sunshine bursting through puffy white clouds & being able to share many laughs this week. it's good for the soul.
what are you grateful for?
grateful for
Hand made felt birds for Christmas
I want to hang pretty glittered birds on my Christmas tree this year to fit in with my Winter Wonderland theme. So, I designed a glittery winged felt bird to match my other Christmas birds. I have now made sixteen of them in white with pink glitter, antique pink, pale aqua and teal. Now I can't wait to hang them on my tree later next month!
Felt Bird
Tools and Materials
- Printed out bird pattern
- White felt
- White embroidery thread
- Supersoft toy filling
- Jump rings
- 12cm long, 3mm double faced satin ribbon
- Gold seed beads
- Stone coloured sewing thread
- PVA glue
- Pink glitter
- Scissors
- Paint brush
- Embroidery needle
- sewing needle
Felt birds, How-to step by step
Start by printing off the bird pattern at 100% and cut out the pattern pieces. Place pattern pieces on felt and, using your water soluble pen, trace around outside edges so you have one body piece and two wings. Using a sharp pair of scissors, cut out felt pieces. Then pin cut out felt pieces to another piece of felt.
Carefully cut around felt birds. You will now have two bird body pieces and two sets of wings. Now, with a damp cloth, blot pen lines until they disappear. With your bird pattern pieces still pinned together, join them together by whip stitching around outside edges with embroidery thread, leaving a gap of about 15mm unstitched so you can stuff the birds.
Begin to stuff the birds by gradually pushing small bits of stuffing through the unstitched hole using a small stick. Make sure to push stuffing into the tip of the tail and beak. Continue adding stuffing to the bird so that the bird feels firm to the grasp and holds its shape well, then whip stitch the hole close. Now with a needle threaded with white embroidery thread stitch a jump ring to the top of the bird along the seam.
With your wing felt pieces still pinned together, join the pieces together by whip stitching around outside edges with embroidery thread leaving a gap of about 15mm unstitched so you can stuff the wings as you did the bird's body. Again whip stitch the hole closed and repeat with other set of wing pieces.
Now position your wings on the body and pin in place to secure while you stitch the underside of the wings to the bird body. Then thread your ribbon through the jump ring that is attached to your bird and knot the ends together. Doing this at this stage allows you to hang your bird for the next step of PVA gluing your birds.
Using a small paint brush, apply a coat of PVA glue to the areas on the bird you wish to glitter in pink. Then immediately sprinkle with glitter, lightly tap the bird to remove excess glitter and hang up to dry. Once the glue holding the pink glitter is dry apply a small coating of PVA glue to the beak and sprinkle with gold glitter, tap to remove excess glitter, and leave to dry. Sew gold beads to face of bird using a beading needle threaded with sewing thread, so you have an 'eye' both sides.
Have a sweet day!
yesterday i
This week I'm grateful for... happiness (it just had to be!)
I talked a lot (a lot) about happiness this week. Does it exist? Is it important? What does it mean?
I said I'm not going for happiness, that it isn't on my list. It's true that it has never seemed important as a 'goal' or a state of being to me. There are so many other things that need taking care of before I start to wonder whether I'm happy or not. But in truth, the taking care of the 'other things' seems to be enough to always get me there.
I cannot lie, I'm a happy sort of person and always have been. But to me it's not a state of mind, it's a state of 'is'. For me happiness seems to be what's left when the things that need taking care of are cared for.
Was I born this way? Did I learn it through my parent's wise words as a child? Did I just choose? I may never know. But what I do know is that for many, it's just the opposite. No matter how many boxes they tick or pursuits they complete or times they ponder, happiness lurks under shadow and won't be found. Knowing this pulls me up and reminds me that I can't be trite about happiness and I mustn't take it for granted.
So, this week I'm grateful for...
190. Happiness - it shines within me. It is never far.
191. Searching - on days and weeks when happiness decides to play hide and go seek and makes me count to 1,000,000 before I can even look for it, I will search and search and I won't give up.
192. Certainty - because no matter what, I know that I will eventually find it and is this certainity that we know as optimism that keeps a person truly happy.
So, what's making you smile today? Add your post to the list below (and please, we love you, but it really does matter that your post is a Grateful one and not just a random) and pretty-please add a link back to this linky. Then pop over to visit other bloggers who are spreading a little sunshine.
[Image kkathrynanna]
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