around the world with needle felting, a new book

i've seen a lot of japanese needle felting books, and i really believe this one deserves to be shared. it's called 'small world trip-encircled by felted wool,' and beside the wonderful idea of a world encircled in felt, i love this idea of organizing a series of projects based on the cultures of different countries. this leads to a nice mixture of animals, scenes, and other small motifs.

here are the projects from holland: a girl, wooden shows, and a little windmill scene.
koalas from australia,
and pandas from china.

there a full flickr set here, and the book is in my shop too.

wee easy stuffed animals project, fabric crayons

this is one of the projects i was working on last month: tiny stuffed animals.
they are super easy to make, i used a cute cotton ed emberly print, and just sewed around the animals.
i made a simple background cloth with fabric crayons.
here's how to make them.

i used 1 piece of print fabric with animals on it, and one piece of plain white fabric for the back. if you are using a print where you have animals facing both directions, you could match them up and make a reversible project-mine only have an animal on one side.

put the 2 fabrics right sides together, and sew most of the way around each animal, leaving an opening. i found it easier to sew them all before you cut any out.
cut them out.
turn them inside out and stuff. hand sew the rest of the way around. (sorry, no photo!)
these are the fabric crayons (from muji, my favorite store). they worked great. after using these or other fabric crayons, heat set with an iron on low heat, put paper on both sides of the fabric before ironing.
fabric crayons are great for kids too! here are my little pals that i made the animals for, helping me give the fabric crayons a test run.

if you wanted to do this project with small children, they could draw the background, or you could also turn their hand drawings into little stuffed animals.

back to school?

this cute pencil case is by alliebeans, whose etsy shop is full of even more goodies, lots made with sweet japanese fabric.

today i finally am finishing my application for kobe university, which i will turn in tomorrow. whew. in honor of kobe u, whose unofficial mascot is the wild boar, and thinking about going back to school, this pencil case with its wee inoshishi was just the thing!

astulabee

beginnings, originally uploaded by astulabee.

astulabee makes the cutest things. i just love these creatures. she sells them on etsy, and you can see more (including this sneak peek of some upcoming collaborative projects) on her flickr stream.

sloth

this adorable sloth bag was made by etsy seller mairuru. she lives in yokohama japan, and her shop is full of sweet handsewn goodies. she has a lovely blog too.

today i am feeling slow, like this little sloth. 4 more days until i can go see the doctor, and hopefully get my cast taken off.

win bookhou animals from bloesem kids

would you like a chance to win these lovely soft stuffed animals, made by bookhou? for the details and to enter, check out bkids.

ann wood's cardboard horses on design sponge

i love this project from design sponge, from the creative mind of ann wood. she starting making these little cardboard horses as a creative activity of 'paralysis prevention,' and they are lovely as an installation of multiples. there are full instructions to make your own here.

old boar and baby wild boar

old boar, originally uploaded by vriad_lee.

i discovered this spectacular needle felted boar by flickr user vriad lee via craft. more work by this artist can be seen here.

here's another photo of our local boar, and one of the new baby wild boars that's about a week old. it's a little hard to make out, the baby is in the lower left corner.

yet another adorable needle felted animals book

i finally got to this book, which has some really cute animals made by needle felting.
i think the most special part of this book, is that it includes all the wee pastries and fruits that go along with the whimsical animal characters, many who have little shops!
and, it shows how to make all the little accessories...
and of course the animals themselves! the instructions are very clear, and this book would be good for a beginner to intermediate felter, and an advanced needle felter could also get inspired by the cute characters.
there's a full set of photos on flickr , and the book is in my etsy shop.

out like a lamb

today was a mix of sunny and rainy, so i guess we can say march is going out like a lamb. this needle felted sheep is from the book 'felted wool small things'. there's one copy left in my etsy shop. if you want to see more photos from this book, the flickr set is here.

check out these sweet sleepy sheep from etsy seller namolio.

march has flown by, and i am proud to say that i was able to successfully post here every day of it! i enjoyed the discipline of daily posting, and i think i will try to keep it up for april.
my other goals for march were to join and attend a yoga class regularly (i did that too!). cutting out sugar and drinking less coffee are ongoing projects... (wink).