Felted Creations

As I have been awaiting the arrival of my oven thermometer I thought Id try my hand at some needle felting.
I have already done a needle felted 'picture' for a present I am making for my friends birthday, but I am going to keep that little project a surprise until I have given it to them, just in the interest that they might read this and then my surprise will be spoilt :-(
However, I have made some little needle felted animals from the wool tops I had left.

I have two types of needle, a single, 25 Gauge triangular needle, and a 7 needled needle felting tool.

For these animals though I have mainly used the single needle as the tool didn't allow for details, though was handy for felting the balls for the body/head.

So first off I tried my hand at what started out as a cat.  Unfortunately though, it didn't quite go how I wanted it to go in my head and ended up looking like, what I think, is a dog.........

Although this technically did go wrong I was quite happy with it for a first attempt.

Next I tried my hand at an owl.

I felted 2 balls first, one in white and one in blue ( I picked these colours on the request of my Dad who is a Sheffield Wednesday fan, and these are their colours). 

On the blue ball, the head, I used my needle and a little more wool to create little ears on the top of the head.  I then felted these 2 balls together.

Next I felted the two wings separately before adding them to the body.

I then added the eyes, though I think these are a little bit off.

Over all though I am quite pleased with what I have done, and after all it is meant to be a learning experience.

Until next time <3 <3 <3

Fimo Soft and Halogen Ovens

As previously mentioned, have been working on some polymer clay Jewellery.

I started out with just some ideas of what I wanted to make, but was a complete novice to polymer clay. Didn't have a clue what brand to buy, so ended up just buying some off eBay's.  Fimo Soft is what landed on my door mat.

I've been experimenting with it for about a week now, and we've had our ups and downs, with a fair bit of help from the lovely people over at the Crafts Forum and the Clay Forum.
As I have been using the Soft variety of Fimo I have had my issues with the clay becoming very sticky, sticking to my tools, though this, lucky, has only happened on one of my sessions.
The biggest issue I have had have been while curing the clay, and even now I am still mastering what needs to be done.

Basically I have been curing my pieces in a halogen oven rather than a conventional oven, for 2 reasons.
The first being that my gas oven is next to dead. Why we still have it is beyond me it is so unreliable.
The second being the halogen oven is a lot smaller, therefore takes a lot less time to warm up and is able to maintain a fairly constant temperature, I think.
I say I think, because I am not 100% sure of this, I am going on advice I have found or been given regarding halogens, but I have ordered an oven thermometer just so I can be sure.

The thermometer has been order though because I have been experiencing problems curing my pieces. The packaging state 110 degrees C for 30 mins to bake the Fimo Soft.
Before baking anything I did my research on the 'net, especially since I was using a halogen.
So the first lot of pieces I made were baked firstly for 20 mins at 110 C (according to my halogen dial), but the clay when cooled was brittle.
I then baked my next pieces for 30 mins at 110 C, but again my pieces were brittle.
My third set of pieces were baked for 30 mins at around 120 C, and though these pieces came out a little harder, they were still flexible with a rubber sort of feel to them.
My last test pieces were bake for 40 mins at around 120 C with some surprising results.  Here I should say that I have been baking my pieces flat on a ceramic tile. On this experiment I had a test piece which lifted from the clay, and another that was double the thickness of anything I had previously tested.  The piece the lifted up from the tile had cured where it was lifted, but still had a rubber feel where it was flat to the tile.  The thicker piece was pretty much completely cured, which has told me that I either need to bake on a rack or put something between the clay and the tile.

Advice from the forums have been to put either normal or baking paper between the tile and the clay.  I am also going to try baking in a 'tent' of tin foil to protect the pieces from the halogen bulb, due to the size of the oven.  Am going to wait though now until I get my oven thermometer just to be sure my oven is at the temperature it is stating and this isn't my problem.



