Happy Pumpkin Day

Where's the Great Pumpkin? 

Hope you have a happy & safe halloween!

We love all things Fall in our household. This translates into our littlest artist's drawings. I was quite impressed when she drew upside down during my "lesson" to show me how to make the most excellent jack-o-lanterns. I hope you and your little ones have a very safe and happy Halloween!

Kids Autumn and Halloween Felt Craft Projects

Owl, Bat and Frankenstein Felt Ball Characters

DIY tutorials for how to make these adorable Fall and Halloween kid craft projects!

These cute Halloween and Fall characters are quick and easy craft projects for kids of all ages. Find the craft tutorial links below for the large felt ball base and each of the three characters pictured above.

Giant Felted Wool Ball Base

Autumn Hoot Owl Craft Tutorial

Halloween Bat Craft Tutorial

Halloween Frankenstein Craft Tutorial

Handmade Mini Super Hero Capes for Plushies

Don't forget the littlest heroes! 

make mini capes for your child's favorite stuffed animals

Last year my daughter's school had a super hero themed Spirit day where kids could dress like their favorite super hero to show support for the school's sport teams. Of course having an abundance of felt on hand, I whipped up my daughter a pink handmade super hero cape with a large letter for her first name on the back. There are many, many craft tutorials out there on how to make super hero capes for kids so I didn't feel the need to write a new one for you. However, I thought I'd pass along this idea which sprung from my daughter's creative mind and love for plushies.

My daughter insisted that we also make several mini capes for her little tribe of stuffed animal super heroes. For small to medium sized stuffed animals, you can use a standard craft felt sheet to cut out a curved triangle shape (kind of like the shape of a piece of candy corn). Then, about an inch or so from the pointed end, cut out a small circle. Make the circle just big enough to fit over the head of your plushie or doll. If your animal happens to have a giant head, you can always cut a slit at the top of the circle and use sticky-backed Velcro tabs to reconnect the sides. 

We also cut out small letters for the backs of their capes like in the photo above - "c" for cow! For the letters, we used some iron-on fabric adhesive on felt scraps and then traced letters onto the felt. Cut them out and ironed them onto the cape backs. Be careful ironing craft felt sheets though as they can melt with a direct hot iron. You can either lower the iron setting or use a cloth in between the iron and felt to avoid this. You won't have this problem if you use 100% wool felt, but most commercial felt craft sheets are actually made of acrylic, polyester or another synthetic blend. There's nothing wrong with using these type of sheets, just be careful when applying heat.

Whether your kiddos plan to be super heroes this Halloween or something else entirely, these handmade mini capes are quick and easy to create. They are also a fun project to do with your kids. My daughter loved helping me trace the letters and cut them out. Now our household is protected by an entire little tribe of super heroes too!

Felted Ball Halloween Frankenstein Kids Craft

How to Make a Cute Frankenstein for Halloween

a quick & easy craft tutorial for kids of all ages

This cute Halloween bat has a felted wool ball for the base. Everything else is made from stiffened craft felt besides the large wiggle eyes. This is a quick and easy DIY project for kids!

First, visit the craft tutorial on how to make giant felted wool balls here. Create at least one of these using a green wool roving. They are very easy to make in four steps and only a few supplies using your washing machine to agitate the wool. I recommend making several at once. These giant felted balls work well for all sorts of adorable character heads. Check out my Autumn owl tutorial or my Halloween bat tutorial for a couple of other Fall craft ideas.

MATERIALS (not including the felted ball base above):

Stiffened craft felt in black and gray
Extra large wiggle eyes (about 1 inch wide)
1/8 inch wide orange satin ribbon for hanging
Hot glue gun with glue sticks (or substitute thick tacky glue for young children)
Scissors and chalk for outlining the face pieces to cut out

FELT BALL HALLOWEEN FRANKENSTEIN INSTRUCTIONS:

For the the mouth, nose and scar, use chalk to freehand draw outlines on the black stiffened felt and cut them out. These pieces need not be perfect! They actually look better if you make them a little quirky according to your own taste. If you are at a loss hand drawing, check out Pinterest or do a Google search for Frankenstein patterns to use. I personally prefer freehand drawing everything, but do what works best for you. 

Also cut two bolt shape pieces from the gray stiffened felt. Hot glue the mouth, nose, scar, bolts and wiggle eyes to the felted ball as seen in the photo. 

For the hair, cut a rectangle from the black stiffened felt about the width of your ball and twice that for the length. Then cut triangular notches from one end. Fold the rectangle in half creasing the felt. Hot glue each folded side down with the notches framing the face.

Finally cut about an 8 inch length of thin ribbon knotting one end. Cut a little hole in the top of the hair's peak. Insert the knotted end of the hanger and glue into place on top of your Frankenstein's head.

