Gotta poke a Pepe or two..

 My blogging may have been idle but me, not so much. I thought it was about time to show you a few bits of the geeky themed felting, I have been working on while in my 'quiet' months.


Can you guess what this one is?

Well if you're a Warcraft fan maybe you'll see a Pepe ... Or, if not, this is just brightly felted bird.

Starting to see double

Next up I tried out my hand at some 2D felting

 

Behold my strange murloc art aka Murloc merkin

*grins wickedly



I also decided to try out a cardinal or a Ganymede for those of you that are Overwatch fans.

 

And this one wouldn't show up with my terrible phone photography but it's a Kirby style heart for a gamer friend.

I'm not an expert but I'm finding felting a really fun and therapeutic thing to do, so you can prepare to see more of these cuties in future posts.

Crafty Catch Up

After being a little quiet on the crafting front I thought I might introduce you to my new love - felting. After flitting between all types of crafts I think I might have found the most therapeutic and enjoyable type for me.

Since I don't really have much space to craft (mostly because of all the crafting materials bursting the cupboard seams), I have found that felting is the perfect type of crafting to have on a small portion of desk. It's something I can even do using a lap tray which means it's even possible from a comfy sofa or bed - result.

When I first began felting I thought that using a premade kit with instructions would be the best way to start, yet as (probably) expected I really couldn't stick to the plan in practice. This really wasn't a reflection on the kit but more my own non crafting commitment issues: the kit I found was wonderful and I would recommend Bear Creek Design which I found on Etsy a few years back. The standard of the kit is great and it really did include everything I needed to launch a love of felting from.

The kit I chose was supposed to make a rabbit and included some good quality Romney wool which was lovely to work with and leaves a realistic furry finish. 

The Kit included two different size felting needles and a sturdy felting cushion.







You should also be careful not to start out felting with too much vigour as you might end up with a painful reminder not to do so in future.





Unfortunately for my bunny rabbit my mind was somewhere else and I soon realised that the felt creation I had started had other plans in who he wanted to be, so I just had to comply (this is completely normal being lead by some felted form..right?). In the end it turned out that my love for otters trumped my love for bunnies ... sorry bunnies.




And this was my end result:

Please bear in mind though that the kit had very clear instructions and pictures on how to make the actual cute bunny so you can't judge it by my otterly different result.

You can find the rabbit kit I used - HERE but I see there is now a very cute Thanksgiving Turkey one too.
Anyhow I hope this might encourage someone else to have a try at felting as it really is a lovely craft that sometimes looks a little daunting but is great fun once you just jump right in and not worry about how your earlier pieces look as long as it's enjoyed.

One Boomkin & a Money Tree

The New Year has started or just about to restart dependent upon your calendar,  and I thought it high time I updated the blog with some crafty gifts which can now be shown.

For my geeky side of things I had wanted to try my hand at another plushie since the previous fire spirit was fun to make. So keeping the same Warcraft theme and using some felt again I set to work trying to create a gift for a friend who had a moonkin (aka boomkin) character.

For those of you not total geeks then this is what a moonkin should look like:

Moonkin with baby moonkin

Mine however was created using a bit of artistic license, and is more based on the baby than the adult :D

I only actually took photos of the finished article however the felt was pretty much cut freehand and hand stitched so it was a definite one off.

Hangin with me Owlie

The other project I had was to find a gift for a friend's wedding. I had wanted to get them something special but at the same time I knew that some money would probably be the best gift for them: but money in a card just looks a bit like no effort put in. So I started to look for ways to present money better.

Then I stumbled upon this video:

Origami Butterfly video

I had some practice with paper and once I could do that, I used the notes instead. Then for the flowers I curled the corners of some folded notes with a tooth pick , but they needed a base. Which lead me to the idea of creating a money tree.

 

So one plastic tree, some wire and hot glue later and I had created my own version of a money tree.

 I was happy it was well received. They even thought it was something I had bought  :)

Geek Challenge

I have really enjoyed the whole geek theme challenge for Crafters Corner and I think I might keep running with it for a few more projects afterwards too.

Of course my main geek love was always going to be World of Warcraft. With such a wealth of artwork, lore and creativity to inspire me then how could I resist it spilling over into my craft work.

The only problem was too many ideas to use!!

Although the greatest interest to me from WoW at the moment has been the Lords of War series which we have seen 3 and I am eagerly awaiting the rest. If you want to check them out then follow the link to youtube .. the artwork is fantastic.

Warcraft: Lords of war

After watching (ok several times) I decided to try my hand at orc drawing. Obviously no where near the standard of other artists however I was happy with the result although I think maybe overall I actually preferred the initial sketch. 

Sketch outline

With shading added

The shaded version felt like it was lacking something so I used coloured pencils for his eyes

Kargath Bladefist

I think this need a frame (maybe something using stones hmm) to call it finished though and maybe a bit more practice at the shading but it's a start.

It wasn't quite what I wanted to put up for Crafts Corner and decided I would create something using the felt and thread I had been hoarding.

After thinking through the many things I could try and actually trying one idea out (saving that for a gift though, so pics later on maybe), I decided that a warcraft pet would be the best idea to make.

And which better one than this little cutie - Pandaren Fire spirit  

I drew out a basic shapes on some card and used it to cut out felt shapes for the body and then one for the eyes, the rest of the face markings were just cut freehand out of orange felt.

The lips were drawn on and embroidered as I debated whether or not to add the teeth.

For the pattern on the arms and body I drew on the felt with pencil and then got stitching.

I decided to add some felt teeth too in the end.

 The whole thing took a few days overall with a shop run for more thread/felt, that and it was all hand stitched as I don't have a machine: but there is something strangely calming about stitching with Schubert in the background :D

The head and arms were tacked on fairly messily and if I do something similar again then I will be attaching the flat head and arms before filling with stuffing or practising ladder stitches.

 Finished pictures are here:

Flash adding some light