Play

When was the last time you played?  When did you last use crayons or watercolor paints, glitter and glue and construction paper?  Balloons, anyone?  Open (and use) a bottle of soap bubbles?  When was the last time you indulged in an activity you enjoyed as a child?  Maybe when you were a child?

Well, now is the time to regress.  Learn to be a guru of play.  That is the essence of creativity.  Through playing we learn those activities that give us joy, we learn where our talents lie, what makes our spirits soar. 

Children have the ability to have fun for the sheer joy of having fun - no goals in mind, no expectations of perfection.  Play allows us to get in touch with our senses, it lessens our stress and connects us with innocence, magic and hope.

So think back to what you enjoyed as a child.   Now, find yourself a bag, a box, or a drawer and make yourself a container of play.  Go to the dollar store, Kmart, Walmart, wherever you can find the treasures of childhood.  Buy crayons, watercolor paint, whistles, soap bubbles, glitter, feathers, coloring books (it doesn’t matter if it is a child’s or adult coloring book), anything you enjoyed as a child. Don't neglect the new items like gel ink pens and glitter glue. Buy them all and put them in your container for those times when your creativity needs a boost of enchantment. 

Now just don't sit there.  Go play!!!

   

© 2017 – Cheryl Fillion

Nature 2 - Earth Day

This weekend one of my favorite holidays occurs.  Oh it isn't one that will be marked in red on the calendar - some calendars don't even include it.  And the banks won't close and the mail will still be delivered. But it honors a very important figure in our lives - Mother Earth.  April 22 is Earth Day.

A couple of months back I wrote about how important it was for us to get out in nature.  With the cold weather leaving, this weekend is your perfect chance.  Contact with nature increases our health, our mental well-being and our creativity.   It slows us down and focuses our awareness on something other than ourselves and other than the fast pace we are all living in.

If you get a chance, take a walk with Mother Earth.  Notice her beauty, her nurturing qualities in the flowers, trees, and animals.  Also notice what we do to her when we don't care - the pollution, the littering, and the tearing up of her form.  How we treat her is exactly how we treat ourselves.  When we don't care, we pollute ourselves with unhealthy things, we litter our minds with noise and busyness and we don't allow ourselves the rest and relaxation that would bring about calm and creativity.

Spend some time in nature this weekend and treat yourselves with love and kindness by extending that time to every day of the year.  Talk a walk, take a picnic, take care of yourself and Mother Earth

There is a patch of woods I know

where I walk

and look and feel.

It's along a road where cars

speed by on their way to

somewhere else.

Driving by you watch

the road and other traffic,

out of the corner of your eye

this wooded strip is always

green and never changing.

But if you walk it, as I do daily,

you see that nothing is the same.

That every day a new miracle appears.

One day you pass to see

tiny little branches coming

from the leaf strewn earth

Start of new trees, you think.

After all they resemble the cluster

of leaves above which shade you.

But then a day or two later this

tiny branch is home to

a yellow flower. You had

not even seen a bud the day before,

Yet here is a little cup of sunshine.

Yesterday there were berries --

deep wine colored berry clusters growing

on variegated vines along the ground.

Today they are gone. Probably

dessert last night for

a family of birds or mice.

Grass grows tall along the edge

of the road.

The grass stalks are the ones

that as children, we would place

between our fingers

and whistle.

Look closer and you will find

a thread vine twisting

the blade, hugging tightly the grass

like two long lost friends

not wanting to part.

Morning glories blooming blue in a

patch near a maple tree.

Are they wild

or did someone drop seeds out

a car window as they sped by.

What is this?

Back along the tree line

is a row of plants.

Prickly stems and leaves protecting

a cluster of buds.

I wonder what they'll look like.

Maybe tomorrow they will open

and peek at me.

As I turn and head for home

sure that I have seen

all the treasures my patch

has to give me,

I come upon a rare

stem of yellow asters,

daisy like flowers I've only

seen in white and purple.

I would have missed it had

I not turned around.

A car passes me, speeding

to an adventure unknown,

too fast to see my tiny

yellow asters.

Too bad for the driver,

for all they see is a blur of green.

poem ©  1999 Cheryl Fillion

blog © 2017– Cheryl Fillion

Needle Felting in Cookie Cutters

I like making ornaments.  I make one for family and friends every year at Christmas.  So when I realized I could make different shapes of needle felting by using cookies cutters, I knew what one year’s ornament would be.

You can needle felt in any shape as long as it is open at the top.  For a cookie cutter you want to use this type.

open cookie cutters

 Not this type. 

closed top cookie cutters

You wouldn’t be able to felt the roving through the top of the cookie cutter, although you can use the shape of this type of cookie cutter for appliqués.  I did so with my Halloween quilt.

cookie cutter used for applique shapes

Once you have your shape, put enough roving into it to cover the area of the opening.  I usually let it go a little over the top. If it is not enough you can always felt in more roving.  Remember to work on foam so you don’t damage your work surface or break the needle.

