More Tomte Gnomes!!

Well, what can I say?

I had absolutely no idea that my little Tomte Gnomes would be so popular. I have been furiously trying to keep up with orders these last few weeks in the run up to Christmas & my Gnomes have become scattered all over the globe!

This has been my first Christmas selling my wares on Etsy & I really didn't know what to expect, so you can imagine how overjoyed I am to have had so much interest in them.

It's been a real eye opener for me and I have learned so much from it as a seller. I know that I need to start making Christmas stock way, way, waaaaay earlier in the year. So I'm getting my head in gear for 2016 & planning out a schedule.

I'm looking forward to creating some new items and have some ideas already that I'm going to start on straight after Christmas. I'm also in the early stages of putting together a new blog which will run alongside this one, but I'm not going to give anything away just yet. Let's just say that I am very, very excited about it!!

Anyway, here are a couple of new creations I have managed to squeeze in this last week.
They are Forest Gnomes, inspired by natural mossy greens & brown colours. They would look completely at home shuffling around in the undergrowth, going about their business & doing whatever it is that Gnomes do.

I really love the rustic, natural colours used in both of these gnomes & even though they do look quite Christmassy, I think they will make great decorations all the year round.





To view them in my Etsy Shop, please follow these links:
Holly Inspired Forest Gnome
Forest Gnome

Needle Felting Workshop. Santa Bauble Tree Decorations.

Hello again & welcome!

In my last post, I was looking forward to the workshop that was to be held in Settle, North Yorkshire. Unfortunately, on the day, Mother Nature had other ideas & decided to pour an unholy amount of rain down on us & flood all the roads in & out. And so we had to cancel the class and will re-schedule for another date in the near future.

Yesterday however, I ran a workshop in my hometown of Earby. This was the first workshop that I have ever run 'Solo' & so I was a little bit nervous, but it turned out to be a huge success!!! Yey!!

I had nine ladies, including one very little lady who is just 9 years old. She came with her Mum, who is a good friend of mine & fellow crafter, and I think she has passed her crafty genes on to her daughter who did an absolutely amazing job (pics to follow).

So, we were making Santa Bauble Tree Decorations. A few ladies in the class have done a bit of needle felting before, but for most it was their first time & they all made some cracking Christmas Baubles!

Here are some piccies of us working away (Yes, I remembered to take pictures this time!)



And here are our fantastic finished Baubles.



I feel this one deserves a special mention as this is the one that my youngest student made. I think he is fantastic & he looks so good hanging on the tree!!!



A huge Thank You and well done to all who attended.

Christmas Needle Felting Workshops.

So tomorrow I'm back at Quilting Antics in Settle, hosting another needle felting workshop. This time we are making Christmas Decorations. Santa Baubles,  Snowmen and Christmas Gnomes.

I'm feeling very blessed in that they have asked me to come back to hold another workshop & I'm really looking forward to it!

I've also had the courage this week to set up a class at my Local community centre in Earby on the 6th December.  Which is very exciting and also a little bit scary as I'm hosting it all by myself! Eeek!

I'll try to take lots of pictures tomorrow and will let you know how we get on. Wish me luck!

Needle Felted Nativity Set.

Hi everyone, I'm rather excited about what I'm about to show you, as you may already recognise some of the characters in this set.
Yes, I started making this set a couple of years ago when I made the Three Wise Men, and it was only a few months ago that I took them out of storage & decided to go the whole hog and make a complete set.

First job was to fix Mary's face as I really wasn't happy with the way I left her. I matched her nose to fit in with the other figures, removed her mouth & set her eyes wider apart. (If you really want to see what she looked like before, click here)

Once Mary was finished, I've added Joseph, a Shepherd with his sheep (The sheep has a teeny tiny wire armature inside to make sure it stands up), and of course the Angel Gabriel.
With Gabriel, I went for a sort of Choir boy look, almost like they are all children dressed up performing a school nativity play. I really wanted to keep all the characters quite light-hearted, as with all their bright colours, I felt they all needed to be 'fun'.

So there you have it, Bright, Quirky and a little bit of Fun; My finished Nativity Set.

Post Edit:
Whilst I had originally intended to sell this set & listed it in my Etsy shop. Over the Christmas period I put the set on display in my home & realised that, actually, I couldn't bear to part with it! I've never had a nativity set before & I really, really love these cute little characters. So they will be staying put so that they can be enjoyed by Me and my family, hopefully for many years to come.

Needle Felted Tomte Gnomes.

I've been making these cute little Christmas Gnomes. I have some gorgeous Grey Merino that is mixed with white silk fibres, that is perfect for fluffy beards. I say Christmas Gnomes because I've used pine green & red colours, which are obviously very 'Christmassy' colours, but really these will look great all year round.

I've just listed these in my Etsy shop & I shall soon be adding some with curly beards too!

Needle Felted Pumpkin Scarecrow Bride & Groom Cake Topper.

Yey! I'm so pleased that I can finally share this with you.
This is a custom order that I created back in the summer, a Pumpkin Scarecrow Bride & Groom Cake Topper.
I had so much fun making this piece.
The Bride's dress is made from a sheet of felt that me and my daughter made by wet felting, way back when I made the autumn pixie mobile (we made the felt sheet to cut autumn leaf shapes from). Anyway, I still had some of the sheet left & I'm so glad I did, as it was perfect for making the dress for this pumpkin bride.
I love the flower in her hair.

Needle Felted Pan Fantasy Art Doll.

I have to say, I think this is the most excited I've ever been about a project!
I keep pushing myself to work outside of my comfort zone & I'm so pleased with the progress that I'm making.
Faces and large figures have always felt so intimidating to me as an artist, but the more I do them, the more excited I become about doing them. It's like a whole new world has opened up for me and I just love where it's going.

This has been one of the hardest projects for me to make, in the sense that I have really forced myself to be be patient, and really take my time to get him exactly right. I used to think that if I made a mistake, it was a bad thing & I would beat myself up over it for a while. Now I realize that getting something wrong gives me the opportunity to learn & progress and ultimately get it right in the end. Even if that means having to completely rebuild or re-work some part of it.

Anyway, enough of me babbling......Here is my latest creation... The Great God of Nature, Pan.

He is available to purchase in my Etsy Shop.

(These are the finished pics, if you want to see some of the work in progress pics & see some of the changes I made as I was working on him, then keep scrolling & I'll show them to you at the bottom)




Here are just a few pics I took along the way. You can see the 'first draught' of his face, before I improved it!