Felting egg

I don't know what possessed me but i have had a polystyrene egg in my craft cupboard for a while and i haven't done any felting so i thought i would see if i could use my felting tools to felt upon the egg.

i was worried at first that i might break my needles but it really seemed to work out fine and after a bit of time beavering away i had managed to felt onto the egg this Easter design.  Who would have thought you could do this so now i will be looking at my craft store for more polystyrene shape and see what i could do with them.

Learning ABC with felting letters

How did you teach your little one the ABC's?


From about 6 months old i have always sang the ABC's song to Sophie every day so she heard the rhythm of the song and got used to the tune, whether it be in the car or while i was doing house work when she was in the room with me. It then became part of our walk up the stairs on the way to bed.

Soon she was talking and learning her words, and she was a very quick learner and loved to talk, the one thing she like to do was her ABC's completely un prompted but not all of it just the start A.. B.. C.. So we ended up doing ABC's together when ever she was in the mood to.

We extending her letter knowledge a letter at a time when she was confident to do so but mummy would continue to carry on and complete the ABC's so she could hear the song to the end.

We also learnt count at the same time as the ABC's doing 5 numbers at a time. However i would tag counting at the end of the ABC tune and changed the words a bit from
"Now you know your ABC wont you come sing along with me"
to
"Now you know your ABC come count number 123"
then we would count to as far as she could and mummy continue to 20

By the time Sophie was 2 she could do her ABC all the way to Z and count to 20.  Which is Great but...
it dawned on me that she could repeat ABC and 123 like a parrot but hadn't yet made the connection as to the meaning.

Now i don't know about you but there are two school of thought on this. One let your child go to school as a clean sheet and let the teachers do the teaching so they can mould them to what ever standard the government are basing them on.  Or help prepare them for their epic journey through schooling with some of the basics like counting, letter and being comfortable with books etc.

You can guess i am appart of the latter group so now i am having a think about how to support Sophie and help gain the understanding and meaning of the letters after all there are 26 of them and that is quite a mind boggle if you have never seen them before or know what they mean.  Also i have been very careful and we learn the letters saying Apple apple A A A to make the connection with the letter sound and linking to the item rather than A is for apple as this is supposed to be confusing for children as they know that 4 is four and not for.

Anyone who knows me knows i am a little bit crafty and you have probably noticed all the pictures as you have read down and have seen that i have made Sophie these ABC flash cards.  I have found lovely big letters then i have made a felt item such as Apple or Carrot which can be attached and removed via velcro we talk about the item practice the alphabet sound and match it to the letter i also wrote the name of the item underneath.

We play with these every day if she wants to and she does and slowly she is making the connection. Although she does still get them in a muddle and i help her out, but in time we will get there and she doesn't see this as learning but more of a game.

I am hoping that these will help her get to Z but wondered what it was that you did to help your little acorn learn their ABC's ?

Felting birds

For Christmas i got the Kirsty Allsop Craft book and a clover tool and mat as i saw some really cute robins on Kirsty's show and really wanted to try the craft for myself.

I have never done felting before but it looked like fun and wanted a stab at it (lol felting joke). Felting is done by layering small pieces Marino wool tops and then stabbing through the fibres of the wool into the felt to bind the two elements together using your felting tool and matt.

After cutting out a bird shape i got to work building up my robin with my different colours of wool, after a while you will have your robin covered, but it will need a trim as the wool fibres will be spread out beyond the shape of the robin. As this was a simple shape and colour i just used one piece of felt and punched either side of the robin making sure that the colour bleed was the same each side so they matched when i was punching through the bird.  On my later birds the colours were a bit more difficult to match through so i made two identical bird but mirror images of themselves, then used the felting tool to punch through the two birds and fuse these together.

Next was to make two wings and a beak then punch these into the bird after i had covered these in wool too, the Kirsty's Robin was finished off with a feather in its tail and a bead for an eye which were the only 2 things sew into the bird.

I found the robin simple to do and wondered if i could do better and while working in the kitchen i was admiring a blue tit and chaffinch that was visiting our new bird feeder and thought they looked a little more interesting than a simple robin and got my tool and matt out and tried making them.  Here's my results i don't think they look to bad and i think i have the felting bug now.

Felt fishes

One of the Christmas presents i gave this year to the aunty's and grannies was a pretty felt fishy that i sewed together.

After choosing some different coloured felt and making a template to draw round i got busy snipping away with the scissors making sure that i cut two of each colour.

i had a really nice time rifling through the ribbons and choosing pretty sparkles in the shop and an even better time at home going through my booty and bringing together some bling bling fishes.

Once i laid out my intended design i stitched all into place, then stitched the back of the fish onto the front leaving a gap big enough on his tummy for me to then turn the fish right way out with the sparkles and ribbons on the front.  Next i stuffed the fishes with wadding to pad them out and finally sewed up the tummies.  Finally i had to find the balance point on each fish to add some thread so they could be hung up and be horizontal.

I hope these cute fish have settled into their new homes and the aunty's and grannies like them.