Wood Burned Key Rings

I'm back with another edition of 'what can I do with the pack of 100 keyring chains I ordered?'

This time, we're reaching for the pyrography tool.

I've made some wood burned dog things in the past that turned out well so I thought I'd give them another go. I bought a pack of little wooden discs which may have been a little bit too small but I'm committed now.

I found that using the pyrography tool worked best for long haired, fluffy dogs as it doesn't give enough precision for short haired dogs. I tried a few but wasn't happy with how they turned out, with the exception of the pug. He came out ok, if a little bug-eyed.

Once I'd drawn the dogs I just needed to drill a little hole in the discs and attach the key ring chain, and now they're good to go.

Custom Order Book Covers

I recently had a request from an Etsy customer to make fabric book covers for her pet's medical records, after she saw the notebooks I have in my shop. This customer had already bought some felt keyrings of her dogs so she wanted the books to match.

 I sent her a photo of all the fabric I thought would be suitable for this project and she picked this blue and white striped fabric with embroidered hearts.

To make the covers I cut out a long rectangle of the patterned fabric, as well as a matching one in plain white which would be the inside. I cut out the animal faces and sewed them to he patterned fabric. The two dogs were based on existing patterns I had, just with a few colour changes, but the cat I had to design from scratch. 

With back sides of the two pieces of fabric facing I sewed along the top and the bottom and one of the sides. I turned them right side out and inserted two pieces of card to give the cover some sturdiness. I then sewed up the remaining open side

I made the fabric pieces extra long so that I could fold in the sides, and sew in place, to create pockets for the covers of the medical records to slide in to.  

Making these covers involved a bit of trial and error but the customer was so pleased with them and said the records fit perfectly.

Painted Dog Wood Slices

In an attempt to broaden my range of products whilst still appealing to the dog market I've come up with these painted wood slice decorations.
I made a few of these for Christmas and they all sold on my Etsy shop, so I made more for the new year.

My Mum gave me a box of 50 wood slices for Christmas, so I don't think I'll be running out any time soon. I prime the wood first, just around the shape of the dog, and then use acrylics to paint the dog.

I love how this batch have turned out. I think my tiny dog painting skills are getting better with every one I do.

To make the paintings go further I decided to get a few of them printed on little pocket mirrors. I edited the images of Photoshop and added a pastel coloured background. I got them printed by Awesome Merch who did a great job. Delivery was quick and they even threw in an extra mirror! 

 Both my wood slices and mirrors are available in my Etsy shop!

Felt Dog Notebooks

Remember the handmade notebooks I made? Well I've made some more, but this time with felt dog faces on the front. At this stage, I think if you stood still for too long in my craft room I'd try to sew a dog face to you!

For this set of notebooks I used plain white paper for the pages, from unused sketchbooks, rather than different coloured paper like in my first set. I like the mix of papers but some of the feedback I got from having those notebooks out at craft fairs was that some people prefer plain paper. So I'm giving the people what they want!

Each notebook has 48 pages which are sewn together down the middle and attached to a card cover, which is covered in patterned fabric. I love a reason to dig into my fabric stash.

 I've listed the notebooks in my Etsy shop so if you're interested, check them out here.

A Felt Dog for Every Occasion

This year I've been expanding my felt dog business by producing dogs for different occasions.

I made a dog on a heart for Valentine's day.

A dog ghost for Halloween.

I even made a dog bride and groom to celebrate my wedding this year.

And of course my Christmas dogs in Santa hats are back for another year.

Check out all my felt dogs, and other animals, in my Etsy shop, and follow along on Instagram @lisasfeltfriends.

Dog Paintings

When I found out there was a dog friendly cafe opening in my town I approached the owner about doing some dog paintings to hang on the walls. She gets some free artwork and I get some free advertising. Win win!

These are a few of the paintings I've done. 

These are A4 sized. I also did a couple of larger paintings, including one of the owners own dog who sadly passed away. It already has pride of place on the wall in the cafe.

I also made some leaflets to go in the cafe in the hope of getting some commissions for pet portraits, and I've made a new page on my website to advertise them.

I love how they look in frames! I got these white frames from Wilkos.

I can't wait to see them up in the cafe!

Shrink Plastic

I didn't grow up with Shrinky Dinks so the idea of shrink plastic is very new and exciting. I'd seen a lot of tutorials on youtube of people using it to make pins and wanted to have a go.

I purchased this shrink plastic which is suitable to print on with an inkjet printer.

For my first experiment I printed two of my dogs in flower crown designs. I followed the instructions and printed them approximately three times bigger than I wanted the end product to be. I'd also read that the image appears darker once shrunk, so I lightened the images before printing them.

Cutting out the images was fairly easy, although the little leaves were a bit tricky, but I wondered how much these imperfections would show up once shrunk (spoiler: they didn't show up).

Then it was time for the oven, and the realisation that I need to clean my oven door as I didn't have a clear view of what was going on inside.

The shrinking process happens quite quickly. In the youtube videos I'd watched it looks like the footage is sped up but it really is that fast. The plastic folds up and then shrinks as it flattens down. It's really exciting!

I was really pleased with how they turned out. They aren't completely flat but for a first try I think they're great.

I decided to make one of the designs into a keyring which I did by drilling a hole through the plastic and attaching the ring. A hole can be made before shrinking with a hole punch, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them before I shrunk them.

I think the unicorn pug design would look great as a pin so I'm going to look into getting some little pin backs to stick on.

Have you ever used shrink plastic? What did you make with it?

Pin it!

Painting Commissions

 Hi guys, today I wanted to share a couple of recent commissions I've been working on.

 The first was from my cousin. I painted his dog a couple of years ago as a Christmas present (this one) and since then he's got another dog so wanted another painting to match the first.

The second painting was for my friend's boyfriend, whose dog sadly passed away so my friend asked if I would do a painting to commemorate him.

It's interesting that both dogs are white and fluffy which meant I had to think carefully about brushstrokes and look for all the subtle colours in the shadows of the white fur.

I'm really happy with how these paintings turned out and their recipients were pleased too!

New Paintings: Dogs in Flower Crowns

I came up with these images when I was working on some designs for new colour in magnets, which I'll be sharing soon. I loved this set of four dogs in headresses and wanted to do more with them.

They look so grumpy about having to wear flower crowns!

I decided to print out the designs on a larger scale on to water colour paper to make some small paintings. I decided to use gouache paint as a way to keep practising with it. I thought its ability to produce flat, even colour would work well for the style I was going for with these paintings.

When painting it was easier to go over the printed lines and draw them in again afterwards with a black felt tip pen.

I'm so happy with how these turned out. Gouache paint was perfect for these. I'll probably print out more copies of these designs so I can keep practising.

I'm planning to make these four paintings in to prints but for now the original paintings are available to buy on my Etsy shop.