Spooky Goings On... How To Make a Wreath

It's October and nearly time for Halloween. It seems to be getting bigger and bigger each year, though we sadly don't get any trick our treaters down our street. I thought I'd make a wreath with this lovely  spooky fabric, bright orange with black pumpkins and black with sparkly silver cobwebs. I also picked up some orange ribbon with black bats.

I had some black pipe cleaners in with my felting stash so borrowed them for this project too and some small wire clippers so I could clip the pipe cleaners in half to use as wires to connect the fabric to the wreath base.

I scrunched up a strip of orange and black fabric and tightly wrapped a pipe cleaner around it.

The wreath base I used has 2 concentric circles, so I connected my little wrapped 'bows' each circle, packing them in quite tightly.

To sit on my wreath and add the spookiness, I wanted a big spider. I made 2 pom poms, tied them together and trimmed the bigger one to make it flatter underneath. I used my glue gun to stick 4 long pipe cleaners to be my spiders 8 legs and 2 large googly eyes. I used yarn to tie the spider to the wreath and hid the knot under the fabric 'bows'.

A long piece of ribbon tied to the frame as a hanging loop and a few more pieces to make bows. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out.

It's actually quite heavy, the frame I used was 14 inches, so quite big.

I thought as I'm talking Halloween, I'd show you these lovely pumpkins and gourds, all different shapes and colours, they make good decorations.

Anyone else making any halloween preparations?

Take care
xxx

Little Piggy Squeak

Thank you for your lovely comments about little Ted and his bunnikins friend, they were so nice to reading I hope those who wanted to find needle felting tutorials were able to, it's a very rewarding hobby watching pieces of wool transform in front of you!


I picked up this polystyrene Father Christmas hat in Hobbycraft the other day. It's a very easy thing to start felting with as you don't have to do any shaping, just felt the wool over the top of it.

I've gone for the traditional red with white trim. It didn't take long to felt, but will look lovely on the tree at Christmas.

Now that Holly has returned to work, we're looking after Zack for 3 days a week to help out, it saves Adam and Holly the cost of a nursery, means Zack is being cared for by people who love and adore him and also means we get to spend lots of quality time with our beautiful grandson, so win, win all round! Holly was picking Zackary up the other day and casually mentioned that she'd been shopping with Izzy (her gorgeous daughter) looking for pink clothes as Izzy wanted to dress up as a pig for a farm dress up day at school. They couldn't find a costume and poor Holly was feeling bit stressed about it... I suggested I make Izzy a curly tail, snout and ears.

I twisted 3 pipe cleaners around each other then crocheted around them to make the pink, curly tail.

For the snout, I cut the bottom off a paper cup then proceeded to burn off my fingerprints as I used the hot glue gun to glue a piece of pink felt around it,

with a couple of little brown circles as nostrils.

I sewed the tail to Izzy's pink leggings, she was so happy with it.

Some ears cut from card with some pink felt in the middle of them and attached to an old hairband. I threaded some elastic through the snout and we were sorted. I've told Holly next time Izzy drops a dress up day at short notice on her, to let us know... I rather enjoyed making the bits and pieces.

Doesn't Izzy make a very cute little piggy! Holly sent me a couple of photos before Izzy went to school in the morning.

Just before I pop off (Zack is asleep and I'm trying to write this before he wakes again), I thought I'd share a picture of Honey. I took it last night, this is Honey watching TV, Paul O Grady for the love of dogs was on and she barely took her eyes off the screen!

Take care
xxx

Bit of Tarting Up.

I bought a lovely standard lamp from one of our local charity shops a while ago. I'd been popping in and out for a while hoping to find one.

It didn't need much doing to it, just a bit of tarting up. I completely forgot to take a before photo before I started... oops, never mind. Here's the shade, lovely big one.

Bit plain though and in definite need of tarting. Tarting accessories...

Glue gun (with extra glue stick as I always seem to run out in the middle of doing something), bobble trim and a lovely twill.

I removed the existing trim and simply replaced it with my own.

How do I manage to almost completely remove my fingerprints whenever I use a glue gun!! Is it just me?

I painted the stand with Annie Sloan paint, Versailles. Here it is in it's glory... please excuse the general messiness

I'm sure lots of you clever people out there could have made a lovely lampshade, but I just didn't know where to start and I'm happy with the trimmings for now

Take care
xxx