep the button in place.
Voila! So quick and easy!
We put our button flowers into a vase and don’t they look wonderful on our mantle with our colorful felt garland from The Magic Onions Shop?!
If you are looking for more button crafts? Here is a lovely button garland we made a few years ago : How to make a button garland.
It’s always so amazing to see the gorgeous colors that come from natural dyes.
Each day of the week leading up to Easter, my kids get to choose what color egg to eat for breakfast. It’s become a super-fun family tradition!
I must say, I’m happy knowing that no artificial dyes are going into their growing bodies as they enjoy this fun.
Look at these bright colors we have achieved, totally naturally :
Starting with the blue egg at 11 o’clock, here is what made each color – red cabbage (yes… that gorgeous turquoise came from red cabbage!), red onion skins (yellow), beetroot (orange), red cabbage, blueberries (almost black!), beetroot and blueberries.
Here is a detailed tutorial on how we dyed each egg :
