Felting Series, Part 3: Wet-Felted Jingle Balls

{Ok, so I totally spaced on this post last week. Let me assure you this is normal for me .... but I'm workin' on it}

So, this week, as promised, I have a new Felting Tutorial for you! If you are new to Sunny Sweet Life, make sure to check out this sweet little Sheep Tutorial and this Cupcake Tutorial, both needle-felted using wool roving.

I LOVE felting and I want to share this wonderful craft with everyone in the universe!!! If you decide to give it a try, make sure to send me pics so I can post them here on my blog!

These are such sweet, natural toys for babies or toddlers. They are 100% natural and safe, made simply of wool and a little jingle bell inside which gives a gentle sound when rolled or shaken.

Supplies

This week, you will NOT need a felting needle or felting pad. In fact, all you need are these few things:

1. Wool roving (you can use just one color, or a bunch of colors)

2.  Small plastic or metal jingle ball

2.  Dish soap

3.  Hot water

4.  Optional: a ziploc baggie

5.  Optional: a textured surface such as bubble wrap

Let's Go!!!

1. First you will lay out a little bit of your wool roving and wrap the bell in it. Once you've wrapped some of the wool in one direction, you'll want to wrap it the opposite direction. Alternating the direction of the wool like this will help the fibers stick together.

2. Continue rolling your wool into a ball, tightly, until it is about twice as large as you would like the finished ball to be. When you start felting, your ball will shrink quite a bit!

3. When you have your ball, it is time to add a little soapy water. Just a sprinkle! I like to fill a small bowl with hot water and a couple drops of dish detergent; for me, that's more convenient than running the faucet the whole time.

4. Pass the wet ball back and forth between your hands gently, until the wool fibers start to stick together and become more firm. Once they do, you can start rolling the ball in your hands more and more until it becomes pretty firm and then...keep rolling it more and more vigorously.

You can even pop your ball in a ziploc baggie and start rolling it vigorously against a textured surface.

5. When your ball is nicely felted, rinse with cold water and either set aside to air dry or pop it into the dryer for a quick spin.

6. Finally, you can leave it au natural or needle-felt designs using a felting needle.  Here are a few examples. I made these for a craft swap last fall:

I sure hope that tutorial made sense! :) Please let me know if you have any questions!

Come Back Next Week for Needle-Felted Garden Fairies!

Summer Weekly Themes for Kids

Summer is almost here! It starts for us next week when Cakes, my 4 year-old, gets out of pre-school.

I'm excited ~ and a little FREAKED OUT! What am I going to do ALL SUMMER with my two highly-energetic kidlets???

My kids are not the kind that sit quietly by themselves and play while letting me get things done around the house. In fact, it can be complete mayhem around here if we have too much unstructured time!

So...I've come up with a plan!

{source}

I've decided to break the summer up into weekly themes and plan activities, field trips and crafts around those themes.

Our Summer Weekly Themes:

Rainbows

Beach Days

Fun on the Farm

Fruits & Veggies

Flowers in the Garden

Little Critters

Under the Sea

Outer Space Fun

Planes, Trains & Cars

Sports

Jungle Explorers

Little Scientists

I'm super excited to start Summer now! With our weekly themes and our Bucket List, its bound to be super fun!

I hope you will follow us all summer long to see what we are doing each week with our themes! And if you have any suggestions, please share!

How are you keeping your kids engaged this summer?

Felting Series, Part 2: Needle-Felted Sheep!

I'm back with Part 2 of my Felting Series!

Last week, we made some cute little cupcakes. {Thank you all for your sweet comments and compliments. I noticed my cupcakes even made it onto Pinterest! Thank you!}

Make sure to follow me or check back again next week for a new project: Wet-Felted Jingle Balls....a natural and safe toy for baby.  Oh, and also an irresistible toy for cats!

This week, I'm going to make some needle-felted sheep from wool, and will be taking photos along the way so you can see the process, step by step!

First, I have a few pics of some sheep I have made in the past, just so you can see what I'm working towards...

My little sheep don't turn out realistic or perfect ~ that's just not my style. They turn out kind of cartoonish and I like them that way! These always end up as toys for my 2 and 4 year old. 

You can see some amazing needle-felted sheep online (especially on etsy) if you would like more inspiration. 

Okay, here we go with the tut...

Step 1:  GET YOUR SUPPLIES READY

Get out all that yummy, fluffy wool!

You can work with any colors you like; I'm working with a natural creamy color wool batting and a few accent colors for the details.

