make your own cornstarch ornaments

make cornstarch ornaments, originally uploaded by jek in the box.

when i saw these in the flickr stream of jek in the box, they jumped out at me for their clear design and simple message.
after a few days looking at the pretty intense aftermath of a volcano (part of my research at the university), i was feeling ready for something just simple and sweet.
and the bonus is that these are actually made of cornstarch, and you can make your own with the recipe in the link!

felt ornaments

felt mistletoe cluster from ohdedoe,
and a few felt ornaments from the whip up roundup: stars from the purl bee,
and the felt ogee from betz white.

and i'm so flattered that my felt candy cane tutorial was also included! thanks, whip up.

felt ball ornaments

these are some felt ball ornaments that i made a few years ago. they were very easy to make, and turned out pretty much exactly the way i imagined them (which does not always happen!).
they are solid wool balls, made by hand with the finishing step of throwing them in the dryer, which makes them firm up and become very dense with a uniform surface. sadly, i have no dryer here in japan, so i haven't made these for the last few years. after the wool ball is made (and you can use any wool for the core, a cheaper wool or a color you want to get rid of), i used needle felting to apply the motif. which is super super easy--using a felting needle to needlefelt onto a solid felt ball is a very straightforward technique!
i don't have a tutoral for these, but there is a good basic video tutorial that i referred to when i first tried making large felt balls is here, from the crunchy parent on youtube.

felt ornaments with tutorials

here are a few of my handmade felt ornaments from years back, stockings...
and candy canes! the candy canes are an especially easy project for your very first time making felt. they are wrapped around a pipe cleaner and then felted by hand. super fast, great for kids.

tutorials for both of these project are in the archives, stockings here and candy canes here, and they are also linked to over there on the right in the tutorial list!

fall kirigami from zakka life

jessica at zakka life posted a tutorial for how to make these lovely fall cut paper kirigami decorations. via CRAFT via SisterDiane.

make your own pick up sticks

last week i was telling my students about pick up sticks. my students are all japanese adults who take english conversation class, and once a week we have a chatting hour. i don't remember how we got onto the topic of games, but after comparing hide and seek, and different kinds of tag, which are pretty similar across cultures, they wanted to know about games that i used to play as a kid, the kind with toys. oh, and jump rope is international too, although what we called chinese jump rope is called something else (i forget) in japanese. the 2 games that involve things that i thought of were jacks and pick up sticks. i loved jacks as a kid. and apparently it doesn't exist in japan. although according to youtube (very helpful for chatting hour) it's an 'ancient' and international game. we found a set of pick up sticks at the school, and enjoyed a game (also the first time for my students). although they were the plastic kind, not the nice wooden ones.

and, if you fancy making your set of pickup sticks, here's a tutorial from chez beeper bebe, via whip up.

what were you favorite games as a child? i also loved hopscotch and foursquare.

crochet covered stones

beautiful pattern from margaret oomen for sea urchin crochet covered sea stones on the purl bee.

castle peeps summer camp

have you heard of castle peeps summer camp? it's a brilliant idea from lizzy house, with craft projects using her new castle peeps fabric line.
this is the 2nd project, a memory game made from fabric that is laminated. i love this idea! it's so simple, but so brilliant! also, i have a used laminator that i haven't tried yet...
here's a photo from the 1st project-finger puppets! more castle peeps summer camp projects are coming every thursday for 8 weeks this summer, check them out.

salt dough ornaments

i'm so impressed with these salt dough ornaments, from katy elliot via whip up.

felt food, harvest feast and sandwich

this amazing harvest feast made of felt by dana at made was the winner of the so you think you're crafty contest. via craft.
and this lovely felt sandwich was made by tania of myrtle and eunice.

these are some great blogs, be sure to check them out. and of course, i love these wonderful high quality felt craft projects, with great tutorials to go along with them.

tiny knit turkey from spud and chloë

and here's a little knitting project for november! the pattern for this cute little turkey is available for free over on the spud and chloë blog.

christmas and winter felt tutorials

i really did a lot of felting last year at christmas time! here's some of the photos in my holiday felt flickr set.

i wanted to share in one place a few tutorials i created around christmas last year; i thought i would bring them back if anyone wants to make some felt projects this winter. and by the way, did you notice that i put links to all the tutorials i've written on this blog? they are over there on the right, all the way at the top so that they are easy to find anytime!

