Easy Felt Crowns Sewing Tutorial

Today I'm sharing a whole flurry of Coronation-themed craft projects over on my Patreon: starting with a step by step tutorial for sewing two styles of simple felt crowns...

Most of the projects I'll be sharing today are things that would make nice or fun mementos of the Coronation (if you're a fan of the Royals or just enjoyed watching the big spectacle!)... but felt crowns are obviously for LIFE not just for Coronation celebrations!

These felt crowns are designs I used to sell in my Etsy shop many years ago. I shared the tutorial here on my blog at one point, but it's now exclusively available as a printable PDF pattern for my Patreon subscribers. 

The crowns are super easy to make, and are great for costume parties, Halloween, and all kinds of other fancy dress occasions. 

You can also easily customise them with different colours and decorative details - and I'll be sharing four ideas for that (on a Coronation-them, of course!) shortly. 

P.S. Yes I know the Coronation was a couple of weeks ago - I wish I'd had the time and energy to get all these projects sorted earlier, but I hope you'll enjoy them all anyway xxx

Click here to find the Felt Crowns tutorial over on my Patreon!

Click here to read more about my Patreon, get a preview of the many projects included in the pattern library, and to subscribe!

5 Fun Felt Animal Mask Tutorials

UPDATE: this set of five felt animal mask patterns are now available via my Patreon.

Subscribe for a small monthly fee and you'll get access to a growing library of PDF patterns and tutorials, with an email whenever I add a new project. You can cancel any time.      

Click here to check out my Patreon page and sign up!

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Make lots of fun felt masks for costume parties, Halloween, or just everyday dressing up!

There's a cat mask pattern, which you can use to make cats, foxes, tigers, and leopards...

... and a pattern for making brown or white bunnies.

 

You'll also be able to dress up as a mouse, a bear, or a wolf. So many fun costume possibilities!

(Posing for silly selfies is, of course, optional but highly recommended).

Click here to visit my tutorial archive for lots of free patterns and project ideas.

How To: Felt Eyeball Buttons for Halloween

With Halloween just around the corner, I thought I'd squeeze in an extra tutorial this week... how to make fun felt eyeball buttons!

 

I used my buttons to customise an old cardigan - perfect for adding a spooky touch to an outfit this Halloween.

Felt buttons are quick and easy to make!

You will need:
- small pieces of black felt (for the pupils) and blue, green and brown felt (for the irises)
- matching sewing threads
- soft white felt (30% wool blend felt is perfect for this) or white fabric
- 22mm cover buttons
- a button covering tool (optional, but very useful! I use the Prym universal button covering tool)
- a needle and a pair of embroidery scissors
- the circle templates at the bottom of this post

If your cover buttons are a different size to mine, use a pencil and a compass to draw your own templates for the pupil and iris.

To add the buttons to a cardigan you will also need.... a cardigan, matching sewing thread and some pins. If you want wear the cardigan more than once, make sure you choose washable (synthetic) felt when making the buttons!

1. Use the templates to cut out one white eye from felt or fabric, one black pupil and one coloured iris.

2.  Place the iris and pupil in the centre of the eye and sew them in place with matching threads. Sew the pupil in position with a small X made from two stitches, then sew the iris with a line of small running stitches. Trim any excess thread at the back.

3. Now follow the instructions on your pack of cover buttons (or look online for a how to) and cover a button with your decorated circle of felt/fabric. Using a button covering tool makes it much easier to snap the front and back of the cover button together and the holes in the tool I use are very helpful for checking that the decoration on your button (in this case, the pupil and iris) are in the centre.

4. Repeat steps 1-3 to make a selection of eyeballs with different coloured irises. If you want you could also add some red stitches to the eyes for a bloodshot effect.

To add your eyeball buttons to a cardigan, first remove the original buttons (apologies for the low quality of some of these pics, navy blue is a real pain to photograph!).

 

The buttons on most cardigans are likely to be much smaller than the large eyeball buttons, so the eyeballs won't fit through the buttonholes. Because of this you need to turn your cardigan into a jumper (sweater) by sewing the front together (make sure the neckline of your cardigan is large enough that it's easy to take off and on again!).

Pin and then sew the front of the cardigan shut, using matching sewing thread and small running stitches. Make sure you don't sew the front and back of the cardigan together!