If young children are making this, they will need adult supervision while using the hot glue gun. You could substitute thick tacky glue letting all the pieces dry in place over night instead. For the best glues to use on various kinds of felt, check out my post here. I give my top choices for adhesives along with pros, cons and helpful tips. 

Felted Ball Halloween Bat for Kids

Handmade Halloween Bat Tutorial 

A cute kid's craft using a felted wool ball and stiffened felt craft sheets!

This happy Halloween bat has a felted wool ball for the base. Then I used stiffened craft felt sheets for the wings, nose and teeth along with extra large wiggle eyes. This is a fun project for children of all ages!

First, visit the craft tutorial on how to make giant felted wool balls here. Make at least one of these using black wool. They are very easy to create in four quick steps and only a few supplies using your washing machine.

MATERIALS (not including the felted ball base above):

Stiffened craft felt in black, white and hot pink
Extra large wiggle eyes (about 1 inch wide)
1/8 inch wide hot pink satin ribbon for hanging
Hot glue gun with glue sticks (or substitute thick tacky glue for young children)
Scissors and chalk for outlining the wings

FELT BALL HALLOWEEN BAT INSTRUCTIONS:

For the bat wings, use chalk to freehand draw two wing outlines on the black stiffened felt. Be sure to make the end you are going to glue have a small tab as seen in the photos. The wings need not be perfectly matching! Mine were slightly different sizes and shapes, but my little handmade bat turned out pretty cute anyway. 

Cut out your wings. Then freehand cut two varying size triangles for the bat fangs from white stiffened felt and a small circle for the nose from hot pink stiffened felt.

Use hot glue to adhere the wings , on the tab area, to opposite sides of your giant felted wool ball. Fold the stiffened felt where the tab area meets the angle of the wing. Bend each wing out once the glue dries. 

Then hot glue on the eyes, nose and fangs centered between the wings. Finally cut an 8 inch or longer piece of thin ribbon knotting the ends. Hot glue the knotted end centered on the top for a hanger.

If young children are making this, they will need adult supervision using the hot glue gun. You could substitute thick tacky glue letting all the pieces dry in place over night instead. For the best glues to use on various kinds of felt, check out my post here. I give my top choices for adhesives along with pros, cons and helpful tips.

Handmade Chevron Burlap Halloween Wreath

Do you Decorate Outdoors for Fall & Halloween?

Spice up your porch or door with a simple handmade wreath!

It has just been this past year that I've gone all out for Fall & Halloween decorating outdoors. When I was working previously as the Craft Editor for a large publishing company, I honestly didn't have much time to decorate anything at home. When I did have the time, I was a little burnt out on making things for myself. Having to make and write about a large volume of crafts for multiple books and magazines at work shifted my personal hobbies to things like reading and exercise - anything but crafts. Not that this was a bad thing. However, it always surprised people when my house was, well, a little bland considering I was a Craft Editor.

Now that I'm thankfully not on the payroll for a corporation to crank out hundreds of crafts a year, my personal passion for crafting is slowly coming back. I've had a fun time decorating my little house for Fall. From a handmade wreath for my back porch, to a weathered wood sign, to some simple 20 minute painted polka dot pots, each project has been much more joyful. No art directors demanding me to follow a particular style or managing editors tweaking my craft techniques or creative methods. I understand the necessity for all that in business, but as a very creative person, it can burn you out quickly having someone always critiquing and hovering over your shoulder with deadlines looming. I am extremely thankful to be crafting again just for the sake of making a cute little something for myself - or occasionally a family member, friend, my daughter's school or my local church.

The handmade burlap and chevron wreath above was actually made last year. It was the one loner holiday decoration that I created for my own home around Halloween. It wasn't for any corporate publication and hung on my front door for several weeks. At the time, it made me so happy to see something I had made just for me, in my own style and on my own time. It still makes me happy to look at and now hangs just outside my front door.

Although I used a regular Styrofoam wreath base for this one, you can find my tutorial on how to make 2 wreath bases from 1 pool noodle here. I'm all about saving a few bucks here and there where possible when crafting! 

Do you decorate for Fall and/or Halloween? Inside? Outside? Both? I certainly have had a blast doing all of that this year. I hope your Fall is going well so far!

DIY Craft Felt Monster Puppet with FREE Pattern

Handmade Craft Felt Monster Puppet For Kids

Free Adjustable Size Pattern to Print

This is just the kind of craft that my 4 year old loves, loves, loves to play with when I'm done making it. I often have to wrestle these craft felt creations from her for a few minutes in order to take a quick photo for the blog. This cuddly felt monster puppet can be made in whatever colors your kiddo likes best. Easily cut out and make multiples for a kid's party or make your own craft kits for a group of kids to create their very own monsters. 

