Felt Barn Owl Mask Tutorial

The next free project for my pattern newsletter subscribers? A tutorial for making a fun felt barn owl mask!

 

This mask is really easy to sew and would be great for summer festivals, costume parties, Halloween or just dressing up like an owl because you feel like it. (And why not, right? Owls are awesome!)

 

I've been working hard to catch up on my monthly newsletter projects, sharing a felt barn owl brooch tutorial (March) and a felt raincloud brooch tutorial (April) earlier this month. I should have May's barn owl mask sent out this week (if the weather co-operates for photo-taking) or early next week, and I've already started work on June's project... so hopefully I can get that sent out actually in June and be all caught up. Hurrah!

I'll be including the links to the raincloud and barn owl tutorials when I send out the barn owl mask in the next few days, so now is a great time to subscribe if you've not yet done so! 

Click here to read more about my newsletter and subscribe! As well as the free monthly(ish) pattern email, you can choose to sign up for weekly(ish) crafty updates from me or less frequent notifications about new patterns and special offers.

Click here to visit my tutorial archive for lots more free patterns and project ideas... including a step-by-step tutorial for sewing this embroidered owl mask!

Felt Masks for Halloween

I am amazed at how quickly October has come around this year! Halloween is just a few short weeks away and I've been busy posting lots of felt masks that'll be part of peoples Halloween costumes.

All my felt masks are included in my clearance sale, so you can grab a disguise for a bargain price. If you live outside of the UK and have your eye on one of the masks in my shop, please get your order in soon because international Airmail can take several weeks to arrive!

There are owl masks (£6 each) ...

 

Swan masks (£6 each) ...

And bunny masks (£5 each) ...

 

I've also got one felt moustache left in stock (£1) ...

... and one felt flower crown (£3).

Click on the photos to go to the relevant shop listings, or click here to visit my shop (a smaller selection is also available over in my Etsy shop).

Birds in Progress

This week I've been making lots of birds.

I've been sewing lots of brown owl masks and barn owl masks (which are both proving popular at the moment with Halloween just around the corner) Here's a pile of them, half-finished:

I've also been cutting out lots of pieces ready for making some British bird ornaments.

I love that pair of photos together - lots of sewing happens in between those two steps!

Weekend Sewing

This weekend I'm working on lots of felt masks...

... foxes, barn owls, wolves and swans.

I've been making them gradually over the past few weeks, doing a bit of sewing here and there in between other tasks on my to do list. It's quite nice when you have lots of "almost finished" things like this, as finishing a big heap of things all in one afternoon feels rather splendid!

All the new designs I blogged about the other day have now been added to my Etsy shop, along with a spring oak leaf brooch which I made recently while restocking my spring leaf headbands. Click here to have a browse. All the bargain prototype pieces can be found here.

A Barn Owl

Ooh look, something new: a barn owl mask!

I've had this design in my head for simply ages so it was very satisfying to get the pattern drafted, the felt colours chosen and the stitching finished.

There's nothing quite like the feeling you get when you've finally got a design "just right" and how you pictured it in your head!

The owl mask is available from my Etsy shop.

Wolves and Mice and Swans, Oh My!

The weather here this week is so miserable, wet and overcast and generally grey. I quite like autumn, the crispness of the air, digging out all my winter clothes and blankets, and all the fantastic changes in nature. But boy, do I miss the light - especially when I have new things waiting to be photographed!

This weekend I finished some new mask designs and snapped a rubbish in-progress shot in the gloomy daylight:Mice masks! Wolf masks! Swan masks! (plus essential crafting supplies - a nice bar of chocolate).

I'm so excited to get these listed in my shops after having rough sketches of them them scribbled in my "things to make" notebooks for so very long. Fingers crossed we have some lovely autumn sunshine soon.

Hello Tiger!

Thanks to the sheer awesomeness that is Tiger-print felt, you can now buy Tiger masks in my shop:Also, thanks to a mistake I made while sewing - forgetting to sew on the ear details - you can grab a bargain tiger mask HERE.

I haven't had a chance to model this design yet, but it's similar to the leopard.... GRR!Ah, the ridiculous faces I pull in the name of crafting!