Roving in cutter

Now take your needle and start stabbing the roving.  Don’t stay in the same area, move around the surface of the roving. And try not to hit the side of the cookie cutter.  I try to bring my needle down right next to it, careful not to hit at it. 

roving felted

 After felting for a while I take the roving out of the cookie cutter and turn it over.  If you have a cutter that faces in one direction, you might have to also turn the cutter over.  The point is you want to felt both sides of your roving.  This will make the felting stronger.  It’s OK if you have to flip it back and forth a couple of times to get the firmness you want.  And if there is an area that seems thin of roving, add a little more and felt it in.

Felting in reverse

Once your felted item feels firm, take it out of the cookie cutter and felt the sides of the item with your needle.  This helps smooth out the edges, makes the edges stronger and gives the item a nice clean look. You can do this by holding the item in your hands but be very careful with the needle and your fingers.  I usually move my needle in and out slowly when I hold anything I am felting in my hands.

felting the sides

Just keep felting until you are happy with the way it feels and looks. Now it is yours to do what you want. 

I decided to add a few features to my bunny. To do this, you just add some colors to the top of what you have felted.  I tried to felt the white for the tail before I felted it to the lavender.  His eye is just a tiny ball of black that I felted and as I did it flattened out a bit.  

features added

You can also add details by emphasizing a feature with ‘over felting’.  See the bunny’s ears.  To show the separation, I just felted the same line over and over and it created the indentation. You want to do it enough to show the feature but not so much that you actually cut through the roving with your stabbing. 

felted feature with 'over felting'

I usually use items felted with a cookie cutter as ornaments.  Add a little string loop to th top to hang it.  But you can also add a magnet to the back so it will attach to the refrigerator. Or glue it to a basket or book or really anything you want.

I hope you have fun with another use of cookie cutters.  It’s just as much fun as making cookies without all the calories.

©2017 Cheryl Fillion 

Needle Felting Basics

I like trying different types of crafts and art work and a couple of years ago I bought a needle felting kit. It was great.  It had the roving, the needle, the foam to protect the table, and wonderful picture instructions. Once I started it, I knew I found a new way to express my creativity.

It isn’t very hard to do although depending on what you are making, it can be time consuming.  With needle felting, you tend to make small items.  That’s OK I like making small things. And with the repetitive action of the needle, it can be very relaxing (as long as you don’t try to needle felt your fingers). 

The first thing you need is the roving.  Roving is the fiber that is used in needle felting.  It is usually wool but can also be silk, cotton and I have even used polyester fiberfill (yeah, the stuffing used in pillows.  I’ll tell you why later.)

Roving is often the wool that is cleaned, dyed and combed.  If the wool is combed it is soft and the fibers are separated to make a smoother look in the felting.  You will also see what is known as “batting”.  This is wool that has been cleaned and dyed but not necessarily combed (or at least not combed as much as roving).  This is often used for sculptures.  Because it is not combed the fibers are not as separated with roving so not as much felting is needed to keep its shape.

roving

batting

When you order roving, you will often see “core” wool sold.  This is wool that has been washed and cleaned of natural items (like grass and little twigs that might have stuck to the sheep).Sorry I don't have any core wool to take a picture of it.   This can be used in felting even if it is not dyed and combed.   Let’s say you are making a felted ball.  You don’t want to use the expensive dyed roving in the inside of the ball where it can’t be seen.  So instead you felt the “core” wool into the shape you want and add the colored roving as an outside layer.  

This is where and how I use the polyester fiberfill.  Fiberfill actually felts nicely although it takes more of the fiber fill to make an object than core wool might, it does take longer to felt than the wool and it is lighter in weight.  But the really nice part is it is much, much cheaper than core wool. (For $8.00, I can order 3 ounces of core wool or 50 ounces of polyester fiber fill.)

polyester fiberfill

The next thing you need is a felting needle.  This isn’t like a regular sewing needle with an eye and a smooth shaft.  When trying to explain a felting needle I tell people to imagine a thin nail with barbs along the shaft. The needle is about 3" long. It is those barbs (or little notches) that grab the fibers and push them together.  The more you stab or felt the fibers the more solid they become.

felting needle

These needles are very sharp so you have to be careful not to stab yourself.  And this is one reason why I don’t teach felting to small children.  It looks like a great craft for them but if they are not careful, that can hurt themselves with the needle.  (You might be able to teach children one on one depending on the child but I wouldn’t do it in groups for any children under 12 years old.)

As well as being sharp, these needles can also be easily broken.  You have to make sure that you pull the needle out of the roving at the same angle you put it in.  Twisting or bending the needle as you pull it out can easily break it.

Since the needles can be easily broken, it is best to work on some type of foam.  If you were to felt without foam, the needle could go into your work surface like your table or your lap  and damage either one or break the needle.  Felting into foam protects everything.  There are special foams that you can purchase for felting but you can also use a pillow or seat cushion foam. I use a piece of a seat cushion that is about 1 ½ inches deep.

foam for felting

Next week I will show you how to felt in a cookie cutter to make different shapes for appliqué or ornaments.   

fall cookie cutters and felted 'cookies'

PS - The picture is from my blog post "Cookie Cutters Aren't just for Cookies". (November 2016)

©2017 Cheryl Fillion