Carousel continued...

Or thirty days, more or less, of crafting.

I have been working on crafts everyday, but I've fallen behind in posting. Here are some photos to show you how the carousel horse is developing:

Here, of course, is the wire form, made from 20 gauge florist wire. After trying a lot of different types of wire, I settled on this as it is easy to work with and inexpensive. I always start the wire form by folding the piece of wire in half. The middle fold is the nose of an animal or the neck for a gnome.

The beginning! In one of the last posts, I explained about how to wrap the folded ends - in this case, the nose and the hooves. Taking the time to do this makes it easier later on to complete those parts without the wire sticking through. DON'T FORGET TO PUT THE STICK WHERE IT NEEDS TO BE BEFORE WRAPPING THE HORSES BODY!! 

Okay. I did forget on two of them - no, three. It was a pain to try and make a hole in the horse after I had felted it firmly. You won't make that mistake because I've warned you.

Here's one which is nearly ready to add the top layer of color. These have all started out blue because I had a lot of blue wool I knew I wasn't going to use for anything else. 

What do you call a bunch of horses on sticks?  HORSE D'OEUVRES! 

Next - putting on the finishing colors and designs.

30 Days of Crafting - More Needle Felt Flowers

Here are some more needle felted flowers. They are made much in the same way as the dandelion. I rounded out the wire loop at the top and felted around it in brown, then added the petals. 

Here's a small garden. I like this one with the different colors of green. 

This next one is a yellow dandelion with a bumblebee.

And here is a clover. The clover blossoms are made just like the dandelion flowers, just in a pale purple. I made one plant with stems going every which way, just like the clover in my garden. There are many more leaves on the real plant, but this gives the idea, anyway.  I was going to put this one in the fair, but I like how it looks behind our Buddha.

That's a needle felted dragonfly sitting on the clover blossom!  

Next up - step by step photos of a needle felted carousel horse. 

needle

30 Days of Crafting

It's November, which means a lot to writers. I signed up this year to be a part of NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month. This is when authors, professionals, beginners, and everyone in between, go into a frenzy and attempt to write 1666 words per day to a total of 50, 000 words for the month.

It's also NaBloPoMo or National Blog Posting Month. The idea is to write a post on our blog every single day for the month of November. I wasn't sure about this one at first, but I'm going to give it a go. Instead of articles, I will post a craft project each day. This is because I'm also getting ready for a craft fair in early December. 

This first picture is my first attempt at a carousel horse.  Eventually, there will be up to 8 horses on a wooden carousel. I will post updates. I also hope to put up as many instructions for making these figures as I can.