 

Then use a double thickness of sewing thread to sew on the eyeball buttons, sewing them securely in place through where the old buttons were. I left off the final button at the bottom as I preferred how it looked with just five buttons.

And you're done! :)

Click here to view the template sheet in another window/tab, and print it at 100%.

You may borrow a couple of photos if you want to blog about this project, but please remember to credit me and link back to the original source, and do not reproduce my tutorial on your site. Thanks!

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Felt Masks for Halloween

UPDATE: you'll find tutorials for sewing the barn owl mask and lots more felt Halloween masks over on my Patreon page! 

Subscribe to get instant access to a growing library of PDF embroidery patterns and craft tutorials, and updates when I add something new!

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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).

How To: Felt Crowns

UPDATE: this project is now available as part of my Patreon pattern library.

Click here to find the Felt Crowns Tutorial and to sign up to my Patreon. 

Subscribers get full access to a growing library of PDF patterns and tutorials, and emails whenever new projects are added. You can unsubscribe at any time. 

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Fancy making some felt crowns? These are great for fancy dress parties and Halloween, birthday parties, dressing up sessions and for any other occasion when you fancy wearing a crown and pretending to be a king or queen, a princess or a prince.

 

There are two designs - a basic crown and a slightly more detailed "princess" crown. You can follow the colour schemes shown, or choose any colours you want when making your crown. You could also personalise the crown, for example by adding an embroidered initial in the central circle, or adding extra detail to it with decorative embroidery, sequins or pretty buttons.

 

The instructions in this tutorial are for making a crown that will fit an adult or older teen. If you're making a crown for a younger child, use shorter lengths of elastic (and print the template sheet at a slightly smaller size if needed). If you're making it for a young child, make sure to sew all the pieces on very securely, avoid using choking hazards like buttons, and always supervise them when they wear the crown.

How To: Felt Wound for Halloween

This how-to is a bit of a cheat. It's a spooky adaptation of my raincloud tutorial from earlier this year... instead of a cloud with raindrops it's a wound with dripping blood!


Sort of gross, sort of cute, and perfect if you don't fancy dressing up "properly" but need to make a quick costume to wear for a party this Halloween :)

Just draw your own wound shape, follow the tutorial for the raincloud to make the brooch and then pin it to your sweater.

Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly free pattern and visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots more free projects.

Visit my shop to buy my printable PDF sewing patterns:

Small Things

You might have noticed that my shops have been closed for a few days - I took some (planned) time off from the day-to-day running of my online shops and then had to take some (unplanned) time off to visit some relatives.

It was nice to have a bit of a break, but I'm enjoying getting stuck into my usual work routine and am busy catching up on emails, packing orders, working on crafty schemes, etc.

Today's to do list includes making up lots of felt bundles - all 65 of my wool blend felt colours are now back in stock, hurrah!


In other news, I was really pleased to see a couple of my disguises included in a handmade halloween round-up in the lastest issue of Small Magazine:


I can't believe it'll be Halloween soon! This year is flying by so fast.

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!

Felt Brainstorming

Last night (crafting 365 day 331) I sat down with a big pile of felt (two big piles, actually) and tried out a few ideas that have been bouncing round my head for a while. Just like getting ideas "down on paper" it's great to get things "down in felt" and on their way from being a vague notion in my mind to an actual finished product.

Waiting to finish one thing properly when you've got lots of ideas bubbling can be a bit disruptive when you're in the "zone", so I just stitched the pieces together roughly at the end of the evening (so they can be put away and stitched properly later). Please ignore the random bright pink stitching!I'm working on a prototype crown (and a girly "princess" version), a medal, rosettes, and a large floral corsage and floral crown. The crowns - like all my "dressing up" items - are not really designed with children in mind, but instead designed to fit people like me who have difficulty thinking of themselves as "grown ups" :)

In other news, I picked the first ripe strawberry today from our little balcony "garden" and am feeling very proud:

365 / 102 - Disguises Galore!

Last night I turned my attention to disguise-making: two felt beards (one black, one brown) and a pair of felt glasses...
The glasses in particular are a bit mental (you know, cos felt beards are perfectly normal bits of kit) but they were lots of fun to make. The elastic on the glasses is just enough to keep them falling off your head when you wear them :)

Ooh and I almost forgot - look at the awesome post I got today:
More brooch backs than I have ever seen! Hurrah! They should keep me going for a while...