Blog Give Away!

Would you like a free Creepy Skeleton sculpture? Yes, he is quite differant from from my normal sculpting of pretty fairies and sweet little babies. However, this is not only a fun blog give away but also a way for me to introduce some of my new pieces. I have ventured into a new genre of sculpting - the dark side. After I did my first piece I was very excited about this new area of creativity.

I will continue sculpting my fairies, babies, elves, etc, however, I will now also be offering some dark and creepy scultures for those that enjoy the dark and daring stuff! Even though it is not Halloween I am finding these little goulish sculptures are bringing quite a smile to my face. This was very much a big surprise for me as I did not think I would be attracted to this area of sculpting.

Visit My Dark Side Sculpting Website Page. These pieces are now listed in my Etsy Shop for sale.







So, with that said, here is a small introduction with my skeleton - who is just wee bit creepy ;-). What I have coming up is much differant -- but you get the idea - creepy, dark, goulish, but at the same time, cute! :-)

He is made of a very hard air dry clay called Sculpt-It. His head is moveable and his wings are adjustable. He has a collection of tiny clay skulls at his base.

He is loads of fun with that big creepy grin and big teeth. He stands about 5" high.

So here is what you need to do to win:

Do one (1) of the items listed below and you are entered.


1. BE A FOLLOWER: If you are already a follower, you are already entered. If you are not a follower, use the FOLLOW link on left hand side of my blog and you will be entered.

-- OR --

2. JOIN MY MAILING LIST: If you are already on my mailing list you are already entered. If your not on my mailing list, you may sign up using the link on left hand side right below my profile information.

-- OR --

3. Leave a comment on THIS Blog Give Away post.


How to increase your chances to win!

Post my giveaway at your blog, and you will be entered twice! Be sure to let me know you posted my give away at your blog (just post a comment in THIS Skeleton post).

This give away will run from April 1st through April 19th.
The winner will be picked using the Random List Generator.

Nuno Felted Scarf With Angelina Fibers

I had said Friday's are Nuno Felting days and so far I am able to stick with this schedule. My daughter was home on spring break when I made my last scarf and she enjoyed seeing the process and how it is done. Of course, she wanted one. So here is the one I made for my daughter. Her request for colors were purples and blues.

So again first I dye my silk chiffon scarf. Purple is always a tricky color. Too much red and its pink, too much blue and its too blue. So here's my dye mixture: Crimson, royal blue, dab of pink, dab of violet, dab of lilac. I like it!




This time I am doing a pattern of circles down the scarf. I leave the circles open with no wool in center so that the silk chiffon will come through. I think this would make a nice affect. I also took some black mohair yarn and outlined the circles to make them more prominent in the design.




I also am trying out adding some Angelina Fibers. The fibers I have are such a nice sparkly deep blue, so I think this will work nicely! Hmmmm, I like this, I think I am going to order more Angelina Fibers for Nuno Felting.




I am done with the design and I put my tulle netting over the wool.



Again, I wet it down with my hot soapy water. Agitate, agitate, and agitate to get those pretty wool fibers tangled up! So I use my hands and just keep rubbing. When it looks good (i see fibers coming through the tulle) I am ready to roll.



I roll up the whole thing with the pool noodle on the inside, put on the music, and start my rolling! I take breaks after every 100 rolls and check it. This scarf I checked about 3 times to make sure all was well.



WHen I am done rolling and I see fibers are very well felted into the silk (you can see them coming through the back of the silk scarf), it is time for the fulling! Oooo, I get so excited at this stage! So I take it to the sink and gently agitate the scarf in my hands using more hot soapy water. Use gloves so you can use water that is pretty hot and you do not burn your hands.



My really really favorite part! Fulling. I lift and drop, lift and drop -- many times onto my tread surface. I take to sink to keep putting hot water on it as well - I willl do this about 3 times and then back to the tread for more dropping. SPLAT! This is so much fun -- I love Friday's!



Now I see it is getting so many nice puckerings and bubbles, I am excited about this scarf. I check those little circle designs and the silk chiffon is nicely puckering up through those holes. Wow, how cool is this!





Here is my daughters scarf. I really like the colors she chose for this scarf. I like the circle design throughout the scarf. I rinse it in vinegar and hang to dry!
When it no longer smells like a wet sheep, you can wear it! :-)
I think she will like it!

Ebay Listing Announcement

I have listed two OOAK Sculptures on 5 Day Auctions. Both auctions will end on Sunday March 29th.

To view these auctions, please click on their images.

I am still anxious for spring to arrive! So here we have another Bunny Baby!