Plus, I have some special "curly" wool that I'll add on at the end, its optional but I think it makes it extra cute. :)  It's a little more expensive and harder to find {I get it at our local Waldorf school's gift shop} but if you can't find it locally, I'm sure they sell them on etsy.

Also, get out your felting needle and felting pad...

Step 2: The Body

Roll a handful of wool batting into an egg shape and stab with your felting needle to get the fibers to stick together. Keep stabbing until the shape is firm. Stab on all sides. This is especially satisfying when you're having one of "those" days and need to get out a little frustration ~ just watch those fingers!

The wool will shrink as you felt/stab it. If you want your sheep to be larger, just add more wool! It's hard to mess this up!

*Helpful Tip: The tighter you roll the wool, the less you'll have to stab it to get it firm. 

Step 3: The Head 

For the head, you do pretty much the same thing as for the body, except smaller. As you can see, the head I've made here is too big. I'm not a perfectionist - and I'm lazy to do it over - so I'm just going to work with what I have. 

Step 4: Attach the Head to the Body

Now, watch carefully. I learned how to do this at a craft morning at our local Waldorf School and I was enlightened! I'd always wondered how to attach the head to the body, or two felted objects together...and here is the answer! You wrap MORE WOOL around the pieces where they meet {all around the neck here} and stab away. Keep wrapping more and more wool and keep stabbing away until its super firm and you can feel that the poor little sheep's head will not fall off! 

I was so excited when I learned how to do this.  Maybe this is totally obvious for most people...not for me.

Step 5: Body Parts 

The body parts include two ears, four legs. As you're creating the body parts, leave one end soft and NOT felted. So...don't stab it. You'll be able to attach it the body easier this way. You may have to add more wool later to make it secure, as we did in Step 4. 

Step 6: Final Details

Once the body parts are attached, you can add details or leave your sheep as it is. I added eyes, a small flower behind one ear, and a little mouth. This is going to be easier using just one felting needle. 

This is also where I added the "curly" wool. 

DONE! Your little guy is ready to play with!

*Is anyone going to try this???? LET ME KNOW! I would love to see someone make something from one of my tutorials. Hopefully that's even possible! Or maybe I've lost you at step 2 because I'm so confusing?  LOL  I think I may have to do a Youtube video or something*

Next Week: Wet-Felted Jingle Balls!

Until then...

Summer Bucket List

Summer is just around the corner and I am so looking forward to hot hot weather, hours lounging by the pool sipping a cocktail smoothie, flipping through a good gossip magazine, and relaxing with my girlfriends.

Oh wait.

I'm a mom.

So scratch all that...but still, summer is possibly my favorite season. Even though we get plenty of sunshine year-round here in southern Cali, there's just something about summer that lifts my mood super high!

My favorite things about summer:  BBQ's, the BEACH!, gelato!, getting tan (i know, i know), wearing sundresses and strappy sandals, our anniversary weekend away we do each year, more gelato, and the general relaxed atmosphere that seems to fill the air. Did I mention the gelato? {It's in Laguna, it's amazing and I indulge pretty much every weekend...yum!}

But this summer is extra awesome because we are planning a very special 6 week-long trip abroad that I couldn't be more excited about!!! I don't want to jinx myself since we don't have our passports or flight tix yet so I won't go into more detail. But let's just say....it will be an unforgettable experience!!!

So, without further ado, here's our Bucket List for this summer:

{p.s. I got lots of wonderful ideas from HERE}

Our Summer Bucket List 2012

1. Make and fly kites
2. Make home-made bread and jam
3. Visit a China Town
4. Zoo
5. Picnic at the Nature Center and check out the butterfly house
6. Make a Lemonade Stand
7. Host a homemade bowling party
8. Go to the beach, take a ferry ride
9. Play miniature golf
10. Host an obstacle course playdate
11. Go to a baseball game
12. Build robots from recycled materials
13. Tie Dye Tshirts
14. Have a hot dog and marshmallow roast
15. Make a seashell treasure box
16. 4th of July bbq and bike/trike parade around lake
17. Make a conversation starter jar
18. Backyard Campout
19. DIY gem mining
20. Bubble painting
21. Pick strawberries
22. Make sock puppets
23. Watermelon Party
24. Visit a farm
25. Visit botanical gardens
26. Go on a train ride
27. Pony rides
28. Swim lessons
29. Go to a concert in the park
30. See an outdoor movie
31. Visit turtles at the nature center
32. Family jam session with home-made instruments
33. Make superhero costumes on Family Night
34. Make seed bombs
35. Make ladybug cake balls
36. Decorate/Make a cardboard playhouse
37. Bake apple cake
38. Bake apple langos
39. Sesame Street playdate
40. Grow tomatoes
41. Snow Cones
42. Sea World

What's on your bucket list???