Will keep you updated as always, so for now Happy Crafting

Projects underway

Hi all
Just thought I'd post an update on my progress with ongoing projects as not posted anything since my post stating I was back, but not posting anything sort of contradicts what I said, no?
Anyway, as I've said just want to update my project progresses.
The present I am making for my friend, the hand binded sketch book, covered with a needle felted picture is nearly finished. Few touch ups on the felting to be finish. Then the book just needs binding. Here's a picture of how the felting is looking, apologise for the quality, not the best light.

The other project I've been working on is some butterfly polymer clay jewellery. I've been experimenting curing the clay in a halogen oven, and have to say I'm loving it! There is better control over temperature, and as they are a lot smaller than my oven, reaches the desire temperature a lot quicker! Am loving it!

That's it for now though. Will catch up when these projects are completed now I guess. Til next time......

4 weeks and I'm back!

Just wanted to update you all that, on 10th March 2012 I gave birth to my second daughter, Lily Anne

Due to this I have taken a 4 weeks 'settling in' period, but am now back and ready for crafting :-)

Got a list as long as my arm for projects that need completing or even starting, but my first tasks are 2 owl doorstops for family members, and my best friends birthday present for beginning of May.  I am making her a sketch book which I am binding myself, and covering with a needle felted picture I've been working on.

Will keep you all updated on my projects as I go along, but for now, happy crafting xxxx

Paper crafting

After seeing a pin on Pinterest recently from the blog, Homespun with Heart, I decided to have a go at making some paper flowers.

I then used these to decorate a heart, which I plan on hanging up with some ribbon as a cute decorative item.

Here are a few pictures of my first attempt

If you look carefully (though not sure it shows up too well on this picture) there are small gaps, and I'm not totally happy with all the flowers, though as I have made more I have gained confidence with them.

Therefore I am going to attempt another one, hopefully make it gap free, with flowers that are more similar in height, but not necessarily size as I think that variation helps with the look.

As I do plan on making another because I wasn't totally happy with this one I haven't bothered adding the ribbon to it.  However, my mum didn't want this first attempt to go to waste, as I was just planning on putting in my craft box and probably forgetting about it, so she has used it in her bedroom and stuck it in the middle of her bed head board (What would we do without proud parents????)
I have to say though, from a distance it looks pretty cute (if you dont get close enough to notice the gaps)

Will keep you updated with any new ones I make.

Until next time :-)

Completed Owl Doorstop

Today I finished my full size owl doorstop, and am really pleased with it.

Its a nice size and weight to do it job, and the sewing on it is a big improvement from my very first experiment.

And here it is in comparison to my first two owls....

I am really pleased with how its come out, and seems other people are too as I now have a request for my first commission one! Bonus!

Hope my readers also like them, and as usual any feedback always welcome!

Until next time

Oya Designs

Textile Owls

So I have made further progress on my owl designs to hopefully use as doorstops.  I have so far made two mini versions, both with their good points and bad points.

The first one I made was the one with green eyes.  It had been a good few years since I last used a sewing machine, so used this first one to try and figure out the best way to attach each component of the owl.

I used the sewing machine to pretty much attach everything, the eyes, eye outline and beak.  I thought this looked a bit messy tho, particularly the eyes, so with the next owl I made I attached the eyes with the sewing machine, but just using black cotton to attach both the black and whites of the eyes just sewn through the blacks of the eyes, and this was sewn onto the eye outlines.  I then hand stitched the eye outlines onto the body, which I think looks a lot better.  I stuck with sewing the beak on with a zig zag stitch on the sewing machine but didn't bother with the stitching down the sides of the beak.

When it came to the wings, with the first owl I attached them with a hand stitch at the top of each wing, so the stitch and seam was visible.  With the second owl, however, I tried to hide the stitching as much as possible, still doing it by hand but pushing my needle through the body fabric and the underside of the wing to try and hide it as much as possible.

 Each owl was stuffed with craft stuffing and rice to give them some weight. The second owl I think was stuffed better than the first, knowing to use more of everything to make it bulkier.

These two owls only measure about 25cm tall and 25cm wide.  I now have the fabric cut out to make one double these sizes, hopefully using what I have learnt to make a much better version.

Will keep you updated with the progress of these.....................
........................til next time!