Woodland Baby Elf - Needle Felted Body

Nuno Felted Scarf

Friday is Nuno Felting Day. Only yesterday I got very busy and could not get to my nuno felting - I also wanted to think more about my design and what I wanted to do. So today, Saturday, ended up being Nuno Felting day instead.

I wanted to do a scarf this time. I had two silk chiffon scarf pieces and they were not that long individually. One was also slighty wider than the other. But for my first scarf I figured I would just give this a try and use these two pieces. So what I did was sew the ends of the two scarfs together to make one long scarf. I sort of liked the fact that one side would be more narrow than the other and end up maybe even more interesting this way.

First thing I did was decide on my color for the scarf. I love greens, I love the colors that can be paired up with greens and I find wearing green is a good color and goes with alot and great with jeans. So I prepared my dye bath for a green color. I love the Faery Green color I have available in my silk that I sell. So I decided to start there. So I used chartreuse, a dab of brown, a small dab of turquoise, and also some emerald green. I am very excited about my scarf when I see my green color! After my scarf is dyed I will be ready to go.

So here we go, once again, my nuno felting! I just love this stuff!

All images are clickable for larger viewing.

My chiffon scarf in the dye bath.



I lay out my scarf so it will dry on the bubble wrap and I planned my colors pulling out all my wool to see what I like. I decided on a deep teal, some greens, a pretty magenta fushchia color. I am still not sure how to do like real patterns, flowers, and thats what I had wanted, but for my first scarf I just decided to use the colors layed out in a design. I also decided to leave about 6 or so inches at each end of just plain silk and no wool. I felt it would drape nicely that way rather than the wool going all the way down to each end.

I left alot of areas where the fabric would be showing for some nice affect.



Now, I put my piece of tulle on top of the scarf and wool and wet it down. Again, I agigate the wool so the fibers start tangling. I make sure my design stays put for the most part. I keep rubbing it through the tulle with my hands. When I see the wool fibers coming through the tulle is when shorty thereafter I will roll it up and start rolling it.



This time around I decided to remove the tulle at this stage and lay down the nylon curtain before rolling it. With such thin layer of wool fibers I didn't want to have the tulle start to stick too much during the rolling.



Now I roll up the whole thing and start my workout! Rolling and Rolling and Rolling! Put on some music and its alot of fun! My excercise for today. :-)

If you read my other tutorials, I unroll and check every 100 rolls or so. When I see the wool fibers moving to the back of the silk scarf I can tell the fibers are adhering to the silk chiffon. I do the pinch test on the front side to make sure the fibers are also plenty tangled and then I began my fulling process. I like this part!



For fulling, I roll up the scarf gently into a ball and bring to sink and run hot water over it and agigate it some more in my hands. I also added a little bit more soap as well. I gently squeeze and agitate for maybe 5 mins. Then I gently squeeze out the water and start dropping the scarf onto my worktable from about 12" high from the air and letting it splat down on the table. This is what makes the wool start to full and then you will start seeing amazing things happen with the silk chiffon. it starts to pucker and shrink in with the wool.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this part and seeing the transformation and wondering what I will end up with. Its like a surprise!



Here is my scarf and I just love it! I will wear it alot I am sure! I love the green silk color and I love all the puckers and scrunchie areas. This stuff literally makes me drool and all I can think about is doing more!!



Thanks for viewing and I think I will always be up to something with Nuno Felting. It has me hooked! I love color, I love fabric. I love the ability to dye my own fabric colors and make anything my little heart desires when it comes to this fiber art. And I just love the ending and seeing what turns out!

Zan Asha's Bunny - Esther

Head on over to Wild At Heart blogspot for your chance to win her adorable Bunny giveaway! This bunny is sure to bring spring here quickly!

Ebay Auctions Starting Tonight

I will be listing two pieces on Ebay auction tonight. Calista is being relisted from last week and I will have a new bunny baby listed. I will post the links to the auctions in this post later tonite.


Pink Bunny Baby
She has a Needle Felted Body and comes with her needle felted bunny friend.




Calista - a 5 1/2" Full Sculpture Baby Fairy

Kreativ Blogger Award

I received my first blog award passed on by Sue Barton Originals. Stop by Sue's site and check out her Kindreds. Those cuties have had me smiling for days since I first saw them! Ok, so here are 7 things I love.

The sound of a mourning dove coo'ing. - Often confused as an owl (which I also love), the mourning dove makes the most relaxing sound to me.

Vintage and antique stores, old junk stores and flea markets.

The smell of the desert after rain.

When animals sneeze - it makes me laugh. Here's a good baby panda sneeze.

Native American Drumming and flutes.

Thunderstorms at night with beautiful lightning across the sky.