felt candy canes-these are soooo easy, perfect for kids, beginners, parties.
little stocking ornaments-one step up from beginner, they include felting around a little resist (made of bubble wrap). this is actually the perfect project to try that, since it's small and manageable, and the final project doesn't have to fit anything exactly.



these are heart-shaped oven mitts-which also involve felting around a flat bubble wrap resist. when you are ready to try a little bit bigger project.
and a felt french press cozy-it uses a big flat piece of felt. so the felt making is simple, but again you are working at a little bit larger scale. and then you trim the felt piece and refelt the edges, so the goal is a piece of felt that is pretty uniform. you could also use commerical felt for this project.

some of these tutorials mention things that i don't have in my etsy shop right now, but if you want a custom order, it might be possible. the felt ball ornaments won't be available this year (i don't have a dryer to make the felt balls nice and smooth), but i'm planning on writing a tutorial for them, and trying some new needle felting ornament projects.

and, for anyone who likes felt, (i assume that's you, otherwise you would have stopped reading by now), you should visit the fabric blog true up, where this whole week, kim will be posting about wool felt. yay!

fabric covered canvas tote by betz white

queen of green crafting, betz white has come up with this simple and brilliant project: covering a canvas tote bag with the fabric of your choice. so easy you're sure to say 'why didn't i think of that!?' her tutorial shows all the steps. i can't wait to try this with some cute japanese prints in a few weeks when i get back to japan.

woven felt flower girl basket

i'm off to seattle for a wedding, and here is the flower girl basket i made for it!

this is the same design as the felt basket that i made for the felt vegetables in a previous post. here's how to make one of your own.

cut 9 strips of felt, 50cm long, and 4cm wide. of course you can alter these dimensions, these are just the ones i used, which work well for a square basket 3 strips wide in each directions. 6 strips make the bottom of the basket, and become the sides. 3 more strips are woven around the sides. you'll need another 50cm by 12cm strip for the handle.

lay out 3 vertical strips, and weave 3 horizontal strips. here's the 1st one.

the 2nd one

all 3.
baste around the edges, after pulling the strips tightly together. this is just to hold them together as you move on to the next part.

take a new strip and start weaving around the side.

when it goes all the way around, overlap the ends, pull them snug, and baste them together.

repeat with a 2nd strip woven around the sides.

for the 3rd strip, cut it in half lengthwise. this actually means you have 4 strips total, 2 wide ones and 2 narrow ones. weave the narrow ones around the side of the basket, and baste the ends as before.
fold each verticle strip coming up the side of the basket (these are the same strips that started out as the bottom of the basket) over the edge. fold it over TWO of the horizontal strips (i.e. fold it over BOTH the narrow strips, and then tuck in the end under the wide horizonal strip. that means that half of you side strips will be folded inside the basket, and half outside the basket. they will stick out the other side of the wide strip after you tuck them through it, this is fine, we will trim them later.

this is the basket with all the side strips foldeded over the edge and tucked in.

next we make the handle. i used a 50cm by 12 sm wide strip, which i folded over itself in 3rds and sewed together (to make a handle that has 3 layers). this was pretty sturdy even with the felt i was using, which was quite thin. for the felt veggie basket from the previous post, i used 2 layers sewn together, which worked fine, but since this basket is actually going to be carried by a little girl in a ceremony, i wanted the handle to be pretty sturdy and hold it's shape.

i wove the handle into the basket, doubling it up with the middle side strips. i chose to put the handles on the two sides where the handle is OUTSIDE the basket at the top row. is this picture, the handle is sticking out a little at the bottom of the basket, this is just to show you that you insert the handle piece all the way down the side. then pull it even so that the end of the handle lines up with the edge of the side/bottom of the basket. and baste this end.

the handle inserted on both sides.

next, sew the edges of the felt together, while making any adjustments to make the basket more even or the woven strips more tight an consistent. remove the basting stitches.

for this basket, i sewed around all the edges on the outside of the basket only. the order that worked best for me was: sew the 4 corners of the basket, in the vertical direction. then sew the other verticle edges (2 on each side). then trim off the ends that we wove in earlier. then sew the 2 horizonal edges all the way around the basket.

ta-da!

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.