My Beanie Koala

A new little creature for my ever growing collection is this cute adorable koala beanie. This native animal is so unique and special, I just had to make one, and he fits in right at home with my ringtail possum beanie I made a while back. I actually have a small collection of beanie animals that I plan to expand in the future.

To create this koala beanie I used My Beanie pattern that I have used for all my beanie animals, for the body and feet at least. As with all my beanie animals I then had to alter the ears, and create a nose that was koala like. Creating the ears did give me some trouble, there were a few different attempts at this to try to get it right, or at least close.

For the koala's body I chose a dark blue denim, partly because I only use recycled materials for all my makes and this was what I had, but I also liked the colour as I thought it was close to some of the grey/blue coloured koala's that you see. I then used the same white material for the belly as I have with my other beanie animals.

As with my other beanies, this koala has black safety eyes and is filled with plastic pellets making him fun and toss-able. And at such a small size being only about 11cm long, he is a comfortable size to hold in one hand or to have keeping you company as a unique little paperweight. 

Imbolc Beads - Wheel of the Year

Above you can see all eight seasonal beads I made, one for each turn of the Wheel of the Year. Right now in the southern hemisphere where I live the weather is getting warmer. Today was a lovely warm day to bring in Imbolc, and below are the beads I made for this season. Read more about this HERE.

To make these Imbolc seasonal beads I used the colours of the season, which are white and pastels. Using beads from my supply, I chose white, pink and pearl beads and separated these with green spacer beads. In total I used 45 beads not including the green amazonite stone spacer beads to create this.

Embroidered Star Sign Constellations - Taurus

This embroidered constellation is for the star sign of Taurus. To make this I used white embroidery thread to stitch this constellation of stars on to silken navy blue material, although the material looks more black in the picture. This embroidered pattern was then placed in a small framed card, I brought a bunch of these frame cards that I thought were perfect for this project. The cards are about 9.5cm by 9cm, the inside window with the embroidery measures about 6cm by 4.5cm. I then used blue ink and alphabet stamps to add the word Taurus across the top to finish it off.

Hanging Animal Art Doll - Hare

It has been a while since I made one of my animal art dolls. These animal art dolls feature long jointed limbs and a basic body shape. For this hare doll I altered the head shape then created exaggeratedly long ears, a pompom tail and stitched on pink nose. I have also added little pink safety eyes to match the pink features of this hare art doll.

I was actually in the middle of another project when I received the Forest Fae Messages card deck and was inspired to create this hare art doll after pulling 'The Thimble Witch' card. Her message was "There is magic in beginnings, so start something new", and after seeing the hare doll in her lap I instantly thought of my animal art dolls and decided to take her advice. See my review for this deck HERE.

 

This is a decorative art doll that was totally hand stitched. Made in just one week, that is pretty fast for a hand sewn project from start to finish, fast for me anyway. I also added a loop to the back of the hare's head so this hare art doll is able to be hung, as well as stood on a shelf. But with a full size of about 37cm, I think for now I will keep him sitting on my shelf.

Big-Headed Garden Gnome (inspired by the Harry Potter Series)

For the longest time I had wanted to make one of these garden gnomes with a bigger head to better resemble the gnomes that are described in the Harry Potter books, and so after a long time just thinking about it I finally I got around to making one and I love him.

This garden gnomes pattern has been a favourite of mine for a long time, you can see some previous gnomes I have made HERE, HERE and HERE. Almost all of these gnomes have since found new homes, but this big-headed gnomes stays on my shelf, when he isn't roaming around the garden.

HERE you can see the original gnome made from this pattern on the right and the beg-headed gnome on the left. I used the exact same pattern for both, they have the exact same body, arms, legs, nose and ears. I even used the same materials to create these, the only difference between the two is the head size.

To make his big-headed gnome I increased the size of the pattern pieces for the head to 130% before printing. At first I wasn't sure if it would be big enough, then I worried it might be too big. But I actually think it is probably about the right size and because his body is weighted with stuffing pellets he isn't at all top heavy with a bigger head.

This big-headed gnome is only slightly taller then the original standing at a little under 11 inches tall, and is finished with the same safety eyes as the first gnome I made. Both are so very cute, I cant decide which one I like more. As I said, this is such a great pattern, to make a gnome for yourself you can visit Tiffany Hinnen (aka. Mieljolie) at her etsy store HERE.

Yule Beads - Wheel of the Year

Pictured above are all 8 seasonal beads for the Wheel of the Year. At the bottom is these 8 beads are the Yule beads and as it is now Yule in the southern hemisphere these are the beads I am featuring. You can read more about Yule and how I use these beads HERE.

In making these Yule beads I went through my supply of beads and see what I could use. The colours for this season were obvious, red, green and white, so they were the colours I went with, only I used pearl beads instead of white. All up there are 46 of these red, green and pearl beads, not including the green amazonite stone spacer beads.

DIY Ogham Stones

Previously I made a set of very basic Ogham staves, I called them staves but really they are just a bunch of wooden nail cuticle pushers that I drew the Ogham figures onto. But for what they are, they aren't that bad, just not the prettiest looking. I still intend to create a more proper set of Ogham staves from sticks at some point, but as I had a bunch of these nice little stones on hand I thought why not make a set of Ogham stones.

The hardest part about making these Ogham stones was just finding enough stones that were of a similar size, shape and colour. These stones actually came from my garden, so I luckily didn't have to go to too much trouble to find these. I find it's always nice when you can use materials that you have on hand as opposed to buying too many supplies and materials.

These stones have a natural shine and smoothness to them that is lovely to hold and are a size that is comfortable, especially when grabbing a handful of stones at one time. To create these Ogham stones, I firstly made sure these stones were cleaned and dried, I then simply used a permanent black pen to draw on each Ogham figure. I did try using a gold then a silver pen for these, but the Ogham figures did not stand out very well due to the light colour of the stones. You can read more about using these Ogham stones HERE.