Rain Cloud Felt Pin

This isn't a step by step how to, more an overview.

I made this pin last night. The bead/pendant hanging from the bottom is from Cousin Corporations Jewelry Basics Acrylic series. It's a bit over an inch long.

You will need:

• White craft felt
• Embroidery floss
• colored sequins 
• 2 small seed beads for the center of the eyes
• tear drop shaped bead or pendant
• large seed beads- those are from an E bead mix
• a scrap of plastic (milk jugs are great for that!)
• pin back
• small amount of stuffing
• scissors
• thread

Take a piece of white craft felt about 6x2 inches, fold it in half so the 2 inch sides meet and cut out a rain cloud shape. I just freehanded a rounded shape. 

I'm not a fan of big bulky knots for small projects like this to keep the thread from pulling through the felt, so what I do is tie the end of my thread in a knot big enough to keep it from pulling through a light colored sequn, and use light sequins on the back where the knots will be. 

Embroider the face and finish off the embroidery with another sequin on the back. I also used two blue sequins that matched my thread for the eyes, held in place by seed beads.

On the back, stitch the little drop with the beads and tear drop, then make a running stitch to where you want the pin back to be. Cut a small rectangle of felt that will fit over the center bar of the pin back, and stitch it in place over the pin back.

Cut a small piece of plastic to sandwich between the two layers of felt. Stitch the felt pieces together with a blanket stitch around the plastic stopping about 3/4s of the way around to very lightly stuff it on the front side. Finish stitching.

Super easy! And you have a cute little rain cloud pin.

Flower Pins

Last year at our Pride Festival, TG got this flowered lei, this year, for more rainbowed goodness for Pride Week, she decided to make the flowers go further as scatter pins.

We discussed the best way to go about it, since the flowers have unfinished edges, we had to decide if we liked them like that or wanted to seal them. She said she liked the frayed edges. We did experiment with some sealing options. Heating the edges carefully with a lighter worked, so did glue which looked good with glitter added. I do recommend if you're going to use glue and glitter to use a fine applicator and a crystal glitter. Colored glitters can be a bit too much. Nail polish will also work or of course Fray Check.

To make these pins, all you need is fake flower lei like the one shown above, thread, needle, scissors, buttons and pin backs. The pin backs we used were from a thrift store, and safety pins would work too. The buttons were from my button stash. So the only thing we bought new was the thread.

I made one, and was pretty careful about my stitching. I stacked the flowers and tied a knot in the thread and pulled put it through the top of the flowers, around the pin back, back up through the flowers, then added the button. Sewed it carefully in place then hid the knot between the button and flowers. TG decided that the thread ends wouldn't matter very much since it was for her jacket and knotted on the back of the flower.

There are still a lot of flowers left. I'm planning to use smaller buttons and sew them to some hair pins (the U shaped ones) for myself and TG is thinking of other things she can use them on. So far, we've talked about purses and miniature fairy dolls. 

Heart Mandala and new heart bead project

This is a very simple mandala that reminds me of a flower. I hope you enjoy it! 

Click on the image for a larger version to color!

These are super easy to make. Free project instructions here-> Felt Hearts with 3 Bead Picot Edging

Product Review-The Button Factory

I was thinking of doing a gift guide of some of my favorite things that I've gotten and used in the last year. This will absolutely be on that list,The Button Factory: Everything You Need to Instantly Create 25 Fabric-Covered Pins!

The kit comes with the parts to make 25 pins, backs and tops. You cut out a circle of fabric and put it face down and centered into a soft rubbery feeling mold, then put in the button top, dome side down and fold the fabric into it, then the pin back and use a plastic piece to push the pin back into the pin top, trapping the fabric  edges neatly between the two and you have a fabric covered pin! You can embroider the fabric for a nice hand made detail, or stencil or stamp the fabric. 

I embroidered over prints in the purple and rose fabric above. Just tracing the elements in the fabric, then cutting out the circle and setting it in the pins. If you're a fabric addict, these can be made with very small scraps. A 2 inch square is all you'll need. 

