Crafty Tutorial: Felt Woodland Elves

~ by Kendal

First of all, let me apologise for the lack of post on Monday. I have been so crazily busy over the last few days, making unexpected MamaMake orders and working on our new line (so many bubble dresses, tutus and elf hats!) not to mention trying to finish gifts for Ava and family and friends, that I have barely had time to eat, let alone make something scrumptious to share with you.

But these little guys, oh my. They have really won my heart. They are whimsical and simple and a little strange, and best of all? So easy and quick to make! Plus, if you know me at all, you’ll know I have a bit of a thing for pointy hats. Is there anything cuter?

All you need is felt and embroidery thread and some kind of stuffing. Wool roving works best, but annoyingly I didn’t have the time or skills to find it locally, so I used ordinary cotton stuffing which also worked well.

How to:

1. You need to make a circle quarter. I did this by tracing a large dinner plate onto felt and then dividing into quarters. The radius was roughly 4 inches

2. You want to squish the quarter in half and then cut a semi-circle out where the face will be about 1 ½ inches down.

3. Thread your needle (I used all 6 strands of floss) and starting at the point which is the top of the hat, begin using a simple whip stitch down the hat. (I started on the inside to hide the knot)

4. Once you reach the face, bring the needle through one side only so it’s on the inside of the hat and tie a knot. The hat is done!

5. Start below the face in exactly the same way as before, and continue a whip stitch down the body. When you get to the bottom tie a knot in the inside again.

6. Next take your wool or stuffing and roll it up around your pointer finger. Place it inside the gnome and position it so the face is nice and smooth.

7. Once you’re happy with the stuffing, thread your needle again and use a simple running stitch to define the neck. Leave a 2 inch tail at either side and tie it. Then pull on the ends until the neck is gathered in. Make a bow and cut the tails.

And that’s it! If you want to, use the bottom of the elf to cut a circle in some matching felt, big enough to close up the bottom, and use a blanket stitch to make a base. They stand up well without a base too, but if your Littles want to play with them, I recommend a base!

They take about 5 minutes each to make, look great on Seasons tables and are just…adorable. We will be making some version of them for our Seasonal lines at MamaMake – they are the perfect amount of whimsy and otherwordly. With just a touch of nostalgia. Great for brightening up your Winter nature scenes!

Crafty Tutorial: Wintery Cloud Dough

 ~ by Emi

Today, in the midst of a VERY busy festive period, happily making away for MamaPixie orders, friends and family, I am going to share with you a little something that kept both my children amused for an hour. An Hour, I tell you! A whole glorious hour in which I cleaned my kitchen, filled my washing machine and made bread. With the whole 'no tv' thing still very much in play, an hour to clean was a sending from the skies!

What is this magical activity?

Wintery Cloud Dough.

Oh yes, baby.

And it's made from items you probably already have in your house!

Plain flour and baby oil.

That's it.

Oh, and some glitter.


Literally, we're going to mix 8 parts flour to one part oil. Throw in a whole bunch of glitter so it sparkles like Glinda the Good Witch's dress and mix.

It forms this wonderful substance that smells divine and has a very odd consistency. Whilst looking like sand, you can compress it to form more solid structures.

I'm finding it a particular challenge right now to find activities that both 3 1/2 year old Ru and 15 months old Pixie can BOTH do, without one or more of them getting frustrated with themselves or their sibling. This worked a treat.

Not only is a brilliant sensory activity, but again, like so many Crafty by Nurture activities, can be adapted for different themes. Pink and red glitter and you've got Valentine's Cloud Dough! Bury chocolate coins in there with some rainbow sequins and you've got St Patrick's Day Cloud Dough!

I do warn you though, this is likely to get all over your floor but the baby oil makes it smell luscious, so it's not too much of a problem! I wouldn't do this on carpet, so if you don't have laminate flooring, BIG sheets of plastic will be needed or wrap up and head outside to play!

And now, if you don't mind, I have an absolute ton of work to do, as well as a baby whose bottom I suspect, if the smell is anything to go by, needs changing!

"When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,

we hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago,

and etched on vacant places

are half-forgotten faces

of friends we used to cherish,

and loves we used to know."

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Crafty Tutorial: Winter Waldorf Stars

~by Kendal

Good Wednesday to you! Today, I am off on a hen do to London and back and may, by the time you're reading this, already be there. It's going to be a very long, but very exciting day (although this will be the longest time I've been away from my Little Miss, so I'm a tad nervous too - 18 hours apart!)

So I bring you a very simple and easy tutorial - how to make Winter Waldorf stars. I made my first Waldorf star in summer, but didn't quite get it right (I didn't realise this until Emi pointed out my obvious mistake) Since then, I've made a lot more, and I just love them.

My good friend Anna mentioned how, at her Steiner school, they'd make white ones at winter and I thought, 'What a good idea - I must try this come December..' (Anna will kindly be writing a post about her experiences of Steiner education in the weeks following Ezra's birth)

So, here it is!

Materials:

Tissue paper
Glue

(You can use tougher material, like kite paper, or even card, but I usually use tissue paper and it works well)

How to:

1. First cut your tissue paper up into squares. 8 to be exact.

2. Take your first square, and fold it in half.

Then fold it in half again. When you open it up, your square will be divided into four little squares

3. Fold each corner into the center until you have a smaller square.

Then, fold two of the sides into the middle, like so, making a kite shape.

