My 2017 Halloween Felt Ornament Set Is Now Avalaible!

 For the 2017 Halloween Season, I designed a set of 3 ornaments that are slightly different than last years' patterns but still coordinate with the 1st set. This set will be sold in a bundle of the 3 together.

The First Felt Halloween Ornament Is A Black Cat.

 I designed a scary Witch's Black Cat. Most of my ornament designs are usually faces, so it was a treat to do a whole body this time. We've had 3 black cats over the years so I consider this one a friendly cat.

The Second Felt Halloween Ornament Is A Felt Ghost.

 

This ghost is probably the easiest of all the Halloween ornaments to make. You can sew it like I did or just glue it together with felt glue.

The Third Felt Halloween Ornament Is A Witch's Hat.

 

I just love this witch's hat! Super easy to make and easy to add details too. Isn't the pumpkin so cute on the hat brim?

Here's All My Felt Halloween Ornaments Together.

I am so tickled at how cute all my Halloween Ornaments look all together! I already have new ideas for next year!

Here's a link to my etsy shop Halloween Bundle Set. And I'll make a sidebar link too.

I hope you enjoy all my Halloween Patterns and will like my Christmas ones as well.

Free Felt Jack 'O Lantern Pumpkin Ornament Pattern

Here's My FREE Felt Jack 'O Lantern Pumpkin Pattern. It can be made into an ornament, pin, hair clip and more!

The Jack 'O Lantern/ Pumpkin can go with my previous Halloween ornaments which, if you missed the pattern club last year are all now available in my etsy shop.

WARNING PHOTO HEAVY POST.

Here's How To Make This Jack 'O Lantern Pumpkin Felt Pattern.

DOWNLOAD THE PATTERN

First I printed out my pattern on Freezer Paper and then cut shapes out and ironed them onto the felt. I'm currently and massively in love with freezer paper right now. It's so handy!

I used freezer paper for the pumpkin shapes too. The best thing is you can peel the paper off and re-use it a few times. Perfect when making multiples of some shape.

 Cut out your face shapes, peel off the Freezer Paper and play around with placement. This is just an idea, have fun and combine the pieces anyway you like.

Trace with pencil the detail lines on the front and the back if you'd like. If you are not into needlework, just leave these off.
 

Back stitch the lines on using either a lighter or darker embroidery thread color than your felt so they show up nicely. 

 Then do the same on the back if you want. You can leave the back plain or embroider someone's name and year on it too. You can see I freehand drew the lines but the pattern has them and they can be traced with parchment paper.

I appliqued stitched the mouth first on most the pumpkins to get the spacing right but the order you do it in is up to you. The face pieces can also be glued on using felt glue if you prefer not to sew them.

After I have the face sewn on I place and applique stitch the stem.

When both stem for each side are sewn I whip stitch the stems together.

 

At this point you can add a ribbon to make this an ornament. Make sure you

insert the ribbon before sewing the stems together. 

This pattern can also be made as a pin or a hair clip, look at the free running bunny pattern and the free shamrock pattern to see how both of those are attached to the back..

You can sew around using a whip stitch or a blanket stitch and leave the ornament flat like the ones at the top of the page and you're done. I used the whip stitch for this project.

 I added a purple pumpkin in place of one of the orange ones because some people paint them to let parents know the treats are allergy free. I made 4 pumpkins for a reason so keep reading and find out why!

I've decided to make a garland out of my 4 pumpkins so I stuffed them lightly with some poly fill. And sewed the opening closed I'm using the whip stitch here.

3 different oranges and a purple all sewn and ready to assemble.

I took a felt ball and a button and ran a 6 strand piece of black embroidery thread through the purple pumpkin.

Next I added another felt ball and using a doll needle shown below threaded the next pumpkin and the next felt ball and next pumpkin and so on.

It was to difficult on my own to take photos of this process so I have a video showing the
final project. 

Enjoy this pattern and please share what you've made with me, I'd love to see! Questions or comments? Just let me know!