Relaxing coffee shops and a big cup of bold coffee with caramel.

Dry Needle Felting "Sheep"

Having tried the wet felting, and just loved it, I am now I am intrigued by dry needle felting. I can't wait to make all sorts of little cute critters using this method. Here's my first needle felted project, a sheep. I am having too much fun! :-)

What a Beautiful Find!

I have had my eye on these for quite some time in the sewing shop near me. They are multiple strands of beautiful ribbons, trim, and yarns. When I initially inquired they were $20 a skein. Insane! I loved them but could not see spending that much for one of them. No matter how beautiful it would look worked into a fairy costume. Well, the sewing store near me is moving their shop and had all sorts of sales. These were marked down to $6.00 each!! Needless to say I snatched them up at that price. I just love good sales and having the patience to find them at the right time for the right price. Now all I have to do is make a fairy.

An Old New Friend

I had to blog about this experience. It has left me with such amazing feelings over the last few weeks. I recently found my childhood friend. A friend that I had from 5 years old all the way through highschool. Somehow or another and perhaps memory just fades me on specifics on how it happened, but it seems we went our seperate ways after high school graduation and unfortunately lost contact for many many years.

Throughout these years of separation there were many occasions that this friend entered my thoughts. Whether it be from certain particular shadows from the sunshine on the ground, long hot summer days, or even certain smells that would bring me back to my youth and those fun filled days with my best friend. I truly beleive this friend entered my thoughts because she was truly, in fact, a 'true friend'. Perhaps in the quirky way of the universe, when she entered my thoughts maybe it was because she was also thinking of me too? And we were somehow communicating through our subconcious and the universe.

The reunion of finding her was very emotional for me. As we are both, obviously, so much older now and seeing each other and how we are today makes you feel like "WOW", where did the time ago?" And how did we lose track of each other? So I suppose I was feeling sad and old but at the same time happy to have found her and reminiscing about our childhood and the fun we had. The inseparable beings that we were is truly quite amazing when you think about today's world. Back then we always had time together, the days seemed long, the tasks of life not so heavy. Granted we were children, without jobs, or houses to care for or bills to pay. However, even when I think about the surrounding neighborhood families, life back then just seemed alot lighter, a little more carefree, and neighborhood families were all friends.

I am so happy to have found her again and I am happy to have the opportunity to renew such a beautiful and true friendship. What are true friends? I found this wonderful paragraph online and I hope when you read it and you can think about someone in your life that is this person to you. Or when you read it you see yourself as this person to someone else - that true friend! Everyone needs a true real friend. Without copying and pasting the whole paragraph I found, here were some highlights.

Oh yeah, that photo is of my best friend and I on junior prom night. I acquired this image from taking a picture of a picture with my digital camera as I do not have a scanner. It worked ok. So to my new old friend, Karen -- you were every one of these highlights and so much more!

FRIENDS:

Beyond a doubt, we must know and remember that true friends can and will improve our lives.

Real friends can be a source of self-esteem, affection, and good times.

In times of despair, for example, true friends will offer hope.

The right friends can help someone feel worthwhile.

Some of us will remember that school, work, parenting, and senior citizen life are better and more fun when shared with friends.

But for the friendship some of the factors are honesty, faithfulness, similar religion and culture, loyalty, being a good listener, love, having ideas in common, and to a lesser extent, age and intelligence.

But there are other reasons why real friends are essential. We must be very aware that real friendship is vital throughout life.

You can quickly discover real and good friends when you are down or when you require their assistance the most. Why? Because a real friend will not desert you when you are down, and will not turn against you in jealousy, for example, when you succeed.

What I did with my Nuno Felted Piece

FRONT



BACK



INSIDE



Here is the purse I made. I didnt know too much about dry needle felting, so I looked it up online. I actually had a small kit at home which included the needle and the block. So I read online how to do it and the first thing it mentions is how sharp the needle is. Well leave it up to me to hurt myself with that sharp needle! I pricked my finger, not just once, but 3 times doing the felting on the purse. LOL. so a few pricked fingers later, here is the purse. I crocheted the strap with some great biernat felting yarn and then felted the strap and attached it. Made a small pocket near top of inside too.

My Finished Piece of Nuno Felt!

Today was Nuno Felting day. Nuno means fabric in japanese. Unlike just felting with wool roving or batting you incorporate an open weave type fabric into the felting process. The wool fibers then felt TO and THROUGH the fabric and makes for the most wonderful piece of felted fabric.

I must say I am completely hooked on this process! I thought I was excited when I first did wet felting using just the wool roving. However, I knew when I read about Nuno Felting I would be even more excited! Keep in mind I am still so new at this but some part of me is already so natural with this process.