4. Repeat this 8 times until you have 8 kite shapes.

5. Using some craft glue or pritt stick, put a little on one half of the shorter side, as shown below:

6. Stick 2 of the kites together.

Then, repeat with all remaining kites, until you get a beautiful big star shape. (Note, on the last kite, you will stick it on to the previous kite, and then stick the first kite onto it, thereby completing the round)

7. And...there you have it! A Waldorf star!

Now, stick them onto your windows (or if you're so inclined, your walls...)

And see how pretty they look as the light shines through. The perfect simple Yule decoration!

'For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.'

Vincent Van Gogh

Big Tutorial + Giveaway: Christmas Stocking!

~ by Kendal

Hello, and happy nearly December to you!

I honestly don’t think I have ever been so excited about Christmas/Yule. We cannot wait until the 1^st December hits and I can finally put up all the decorations and festive bits and bobs I’ve been gradually making. (Although I did sneakily change over our Seasons Table today…)

To get into the festive spirit, we will be giving away this lovely, hand-embroidered stocking for a Mama.  I thought that this Giveaay should be about celebrating how much a Mama does at this time of year. If you are a Mama, then you deserve a lovely stocking all to yourself, or maybe you just know a Mama who you’d like to give this too. To be in with a chance of winning this stocking, just leave a comment after the post telling us what your favourite Yule tradition is. (Winner will be picked using random number generator on Friday at 7pm)

I'll also be showing you how to make your own, completely personalised stocking, since handmade stockings are just so lovely. They are surprisingly easy, can be totally customised and do not require much in the way of sewing skills. A machine is handy for securing the back and front together, but you can just use a blanket stitch instead if you don’t have one.

I have four to make (oh yes, baby Ezra is getting one too!), and have done two so far. So!

All you need is:

Felt of different colours (I used felt that was a mix of wool and acrylic)

Embroidery thread

Buttons

Ribbon for hanging

1. First of all, you need to decide what size and shape you want your stocking to be. I went for a fairly big, standard shaped stocking and drew it out on tracing paper. With your felt folded in half, draw around your stocking, then pin together the felt and cut. You should have two stocking shapes!

 2. Next, you’re going to create the white collar at the top. Using your stocking as guidance, place it ontop of your tracing paper and draw around the top and sides. Stop when you get to the point your collar will end. Draw a horizontal line across and cut this out, then fold together your white felt, pin and cut out two stocking tops from your tracing paper template.

3. Now, this is the fun part. You get to decide what you want on your stocking! I’ll show you two examples of other stockings later, but for this Mama one I decided I wanted winter flowers and then some embroidered ‘doodle’ lines. So, I sketched a few flower shapes until I came up with one I likes, and decided I was going to use green and white felt for this.

4. I decided on 5 flowers, so using a template I drew on tracing paper, I cut out 5 white flower parts and 5 green flower parts. Easy. Now to sew them on!

5. Place your flowers where you want them to be, and either make a mental note or take a photo. 

Then, sew one green flower on.

I used a split stitch to outline the green flower, and then I placed the white flower on top and used a simple running stitch to stitch that on. Then, I placed a white button in the middle and sewed that on securely. Repeat with four other flowers!

 6. When you’ve done that, you can doodle on some fun embroidery lines to  create swirling stems and add some extra prettiness. I used a running stitch and white embroidery thread and, drawing down where I wanted the lines to be roughly first (on a piece of paper, for guidance), I sewed them on to the stocking.

7. Now, we need to embroider ‘Mama’ onto the white collar. There are lots of ways to do this. I simply sketched the word onto paper first so I had a bit of guidance, and then I very lightly wrote it on the felt with pencil. Barely visible kind of light, so that when you stitch on top, you won’t be able to see it. Remember to leave room at the top, bottom and sides of the felt for further stitching. I used a split stitch to create the word so that it had a nice thick line to it.

8. Once I was done, I used my machine to sew the stocking together. Place right sides together and pin, then sew all around the edge (apart from the top, obviously – we need a gap for gifts!). 

Snip small ‘v’ shapes into any curved seam allowances, then turn right side out, smoothing and pressing with an iron (dish towel between your iron and felt to stop burning)

9. Now, you’re going to blanket stitch both sides of the collar, making sure that it fits flush with the stocking. Because we used up ½ inch or so of your stocking at each side as a seam allowance when we sewed the front and back together, you should now have just enough extra collar at each side to sew a nice blanket stitch up it.

10. Once you’ve done this, you want to sew a piece of ribbon onto your stocking with which to hang it. A nice chunky ribbon works well. You can machine stitch it if you want or just hand sew but make sure you make it extra secure and tight. The collar will go over any visible stitches.

11. Now, you’re going to place your collar over your stocking and blanket stitch all the way round the top, until it is securely sewn on. Repeat at the bottom of the collar, but just to edge it – you don’t have to sew it onto the stocking, just tidy up the edge and make it a little sturdier.

12. Admire. Hang it up. Put lovely gifts in it.

Here are some other stockings I've done too - Hopefully you can see how easy it is to customise a basic stocking and make it as personalised as you want!

(Howard's stocking, with simple Yule trees sewn on)

(The start of our Winter Seasons Table...)