In the third in my series teaching you how to needle felt a dogs head today we look at the brachycephalic dog The Boston Terrier, the French Bulldog, any dog with these delightfully smooshy faces (although for all dog lovers it is worth being aware of the health problems that can occur with the dogs if we go to extreme with these features)
Like all my small dog sculptures the head starts with a ball, If you dont know how to make a ball check out this video for details
Then you want to create a small thin tube, Squish the ball to a slight oval shape and apply the tube towards the bottom of your oval
felt this nub firmly down to approx the length you want the muzzle to be
Now to make the jowls you need a 1-2 inch piece of fleece
Make sure the length is even each side and felt the middle of this ontop of the nub you made for the muzzle like a crazy moustache
fold the ends under to create the jowls
Pinch these bits between your fingers and carefully felt - adjusting the shape depending on the breed of the dog
At this stage you can add any shading to the muzzle
For the lower jaw pinch an inch or two of fleece between your fingers and carefully felt a U shape.
Add shading if needed and keep measuring your lower jaw against the upper so you know if you need to adjust the shape. Poke extra into areas that need to be made smaller
Carefully felt the lower jaw into place.
Adding eyes, ears and any shading depending on the breed and you are done
for the full Boston terrier video check it out here
Click on the image to check out some needle felting kits (affiliate link to amazon)
For my small sculptures I like to use a simple armature.
Two lengths of pipe cleaner, the length to be the front legs, along the body and down the back legs (twice obviously) I fold over the ends so there is no jaggy wire
The back legs are usually slightly longer than the front - but look at the breed
I then twist the centres together to make a H shape
Taking thin strips of core wool (I use the world of wool carded white corridale reviewed here ) I wrap that as evenly up the legs and over the body. On the body I wrap around the body side to side and top to bottom to make a nice fat shape
Then spend a good amount of time felting this smooth - moving in all directions, taking up to an hour to get it nice and smooth.
Then I felt back and forwards in straight lines at the tops of the leg to make creases to make bending the legs easier
Bend the legs over using the crease lines, and again felt all over till its firm. At this stage check front legs are the same length as each other and the back legs are the same length as each other - add a little fleece if needed
About a 1/3rd of the way up the back leg (depending on the breed) again felt backwards and forwards in the same place to create a line
This line is the hock, bend the bottom of the leg forwards and felt to firm this bend, then curve the top of the leg back
Take around an inch of fibre for each side we want to felt a C shape starting behind the dogs bum then curving down infront of the thigh and ending just above the hock felt this fibre in place squeezing between your fingers as you felt to keep the 'muscle' thin when facing head on but nice and 'meaty' from the side
It should take over 1 hour to get a nice firm smooth dog body shape, keep felting all over the body and add small amounts of fleece if you need to smooth out any areas that need it
Over the past year I have had great fun reviewing some of my stash of needle felting equipment and supplies - so you dont have to So what did I find the winners in 2017? What would I recommend needle felters (and other crafters) should consider in their craft box (or room :) ) The needle felting holder. I reviewed it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRsAl...
This amazing tool hold your needle felting needle and I have found over the months it actually reduces felting pain in my wrist - I was really amazed as I didnt think I would like using one at all but I use it all the time and I am going to buy a few more. Mine is from world of wool but you can get them affordably all over
The Cutting Wheel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwyQw...
For quickly cutting fabric this guy is amazing - along with a cutting mat and a ruler you can cut perfect lines - or go freehand for easy curves. I use this for cutting felt for bookmarks or clothing and wings for felties - but I can see it would also be amazing for dressmaking or anything that needs lots of fabric cut
The Sulkie Iron Transfer pen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-J7V...
This one really is a game changer if you want to do 2d felted paintings
Take any image you want (If you want to sell the paintings make sure the image isnt copyright - for example the Sally was a gift for a friend, I couldnt make it commercially as I dont have the rights to use the image) Then using tracing paper (or baking paper :) ) you trace the image and then with a hot iron you iron it onto the fabric you want to felt on and you have a a perfect image to felt with
Here is the image transferred onto felt - and then felted
Amazon Glass eyes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_pd6...
These are such a surprise - 100 pairs of eyes in a handy wee box posted out usually the next day, I seriously cannot knock these. Occasionally the metal pin at the back isnt attached and I dont really use the smallest size in the box but to be honest at this price that is not problem at all, they stick on firmly with the paverpol and really bring life to my little felted dogs
These come in an amazing range of colours that match with their carded batt colours so fantastic for needle felting projects where you need something thin like wings or clothes - being pre-felt they are softer than finished felt so you can still felt them into shapes
This fabric stiffener is something I saw as an art supply many years ago and I had tried to use to make some of the lovely flowing sculptures I had seen
And I just got in a total mess
Then I tried it with my felted pieces
It is AMAZING for attaching the above eyes into wee dogs, a wee drop of glue onto the end of the stem of the eye and then pushed into a ready made hole in the head this sets rock solid into the head without and external signs
And I loved this when felting my dragon talons. Felt the talon then dip it in the paverpol, scrape off excess and leave it for an hour - then it is set enough you can touch it without getting in a mess, you can sculpt it to the precise shape you want and then leave to set fully - then I was able to paint and glaze
Colour cards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v64QM...
