Felt Pumpkins Tutorial

Hi there!
Today I'll be sharing a super fast and easy tutorial on making felt pumpkins. All you need is felt, stuffing and thread. start by cutting two round pieces of felt.

Use a whip stitch to join the two pieces but leave a small opening. You can either fill it now and leave the stitch on the outside or follow the next step.

Turn the pumpkin inside out, keeping the stitching on the inside and fill it with the stuffing. Use a hidden stitch to close the opening.

Take a thread with a contrasting color and go through the center of tour pumpkin. Leave a "tail" of thread behind, you will need it to finish the pumpkin.

Start by dividing the pumpkin first in half vertically and then horizontally. Take your needle around the outer edge bring it down at the center, pull the thread to create a section. Next take your needle on the opposite side, around the outer edge and back into the middle again pulling to create the next section. Each time you will bring your needle up in the middle and pull tight to create the sections and they don't have to be perfect, real pumpkins aren't completely symmetrical either!

Once you've divided it into four parts next begin by dividing each part in half, again keep bringing your needle around the outer edge and through the center. When you have finished you should have eight sections. Bring your needle down to have it in the same side as the tail you left in the beginning. Tie the two threads together in a tight knot and cut the excess thread.

Use a piece of brown felt to create a stem and glue it into place, hiding the closing knot.

You can see the two different versions, two are made with the seam on the outside and two with the seam on the inside.
Hope you liked this diy :-)
Aleka

Halloween houses

Last Halloween craft and it's an easy one :-)
I used this house pattern, transferred it to black and white paper using carbon, it doesn't show on the black paper but on the white it's pretty visible. So I had my nephew paint over the blue lines with a black marker and gave him a silver marker to paint the black houses. I think it's easier for a kid to paint on the paper when it's flat, after he painted them I used glue on the flaps and mini wooden pegs to hold them while the glue dried.

While I waited I made a super quick mini bat garland, just cut bat shapes and little triangles from black paper, add a dab of glue on the back side and glue them on jute string. I used scotch tape to stick it on the wall behind my houses but if you have washi tape with a Halloween pattern that will look great!

The fun thing about these houses is that their tops are not glued so you can lift them and use the inside of the house to keep candy or spooky decorations :-)

xoxo
Aleka

Linked to Homework, Lizmarieblog & Whipperberry

Trick or treat bags

I love working with paper so here's a tutorial for making monster and pumpkin trick or treat bags!

You'll need pva glue, two balloons and pieces of newspaper. You can either pick the balloon with the size you want and blow it up completely or just use the ones you have (I had big size balloons) and just blow it up to the size you want. Start gluing the paper on, cover the entire surface of the balloon leaving enough space at the bottom for your hand to go through. Let each layer dry before applying the next one, four or five layers of paper make a very sturdy bag. Once you have applied the final layer and it is dry pop the balloon, then cut the edge of your bag so that it's even. Apply gesso to the inside and outside before you apply paint. Paint it like a pumpkin or green monster. Make two holes at the side and tie your cord and you're done! My nephew loved the green monster, when he saw it he said "brains, brains" :-)

Tips:
Start with a layer of white wrapping paper (I have a lot of it from Ikea, the one you wrap glass and breakables) that way you won't have to paint the inside. You can also end with a layer of the same paper so won't have to gesso the outside before you paint it.
After you have done all the layers and popped the balloon hold the bag up to the light, that way you'll see the parts that aren't so thick, that's where you'll need to add paper to make them stronger.
Or you can alternate layers between newspaper and wrapping paper so it will be easier to see which parts you've missed.

Hope you like it :-)
Aleka

Linked to Whipperberry and LizMarieblog!

Felt bones

Halloween is a holiday we don't have in Greece, there is a similar holiday called "Apokries" where people dress up but it's not really linked to witches, monsters and scary things. So I've learned to love Halloween from movies, one of my favorites is Tim Burton's "Nightmare before Christmas" and this absolutely fantastic song!
So here's a super easy tutorial for making felt bones. I've used grey and black felt and after cutting out the shapes I stitched them together with matching thread colors and stuffed them with polyfill batting. You can use the last image as a guide for the shapes, the three bone shapes fit an A4 page. Just right click and save the image.
You can make lots and lots of them to have as decorations for Halloween :-)
Have a lovely weekend,
Aleka