Come Join My Fun FREE Felt Halloween Ornament Pattern Club!

I'm a bit behind in starting this Halloween Pattern Club so I've dropped it from 6 ornaments to just 4 ornaments so you can get them done in time for Halloween.

 

What is this Halloween pattern club and how does it work? 

This is a fun and FREE Felt Halloween Ornament Pattern Club. There are 4 easy Halloween ornament patterns that use the same basic colors and can all be made using only 6 - 9“ x 12” sheets of felt.

• First you need to sign up for the club. Sign up at end of post.
   
• Then you'll get an email with the first pattern and an introduction of how the club will work.

The first pattern you will receive will be the Candy Corn ornament, then 4 days later you will receive the second pattern, the 4 days after that you'll receive the 3rd pattern, then 4 days after that you will receive the 4th and last pattern.

What comes with these patterns?

You'll get an digital PDF with:

• A supply list.
   
• Easy to follow step by step instructions with photos.
   
• A pattern template to print, pin to felt and cut the felt out.
   
• Graphics showing other color and facial expression options.
   
• A template at 100% of the details to sew on the ornament and other important details.
   
• A stitch guide and my 2 favorite places to buy felt if you need to, plus how to contact me if you have questions about anything.

What are all the Halloween ornament patterns? 

The 4 Halloween patterns are:

• A Goofy Candy Corn Ornament.
   
• A Happy Flying Bat Ornament.
   
• A Fun Frankenstein Face Ornament.
   
• A Black Cat Face Ornament.

Patterns one and two in real felt.

First 3 patterns. One more to go! 

All 4 patterns! 

There is also an amazing fun felt supply giveaway too!

  

The first 10 people who sign up for the Felt Halloween Ornament Club will get entered into a drawing for:

• A pack of 6 different color sheets of the 9" x 12" wool blend felt I used for this club.
   
• One skein of embroidery thread to match all the felt colors needed to complete the club.
   
• An embroidery needle.
   
• And 4 pre-cut pieces of 1/4 white ribbon for hanging the ornaments. 

This felt pack is from busylittlebird.com 

and you can buy all the colors together in a pack just like this here

UPDATE: Linda won this giveaway and her supplies have arrived so I hope she's crafting!

SIGN UP FOR HALLOWEEN FELT ORNAMENT PATTERN CLUB HERE!

I hope you enjoy making these as much as I enjoyed designing them for you!

Friday Finds: 6 Of The Best Whimsical Tea Related Items You Will Adore

Today is the 358th Anniversary of Tea in England. Personally I'm a coffee drinker but my mom loves tea and my brother is some kind of tea connoisseur so I thought this was the perfect post to honor their love of tea.

 

I went around and found the cutest tea related things to share with you today! 

 

 

 

 Plusheez

Happy squishy tea bag plush! Adorable for home decor, perhaps a couch pillow of a tea loving friend or family member. Such happy kawaii faces!

 

Little Dear

Adorable felt pattern for making your own felt tea, coffee or hot chocolate. It could be a pin cushion or a desk decoration or a play food for your child's mini play kitchen. Look at that charming little lemon slice and dollop of whipped cream!

 

 Hollyslay

Whimsical child's hand painted tea set. This delightful set would make for hours of imaginary play. I'm in love with the fun bright colors and that it can be personalized too. Every boy and girl should have a tea set. I actually learned table manners by playing with mine as a child. My brother served tea to his trucks, action figures and plush toys.

Crafty Cornish Maids

This is a Hedgehog tea cosy!!!! Such a darling idea and great for keeping your tea pot hot. Great idea and cosies come in all shapes and sizes and characters. Makes me want to get a tea pot and a cosy just because it's so darn precious! The cuteness factor is about 100 here. Now I wish I drank tea!

A2D Creations 

 Cute song lyric tea towels, I thought they were so funny! In the US we have dish towels which are absorbent printed towels. I'm sure the use is basically the same but tea towels are just more fun and seem to be more pieces of art. My Australian cousin sent me a tea towel for xmas and it's too beautiful to use, I'm going to frame it and hang it on the wall.