It is hard to tell what colour something is from a computer screen and I have spent SO much buying colours to find out they are just not quite right, most companies sell colour cards that have tiny samples of each colour of fibre so you get and idea of what you are getting before you get it. This saves me so so much time and money, I would say, whatever company you are thinking of using get a hold of their colour cards right away, invaluable.
My Honourable mention
The works shop is a discount book and craft type shop in the UK, they tend to sell disappointing kits so I did not hold out much hope when I purchased this kit
and I was so surprised
Firstly the foam packing IS a felting cushion :) it is not something I have seen before but I was since informed that was what this was for and it does do the job pretty well (although I dont like the noise)
There is a good selection of actual nice quality fibres - I had assumed they would be merino but they are actually a nice fibre
There is enough for the two projects they give you (an apple and pair) and the felting needles are actually good and work well with the fibres they give you
The book is good with lots of information and inspiration for other projects
If you can find it and want to get started felting then you could do worse than this kit (I cannot find it for sale at this time - hence why it is just a mention)
Where I can on this post there are links to where you can buy these items at good prices, some of these are affiliate links which do not cost you extra but just help me out a little bit
The geek in me totally loves how they have used all the great statistics they have to look at how the position of an item in a search category is not fixed, it rises and falls because SEO is more than just the tags and titles we work on.
As Etsy has always told us recency, sales, views and hearts do all to differing extents effect our SEO
This shows very clearly how a sale or a renewal can boost an item all the way to the first page of a search and it depends on other factors as to how quickly those items fall away down the ranking.
As I thought this was such a good article I made a quick announcement video of my reactions to this post
I tried out a new art form the other day
2d needle felting - or wool painting
This is my 2nd ever painting, I hope you all enjoy
I created my own transfer by drawing out my leopard with an iron on transfer pen (I used the sulky one in the link below - affiliate link) and I found it surprisingly easy to use
Then I ironed the image onto a piece of felt to give me a guide of where to felt. Then about 8 hours of stabbing later and this guy appeared
For the month of April I decided to run a challenge for all of us
In the first video I give out my starting stats from the last month - so HOPEFULLY by the end of the month there will be a nice change.
The point of the challenge is every day we do one little thing that hopefully adds up to a big change
Also sometimes its overwhelming all the work you have to do in your shop - its better to get in the habit of doing one thing every day than trying to do it all at once. Its actually better for SEO to have constant activity - and you dont burn yourself out
Week one challenge is to use EtsyRank to change one listing every day to get it to an A grade
In Todays video I try and cover a basic guide to SEO for small artists and crafters with shops on Etsy
SEO is search engine optimisation - its the way websites allow you to search for things of interest
Etsy's SEO is slightly different than other search engines so even if you know how to rank for Google or YouTube learning Etsy magic will really help your shop
Some factors to consider for SEO are
Tags and Titles
Recency
Listing Quality
Location
Customer Experience
Similar items
I hope this video helps :) Please feel free to like and share (if you like it)
So todays tutorial is a lovely simple project
Love hearts
This is a good beginner exercise to learn to manipulate the shapes of your pieces with either pressure from your hands or the way you use your needle
Give it a try, and feel free to subscribe, like and comment to my channel over on youtube
I am actually really enjoying learning about vidoe editing, I know I have a long way to go
But this week I learnt how to remove the hum from my camera and I learnt how to do photo in photo
Which ment doubling up (well treabling because I messed up and felted out of shot for the 1st close up! Doh) my filming but I HOPE it gives a clearer tuotirial where you can actually see what I am doing.
I know the background it still terrible - I have some new exciting things coming soon so I hope this will improve.
But thank you all for the support while I learn.
So this weeks video is a tutorial for a needle felted penguin
This is such a fun project to make using some really basic tequniques. All you need to be able to do before you start is to practise needle felting a ball - and I have a video for that
So once you have got the hang of that then you are ready to try your first ever project.
Here is part one, this teaches you how to link two balls together, adding more fleece to smooth out the transition from body to head, hot to flatten the bottom of the body to alow the peice to stand up and how to start adding a different colour.
And part two continues adding different colours, using small balls to make beaks and eyes and giving ideas for how to add wings or be inspired with different types of penguins
(and yes, I messed up in the video, the one I was holding was a rockhopper penguin)
I really hope you all enjoy this, I am loving all the support and I know my videos can only get better with your help :)
If you do make a penguin feel free to share, I would love to see them, and any questions or feedback please get in touch
I also have some great ideas for tips and tricks for growing your Etsy store so please keep an eye out
Today it involves no needle felting at all - but shows you how to make these fun fleece curls
These are SO easy, they take a day or so but you can make them in any colour you wish
I hope you like
Please keep a eye out as I have a whole load of these videos planned, if there is anything you would like to learn about needle felting then please ask below
So back in the mists of time (2 years ago) I had the fantastic idea to create some beginner needle felting videos.
I filmed a few and even managed to edit some, like this introduction to needle felting
And this first exercise - felting a ball
And then my computer decided it didnt want to talk to my video editing software.
Now - Two years later I finally have editing software I can use - so Im working through the videos I had already made (know whats worse than seeing yourself on film? Seeing yourself 2 years ago on film and not being able to change what you are saying!)
Here is the first of the recorded ages ago new videos
I plan to continue uploading the remaining tutorial videos from the past and I have a load of new ideas for new videos (which I promise will have way better audio!!) So please feel free to like and share and subscribe either here or on my YouTube channel.