Because these go together so easily, they are a wonderful project for parties. If you're so inclined, you and your friends, or your daughter and her friends can embroider small designs and set them in pins. If counted cross stitch is what you like best, these won't work with standard 14 count fabric, it's a little too thick, but I think they will work fine with even count linen. 

Also included in the kit are 2 strips of fabric with 2 small scale designs on each strip and a booklet with the template for cutting the fabric circles and ideas for making and packaging pins.

 Here's a photo with a penny for scale to see the button size.

You can get The Button Factory: Everything You Need to Instantly Create 25 Fabric-Covered Pins! directly from the publisher, Chronicle Books or by clicking the Amazon.com affiliate link below.

Amazon.com affiliate links don't affect your cost, and provide extra income to me personally, which helps support my book addiction.

You can get more information about my review policy here.

The Doctor Who fabric is Studio Fibonacci's Doctors, Monsters and Friends available on Spoonflower. The purple flower and the forget-me-not are from my own Spoonflower designs.

Paper punch pins

When I first envisioned this, I was working on an easy way for my daughter to make pins based for her fandoms that didn't involve me pulling out my button machine and trying to figure out where the cutter to go with it is. After testing the idea with a safety pin, a scrap of card stock from an empty cereal box and a piece of a crossword.. I got inspired to make a few using some of my other punches.

Any circle tag design would work as well. Including the name tags I posted a couple days ago.

Just print out the design, use a 2 inch circle punch to cut them out, and glue to a second 2 inch circle cut from card stock. Great use for using cereal boxes! Then tape a safety pin to the back. If you need to write on the front or color them, do that, then cover with Mod Podge. The crossword puzzle pin was made using this method and a 1 inch circle punch with a tiny size 0 safety pin. 

For the punched pins, I got a little fancier. Using regular pin backs and gluing them in place with a strip of paper. 

Cut two circles of decorative card stock, then punch your design on the color you choose for the top circle. For the apple design, I coated the bottom layer with glue then put on some red glitter. The leaf is cut from a separate piece of green card stock and covered with green glitter and glued into place. The top pink piece has the dots and the apple punched out to show the glitter coated card stock under it. Glue everything into place, put on the pin back, then cover with a couple coats of Mod Podge. The other 2 pins have punched appliqués. The blue and pink one has a second circle cut out of the pink with a 1 inch circle punch, then that has a heart and more dots punched. Put the whole thing together, cover with Mod Podge. The witch pin has the black top layer with a 1 inch circle punch to make the full moon, then I punched the witch from the black and put her in flying across the moon. I put a light sprinkle of silver glitter on the first coat of Mod Podge, then sealed over that when it was dry.

 

Super easy!!! Almost anything you'd do as a circle gift tag can also be done as a pin, or you could even make the pin the gift tag and write a note on the back and sign it then attach it to a gift.

Practicing hand sewing

I haven't sewn anything but beaded things or joining things that are knitted or crocheted in a long time. So last night I decided to make up some things with a remnant of fabric I got while my daughter was picking up rems for her dolls.
There are a lot of great instructions for backstitching on the net. I like these because it's a quick guide to a lot of types of stitches.
I backed the motifs I cut out of the fabric with felt, and for the pin I reinforced the spot I put the pin on the back with buttons. Because sometimes a knot will just pull right through felt, instead of knotting it then pulling the needle and thread through the felt, I put the needle and thread through the button, felt, button, around the safety pin then back down through another hole in the button,felt, and the button that would wind up on the inside, then knotted the tail to the working thread with a tight surgeon's knot. Proceeded to sew the pin on securely using the holes in the buttons, and tied it with a couple of half hitches, then did a small running stitch up to the edge to sew the edges together. Sewed it about 3/4s of the way around, stuffed, finish stitching it.

 

I like how rough they look. I'm planning to make more pins this way. The hair slides I made for my daughter.They are just motifs stitched to felt, then stitched into place on bobby pins.