 Alison Appleton Studio

Wow a rubber ducky tea infuser! Such a darling little thing! My experience with tea infusers is that weird clampy spoon with holes in it or the metal acorn looking thing. Tea bags are huge here in the US so you don't see many tea infusers unless you are a connoisseur of fine teas or maybe a Hipster. This cutie floats around in your cup steeping your tea and looking like it's in a tub, so stinking cute!

Here's a bonus Free Tea related find.

 Sew Kidding 

 Sew Kidding's link will take you to her FREE printable tea themed Wall Art and note cards. She's a favorite of mine and her printables are so fabulously cute!

I hope you enjoyed this post. I'll be doing these once a month now since I have so many other amazing felt things to share with you! 

Do You Want To Make Felt Crafts But Don't Know How Or Where To Start?

Confused about what you even need to do to start making felt crafts? 

Well of course you are confused! This is all new to you so how would you even know? Crafts have to be taught the same as scuba diving needs to be taught. Crafting with felt is a skill just like many other types of skills.

I thought I'd start a couple part series on felt crafting, because felt is my life and I love to teach what I know.

Felt doesn't have to be your life too but I can give you some tips, tricks and ideas to help you jump in or wade slowly, whichever you prefer and enjoy felt crafting!


Every week I'll post a new part to this felt series. The whole series will cover:

• Types of felt
  
• How to properly iron felt - sort of already did this post
• Tools needed
  
• Tips and tricks
  
• Gluing vs sewing
• The most commonly used stitches in felt crafts
• Skills to learn to get the most out of your craft experience
• How to find good patterns

To make this series even better there will be some FREE PDF's to download to help you along the way.

I'm currently making a couple of downloadable checklists, supply lists and links to stitching videos to do all I can to help you along your crafty way!

The first download I'm making available to you is this informative 8 page e-book I wrote it to help you know what to look for and how to find good quality patterns. I enjoyed writing it and I hope you'll enjoy reading it.

Click the link above or right here and you'll get this FREE guide right in you inbox.

Did you know about my Felt Craft Lovers Group on Facebook? 

It's a Facebook felt lovers group for people of all levels sharing tips and cheering each other on. It's a great place to be to talk felt crafts with others. Everyone is welcome! Click here to sign up to join!

Can Felt Be Ironed? Fact or Fiction?

This is absolute fact! Yes you can iron felt! I've heard over the years that felt that isn't 100% wool can't be ironed. Well let me smash that myth right now, ALL felt products can be ironed you just have to know which techniques to use for each type of felt.

I'm going to give you my 4 easy tips for ironing felt and how to iron the 3 most popular types of felt. 

Here's a little secret: Ironing felt is easier and faster than ironing fabric! Some people find ironing fabric to be soothing and calming, I do not. It's takes so long and I find it annoying, but felt is a dream to iron!

Tips For Ironing All Kinds Of Felt 

Step One: Use the right iron temperature for the right type of felt.

Step Two: Keep a dry dishtowel on hand.

Step Three: Always iron on an ironing board and not straight on a table, ( all I'll say is that there was scraping and scrubbing involved ) although a folded bath towel on a table works in a pinch.

Step Four: Don't get crazy if you still see a very light crease after all that ironing, because if you are stuffing that piece for a doll or an plush or an ornament the stretch of the stuffing will completely eliminate that little crease, cause that's how awesome felt is.

How to Iron Craft Store/Eco Felt Sheets

 I started out as most beginning crafters do buying the 9" x 12"  sheets of low grade craft felt from the craft store. It's cheap, comes in lots of bright colors and is easy to learn to work with. It's also 100% polyester and made from recycled water bottles, which means it's plastic and you can melt it with an iron, if you don't know what you are doing. 

Most of the time you buy this felt flat and then store it flat so no ironing is necessary but sometime pieces get rolled under and creased when you are shoving too much felt into a drawer...trust me I know of what I speak on the stuffing and shoving of supplies. 