MATERIALS:

2 sheets red craft felt for the body
Scraps of blue craft felt for the eyebrows and mouth
Scraps of white craft felt for the teeth
Two 1/2 inch wide or larger wiggle eyes
1/2 inch wide or larger red pompom for the nose
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
Embroidery floss and tapestry needle (see craft tips)

CLICK HERE for the free printable pattern. (If sharing, please link directly to this post and not the printable itself. Thanks!)

Craft Tips: I hand stitched the edges on this little monster, but you could easily machine sew the edges or adhere them together with the hot glue gun or other sturdy permanent glue. As always, use caution with a hot glue gun around young children. Be sure the adults in charge do the assembly!

INSTRUCTIONS:

First click on the link above to access the free printable. Download and print the pattern. Size the pattern up or down as needed to fit your child's hand. Using the red craft felt sheets, cut out two pieces for the monster's body according to the pattern. Then cut out pieces of blue craft felt for the eyebrows and mouth and pieces of white craft felt for the jagged teeth. 

Using the hot glue gun, adhere the wiggle eyes onto one of the body pieces. (See photo for approximate placement of all pieces.) Then adhere the eyebrows on top of the eyes slightly. Only adhere at the bottom edge of each eyebrow leaving the top unglued. In the same manner, adhere the jagged teeth next a couple inches below the eyes. Then adhere the mouth and pompom nose on top of the teeth.

Next align the front and the back body pieces. Either hand stitch, machine sew or glue the edges in place all around the monster's body. Leave the straight bottom edge open to insert a hand for the puppet.

Now go make several and pass them out to an excited group of kiddos!

Odds and Ends on this Friday - A Contest, Business Tips, and New Discoveries Too!

It seems like some weeks I can not think of a thing to blog about, and then other weeks, I have more things than I can find the time to post about. This is one of the latter weeks so I decided to do an odds and ends post this Friday with a bunch of interesting things that I came across this week. Below you'll find a random listing of things that I found to be worth looking at for whatever reason. I hope that you enjoy my ramblings and that you have a fabulous weekend!

A contest to win some great fiber art goodies
I was contacted by Linda, the editor at Craft Gossip's Felting Blog, about a contest that they are sponsoring. It is for a Grandma's Snowmen Needle Felting Kit by The Felted Ewe, and it is cute as cute can be! Go visit the post about it for more details and to enter the contest, and maybe you'll be the lucky winner.

A super terrific biz tip for your Etsy shop
Once again Timothy Adam Designs has come up with some wonderful business tips! This time it is all about increasing views to your Etsy shop items. It is well written and well worth your time for a good read. I highly recommend that you visit the Timothy Adam Designs Blog article on "3 fixes for the low views on Etsy" - it is spot on and so very helpful!

A little bit of inspiration and eye candy
While reading through the Fiber Friday post in the Etsy forum, I came across this link from the seller crostinivs. It is about a fiber artist named Emily Barletta who makes magnificent felt and crochet sculptural pieces. It is certainly worth a look to get inspired by her creations!

And, in honor of my post title, I did a search
on Etsy for "odds and ends" which came up with the lovely array of items you can see at the top of my post. You should try searching Etsy for phrases and peculiar words to see what you get. I find it rather fascinating and sometimes surprising to see the random items that look so very pretty all together.

Finally . . . have a Happy Halloween!!
I hope that you and your little trick or treaters are safe and sound and enjoy the evening.

Are you buying or making handmade for the Holidays? Super special handcrafted Holiday gifts are the best!

Since October has arrived and Halloween is right around the corner, soon followed by Thanksgiving, I have finally started to think about Holiday gifts for this year.  I bought almost all handmade presents for last year's Christmas.  Honestly, I got mixed reviews from my extended family, but I think it is because they are accustom to getting commercialized products as gifts.  This year, I plan to stick to my pledge to buy handmade though.  Except for a few items, I plan to buy mainly handmade presents or make presents myself.

One thing that I've done to encourage others to do the same is to make a Holiday Shopping Guide on my main website.  It features a wide variety of top quality handcrafted items from artists and crafters worldwide.  There are only 56 participating Etsy sellers to hopefully make it easier to browse through their fabulous shops.  Please click on over and take a peak at the featured shops and sites.  I am really pleased with the diverse and unique products that are showcased there, and I'm also pleased with how the overall guide turned out.

Now, my question to you is . . .

Are you buying or making handmade gifts for the Holidays?

And, have you already begun your quest to buy or make Holiday presents?

Please do share in the comments . . . I'd love to know!