For today's nuno felting I had said I would start small. Well, so much for starting small! HA! I decided that since my first initial attempts at regular wet felting went so well I just wanted to dive right in and just do a big piece of nuno felting. Why start small, just go for it! HA . The only thing I was concerned about was the water and soap mess, but I was able to contain that with some towels and big sponges. I had also found two pool noodles this morning that I had in my garage and this are good to use! So I cut one in half and off I went!

I dont know what it is, but I when I felted the wool and fibers the first time I knew there was something natural in me that felt comfortable with this process. I am feeling very natural and at ease and not intimidated at all when I started this piece. Usually when I jump right into something I know nothing about I can still feel some hesitation and wanting to lean more towards the conservative side in any first attempts. I did not feel this way at all with the Nuno Felting.

I glanced at my instructions which I found online and then just went to it! There is something fun about doing this when I almost see no way to mess it up. Now those are projects I like! HA! I loved picking all the colors, there really isn't too many rules you have to stick to, so going with the flow was what made it so much fun. Nothing all too technical to worry about either just knowing when its right to move to the next stage. Also making sure the fabric you incorporate is always surrounded by wool so that it felts into your piece. So here we go and this is how it went!

All images are clickable for larger viewing.

First I lay out my plastic over my workspace. I forgot to lay down my bubble wrap on top of that, but all went well anyway without it -- I did add it when I did an unroll and check on the piece.

Then I lay out my design/pattern using lots of colors with the wool roving. Again I am sort of liking the whole sunshine theme and sun colors with turquoise, so I went with that theme. Trying to make little sunshines across the workspace.




Then I cover this layer with my silk gauze (which I had hand-dyed earlier in the morning a turquoise color).



Then on top of the silk gauze, I lay out my next layer of pattern with the wool rovig. More suns, bigger and also used some black as well. I also decided to experiment with adding some ripped and torn pieces of the red/orange silk gauze (also handdyed earlier this morning) on to the edges so they would felt in but also remain outside of my piece as sort of decoration. I was not sure how well this would go but I figured if I don't like it I can always cut them off at the end.




So now my design is done and I cover the entire thing with a polyester sheer curtain (from walmart); this holds the fibers in place during the felting and this fabric will not adhere/felt in with the fibers.



Then I take my warm soapy water (see earlier Wet Felting tutorial in my blog) and then start wetting it all down from center working outwards getting the entire piece wet and soapy. I then agitate with my hands to mush all the fibers together (again, see my wet felting tutorial in blog archive for more details here).



Now I am ready for the fun part, I roll the whole thing up -- all layers and including the pool noodle. I tie off each side with pantyhose to keep it together while I roll. And then I start rolling for maybe 15-20 mins.



I then unroll to do a check and make sure the nylon curtain is not stickin/felting in to my work (it likes to try but it really won't however good to check to make sure). All is well! So I roll it up and continue rolling more for maybe another 20-30 mins. You can take breaks when your tired, there is no hurry and no time limit in the process and you can unroll and check as much as you like. You are wanting to see the fibers starting to tangle and adhere to each other.

The next time I check it it is looking good and the fibers passed the pinch test! Yeah! Now the fun part, fulling! Which is done by tossing and throwing the piece.



The rest I did not have pictures for, but now is time to start the fulling process. I take it and wet with warm water, scrunch in a ball and gently squeeze and work it up in my hands. I also start my 'tossing', where you just pick it up and slap it down on the table. This part was fun and it felt like baking cookies and slapping dough around. So you pick it up, throw and toss it down, and continue doing this and you will then see the fulling process start happening and the piece starts the shrinking. A few times I also bring it back to the sink to wet with warm water and maybe little bit of soap as well. Then keep tossing and throwing. Geeeesh I am having so much fun! LOL Throughout this process I stretch and shape the piece to how I want it to end up looking. You have some control over this process with the stretching and shaping. This picture is how it looked right before I started the fulling process.



Now I have my completed piece and it has shrunk quite alot . But it's beautiful! You can see how the silk gauze puckers up in areas and makes for such beautiful texture. Overall I am happy with all the colors I chose in the project. Not sure what I will do with it yet. It can be a small purse, or a scarf or I can always cut it up and incorporate into anything I want even my sculptures. The possibilities are endless!

I am pleased with my piece! Yipee!!

Did I have fun? You Betchya!

Did it make a little bit of mess doing it? You Betchya but who cares! HA!

Will I make more? You Betchya!

Thanks for viewing. I am not a professional felter, if you follow this, keep that in mind and also do your own research online. I just had a boat load of fun, a natural feel for this process along with a passion for color and fibers!