See wrinkled felt and that's no fun!

Then you'll need to break out the iron.

While eco felt is the trickiest to iron because of the plastic nature of the product, a little care and the right iron temperature is all you need.

Turn your iron to the Poly setting with steam and move quickly across the felt ironing on both sides of the crease or wrinkle.

 For wrinkles in craft felt. My iron doesn't show that you can use steam on this Poly setting but you can and I do it all the time.

If the crease is very deep you'll have to get that dishtowel I told you about, place it over the felt and re-iron holding the iron in place longer. That dish towel will keep bad things from happening to the felt. Just don't leave it there for long periods of time or walk away or that felt and dish towel are goners.

Unless an elephant has been sitting on this felt, the crease or wrinkle will come out super easy and fast. I only ironed the worst side of this piece since it's just going back into an over stuffed drawer.

Look at that nice flat side. Ironed and ready to craft with!
 
A warning: the plastic fibers in this type of felt will melt a tiny bit when you iron it, which is perfectly fine and nothing to worry about. I actually prefer that little bit of melt because it makes cutting that type of felt less messy and makes the piece a tiny bit more durable.

How To Iron Premium Poly/Eco Felt

Premium poly felt is slightly thicker than craft felt, is available in more colors, is stronger and more durable, is softer and you can buy it by the yard or sheets. It's also made out of recycled water bottles but is a higher quality product than craft felt. It's a personal favorite of mine because of the softness.

Because you can buy this felt by the yard and storing it flat is next to impossible, at least in my studio, you will have deep creases and wrinkles no matter what. They are still softer creases than you get with wool blend felt though.

I once heard a crafter say to arrange your patterns around the creases and then throw that creased part away?! Girl Scout swear I read this on someone's blog once! Apparently an iron was an unknown appliance to them. I'm a penny pincher, frugal or just plain cheap but I will use every speck of felt I possibly can so I iron my felt.

For wrinkles and lighter creases on Poly felt. Use steam, it really helps and I use it on Poly setting all the time.

Again turn your iron to the Poly setting with steam and iron both sides with some pressure as if you were ironing cotton fabric, but keep that iron moving. 

 If the crease is deep and still visible and drives you nuts like it does me, you can bump up your iron to Blend setting still with steam and iron the crease again on both side with pressure being careful not to hold the iron on too long. A couple of passes with the iron on the felt should get rid of the crease.

 After ironing the Poly felt. So smooth and ready to go!

How To Iron Wool Blend Felt

Wool blend felt is pretty awesome and is so durable but not nearly as soft as the premium eco felt. It usually has a blend of rayon in it and is thicker than the premium felt, which means it cuts beautifully with nice sharp edges. It also comes in sheets and yards and at some point you will need to iron it. 

I'm not sure if wool blend felt doesn't wrinkle as easy as other felt or if I just store it flatter and with more care since it's so much more expensive than the other felt, but the creases are usually deeper than Craft and Poly felt and I don't see any wrinkles. I find it the easiest of all the felt to iron and the results are amazing!

Turn that iron on to Blend setting with steam if the crease is really light or Wool setting with steam for a deeper crease and give those creases a good couple of passes on both sides with a little pressure. I personally always use the Wool setting for my Wool Blend felt. It only takes a couple of seconds ( like 3 seconds ) and then you're done. 

I have an off brand digital iron I got at Aldi's in a pinch. If you have a super fancy ultra hot quilting iron then using that dishtowel on each type of felt might be a wise idea.

In case you were wonder what that blue thing I'm ironing on is, it's a small table top ironing board. It's for dorm rooms and I got it 50% off at Joann's last year. Love this thing!

Disclaimer: My tips are to be used as a general guide for ironing felt. I don't know your iron like you do, so practice on a scrap piece of felt if you don't feel confident at first and you'll soon be ironing felt like a pro!

So now that you know the 4 easy tips about ironing felt, get out there and iron and create something awesome! 

Want to join other felt minded folks? Click her to sign up to my awesome Felt Facebook Group