Crochet Unicorn Ornament

It doesn't look like the unicorn trend is going away any time soon so I'm fully embracing it with my craft fair offerings. I have unicorn hairbands, unicorn pencil toppers, unicorn toys and now unicorn baubles.

When my Mum was crocheting the baubles for my Mickey Mouse ornaments I asked her to do a few white ones.

I made the horn and ears out of felt which I sewed to the wool.

I used some little fabric flowers to embellish the unicorns and added the eye lashes with black embroidery thread.

DIY Wooden Tree Advent Calendar

For the past two years my boyfriend and I had been using this advent calendar that I made. But because it was made out of cardboard boxes that had to be glued shut, and therefore torn open, it was time to replace it.
The size of the boxes was also a bit limiting when it came to buying things for each other to fill them, which is something I took into consideration when I started thinking of a new DIY advent calendar.

This is what I came up with.
A wooden tree with hooks to hang on numbered baubles. The baubles are stuck to 24 little gifts, kept in a box alongside, and when a gift is opened it's bauble is hung on the tree. So the fuller the tree, the closer we are to Christmas!

To make this advent calendar I got some thin lengths of wood and coloured them with wood stain so they would match some of the furniture in our living room.
I cut 6 pieces of wood in decending lengths for the branches of the tree, plus one long piece which would be the trunk.

Figuring out the sizes took some planning, especially since 24 doesn't easily work in a pyramid layout. So instead of the branches having 1, 2, 3, 4 etc baubles on them, mine go 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6.

I hammered little nails into the branches which would be the hooks for the baubles to hang on.

Then I glued the branches to the trunk using a strong epoxy glue. It wasn't until I took this photo that I realised I used two different brands of tubes, but they still worked when mixed together.

I also screwed an eye screw into the top of the trunk and attached some twine so that I could hang the tree on the wall.

I bought two packs of 20 mini baubles, ommitted the glittery ones, and numbered the rest using a white paint pen. I might re-do this at some point using number stickers to make it look a bit neater.

Then all that was left to do was wrap the 12 gifts I bought for my boyfriend, which I've been gathering for the past month, and attach the baubles. Then I gave him the other half of the baubles for him to do the same with the gifts he bought for me...yesterday. But what's good about this advent calendar is that you don't have to have all the gifts ready on December 1st as you can add them to the box at any time. So it gives people who have had a particularly busy November a bit of wiggle room.

I really love how this turned out and I hope we'll be using it for many years to come!

Custom Felt Dogs

Today I'm sharing a few of the custom felt dogs I've made recently.

As the countdown to Christmas has begun I've been getting lots of new orders coming my way.

I was really please with how this tricolour Corgi turned out. Look at that happy face! I went on to use this pattern as the basis for a standard Corgi in my shop which I've sold twice already.

This felt dog is @chunkithefrenchie on Instagram. He wears some great slogan t-shirts that are worth checking out.

I've started making some dogs with Santa hats on ready for Christmas, but this customer asked if I could do a hat wearing a baseball hat. Sure thing!

I had to google to find out which team this dog supports. Go Astros!

Follow @lisasfeltfriends on Instagram for all of my felt creations, and check out my Etsy shop.

Mickey Mouse Ornaments 3 Ways

Today I'm sharing 3 ways to make a Mickey, or Minnie, Mouse Christmas ornament.

When looking through my stash of various baubles I found I had a few black ones. What do you do with black baubles? Make Micky Mouse of course! I had the perfect sized ones for the project.

I took two small baubles and cut the tops off, which I was able to do with a craft knife.

Then I used my hot glue gun to stick the small baubles to a larger one in the classic Micky ear formation.

I decided to make this into a Minnie Mouse ornament by adding a little hand made bow.

For the next ornament I asked my Mum to crochet around a bauble with red wool.

Then I cut out two pairs of red felt circles for the ears. I added red sequins and then sewed the circles together.

 I sewed the felt circles to the bauble, and then added red sequins to the rest of the bauble. You could just glue these but I decided to sew them on.

For this simplified Mickey Mouse ornament I asked my Mum to crochet round another bauble; half red and half black.

I made the felt circle ears out of black this time, and sewed them on. Then I took two white buttons and sewed them to the red section of the bauble.

This one could easily be made into a Minnie ornament by sewing white sequins, or buttons, all over the red section and adding a bow to the top.

Crochet Superhero Balls

Did you know that my crochet emoji balls are my second most pinned project? (My most pinned project is Baby Groot)
For this year's craft fairs I decided to make some other crochet balls. With all the superhero movies around I picked superhero logos.

My Mum crochets around tennis balls and then I add the details. The Batman and Superhero balls are pretty straightforward to make, after a little bit of tricky cutting out. For the Spiderman ball I sewed some black wool over the ball to make the web.

We're a big Deadpool household so I also made a Deadpool ball to go with the felt Deadpool decoration which you can find in my Etsy shop.

What other superhero logos should I make?

Miniature Tardis Decoration

After making a few miniature wooden houses I decided to try making some iconic buildings. Starting with...the Tardis!

I made the Tardis from a base of balsa wood with the details built up with cardboard.
I drew out the design first and worked out the different layers, which I then cut out of card and stuck together using PVA glue.

I painted the whole thing using several layers of acrylic paint.

I cheated a little bit with the signs and just printed them off the computer. My tiny writing skills aren't that good!

For the light on the top I used a little bead with a flat piece of card on top.

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Winnie the Pooh Hairbands

My friend recently asked me if I'd make some photo props for her sister's baby shower. Her sister is pregnant with twins!

Having seen my unicorn hairband she asked if I could make something similar but with Winnie the Pooh characters, as this was the theme of the shower.

We decided on making the ears of Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore. I found a pack of hairbands that included yellow, pink, orange and blue which was perfect.

I made paper patterns of the ears and cut them out of felt. I made them so the piece of felt would fold over the hairband.

The ears are pretty simple shapes, with only one or two elements to them. Plus a tuft of Eeyore's hair of course.

If the hairbands were for regular use I'd probably sew the felt together, but since they're for a one off event I decided to just glue them, which worked perfectly well.

Here's a photo of the selfie station my friend set up at the baby shower. Love that hashtag! #twinniethepooh

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