Distracted by New Things

Last night I was supposed to be re-stocking lots of my masks. I did make a start on this, but then I got distracted working on patterns for new designs which was much more exciting than sewing the same old ones over and over. Here's a quick (and slightly blurry! no light at the moment) snap of some of the new designs amidst my batches...
... a panda, a frog, a snake and a tiger, all coming soon! I'm loving that tiger print felt at the moment - a new crafty find last week along with some rather awesome zebra print felt. Guess what animal might be amongst my other mask sketches?

I Love My Customers

All my customers are awesome. Truly. But some make me smile more than others, and the ones who send photos of my items in use make me grin for whole days! The latest wonderful, grin-inducing photo comes from Jessica who is so lovely that she blogged it too:
You may notice that I've added quite a few links to my "interviews and features" section down on the right there in the last few days, as I've been busy compiling a proper scrapbook record of them all. It's taken me a while having lost lots of links etc during our last batch of internet browser issues but I'm getting there... As well as having guilt at using up all the ink in my dad's printer making said scrapbook, I'm embarrased to discover that there are so many kind people whom I neglected to give a shout-out too! Please accept a belated THANKYOU! for your sweetness, one and all. I will try harder in future I promise :)

Disguise Yourself

There's a bit of a disguise theme going on with my crafting this week, first finishing a batch of moustache disguises on Sunday...
... and then cutting out pieces for making masks on Monday evening:
I was just planning on starting a few "spares" of the masks I've currently got listed on Etsy, but when I went looking for the appropriate felt colours in my stash I discovered some much neglected patterned felt sheets and decided to put them to use! I'm trying out a camouflage version of the bandit and a leopard-print version of the cat mask. The camouflage felt was originally bought to make this little guy:
A couple of sweet mentions to, er, mention today: one of my circles pincushions was featured on a nice-looking blog called One Part Whimsy; and my newly-established Folksy shop got a lovely mention on the always awesome I Like. Hurrah!

Lovely Features

Last night I started work on some more bird masks...
I've been finishing them today, and pottering about the house feeling a bit stuck indoors as we've had a workman in (sent by the landlord to fill in a hole in the wall - yes, really). I have been greatly cheered up though by a couple of lovely features. First up, my tea addict brooch got a kind mention by Anna, and then the sweet people at Folksy have made me one of their featured sellers! They have three sellers featured at the moment (myself, spugmeistress and sally) , and we rotate at random on their homepage and also at the side of some pages, tis very interesting (well, interesting to me at any rate!). They also included my violets brooch as one of their "top picks": The site is still only teeny tiny, but I'm still dead chuffed to have been picked. Folksy is awesome. Spread the word!

Also pretty awesome, did you see the new Dawanda widget I put up over there? ---> Fancy, fancy pants.

Photo Shoots and Fathers Day

I totally forgot to send my dad a card for Fathers' Day. What a terrible daughter I am!
However, three of my pins got featured over in the Dawanda Fathers' Day "My Father the Hero" gift guide so it's not all bad news, hehe...
My camera is still dead (no camera zombie as yet but it may happen) so still no crafty photos.

I can however show off some of the shots from Friday's photo shoot (my camera's final blaze of glory) ... Lots of masks:
Some hairbands:
And my newest ventures, floral bracelets and necklaces:Hurrah! Look out for these pics and more popping up in my Etsy listings over the next few weeks. (PS many many thanks to my lovely models: nothing beats seeing these things actually being worn)

Being Busy (365, day 279)

Yesterday I finished a whole bundle of things...
A custom pale pink poppy brooch, a custom Lily of the Valley ornament (I love making special ornament versions of my brooch designs), an assortment of poppy bracelets, and two new masks: a white rabbit (with seriously lopsided ears) and a brown bear. I also made my first flower necklace but foolishly omitted it from that picture. I went to take a quick snap of it to put up on this blog, and DOOM! my camera had died again!! Argh. So far giving it a good whack has not fixed it. Not good :(

I suspect I will be buying a new camera next week, even if it does spring back to life. I have so many new things I want to photograph and list, these delays are just too annoying. Luckily, I did manage to get some fab shots this morning of my masks and hairbands being modelled out in the sunshine. Ooh, that reminds me, I still need to edit those... better go do that really... (I also might try whacking the camera again, you never know, it might work, right?)