Vegetables are Gross! *UPDATE*

*If you've already read the first part of this post, feel free to scroll down to the bottom half to see how my first try at making this Broccoli Salad went!

I recently had a lightbulb moment and figured out why my kids don't eat their veggies at the dinner table. Because they're GROSS!!! Yes, I said it, vegetables are gross. I don't like them either so I can't imagine why anyone would. How can I expect my kids to?

I'm not going to lie to my children anymore and tell them how yummy those nasty steamed brussel sprouts are.  I would rather have a coke and a chocolate ding dong than a salad. Sue me.

So... I'm on a quest to find some decent ways to serve vegetables that really do taste okay. This will be quite an adventure...

Here's the first recipe I'm trying out today. It's a broccoli salad I had at a friend's party and I couldn't stop eating it!!! That's very rare for me when it comes to vegetables! Her mom who brought the salad was kind enough to share the recipe. I hope I can replicate it!

Broccoli Salad 

1 large head of broccoli

1lb of bacon, crumbled (for vegetarian version, use ¼ cup of immitation bacon bits like Bac-os)

½ cup sharp cheddar cheese, cubed small 

1 small red onion, chopped

2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted

2 handfuls Craisins or raisins

Dressing: 1 cup light mayo, ½ cup sugar, 2 tablespoons white vinegar

Chop veggies and mix together in a large bowl. Mix dressing ingredients and pour over veggies. Mix  to coat. Chill at least 2 hours, best overnight. Stir well before serving.

Okay, seems simple enough. Heading to the grocery store and I will update this post with a review and a picture tonight! 

***************************************

LATER...

Well, its taken me a few days to get around to making this but it was just as yummy as I'd remembered it!

Here are some photos...

The ingredients

I like convenience so I used this instead of frying up bacon

Done! Finally, a veggie dish that really is delicious. Crossing my fingers that the kids will love it, as well.

Felting Series, Part 1: Needle-Felted Cupcakes!

*Each week in the month of May, I will be posting a new needle-felting tutorial. Projects will include needle-felted cupcakes, lambs, wet-felted jingle balls and beautiful fairies! I would love it if you'd follow me, or check back so you don't miss out on any of the fun!

I have a super sweet DIY project to share with you today!!! 

I'm really excited about this because I looooove needle-felting! 

If you know me in real life, you know I'm just a little "addicted".  LOL! But anyone that's ever tried it understands, I'm sure! It is an easy and satisfying craft....the supplies are inexpensive, the sky's the limit when it comes to all the things you can create and you can usually complete a small project in one evening ~ which is like instant gratification for me when compared to knitting, sewing or other projects that I usually fumble along with and often give up on because I just can't find the time. 

So...let's make 

Needle-Felted Cupcakes! 

Materials You'll Need:

All you need is some wool roving in the colors of your choice. {I love these soft pastel colors ~ I buy them here}, a needle-felting needle like this and a felting mat like this.

{You can purchase these materials online, on Amazon, and etsy, if you can't find them at your local craft store}

Here we go! Bear with me, this is my first time creating a tutorial. Let me know if its confusing!

1.  The first thing you'll want to do is make a needle-felted ball. Take a piece of wool roving in your cupcake color (I used cream for "vanilla"). The amount you use depends on how big you want your cupcake to be. Just remember, it definitely shrinks once you start felting it so use more than you think you'll need.

2.  Start rolling the wool, tucking it in on the sides and poking it with your needle every once in a while to help it stay together. The tighter you roll the wool, the less felting you'll need to do. Stab the ball over and over to make it nice and firm.

3.  Once you have a nice round ball....use your needle to create a line at about the halfway mark on the ball and shape one half of the ball into the base of the cupcake. Keep stabbing it until you have the desired shape and make it flat on the bottom so it can stand without tipping over.

4.  For the cupcake "wrapper" choose a color to add to the base of the cupcake and stab away!

5.  Time for frosting! At this point, its not rocket science...roll a long strip of wool and wrap it around and around the top of the cupcake, stabbing it here and there to keep it in place {but don't stab too much, you still want it to be soft and fluffy!}

6.  Once your cupcake frosting is all done, add any details you would like. I'm just adding a cherry on top here! Have FUN with it! These delicious looking cupcakes are Zero calorie, Zero guilt! ;)

These make adorable gifts, pin-cushions, sweet home decor or play food for your little ones! 

Enjoy!

Don't forget to check back for another felting tutorial next week! We'll be making cute and fuzzy lambs like this little guy...

Until then...