Gingerbread Houses, Boys & Girls + Snowmen

The last couple of weeks have been one of juggling between home, kids and creating.  It has been difficult.  Lots of sleep was lost but I have caught up (somewhat) on sleep in the last few days.

I decorated my home for Halloween later than usual; however, my family and I are pleased with our Halloween decorations, including our Spooky Candy Jar display in the Kitchen.  Although Halloween is over, I will keep my home's Halloween decorations for a few more weeks before I switch to Fall/Thanksgiving decor (crazy but I really love Halloween).

When Amy, from the Pink Attic Cat, asked me to sew items like pillows and stocking from vintage materials,  in time for her annual Christmas Open House sale, I was happy to do it.

Amy also invited me to have my Christmas hand-crafted items at her Christmas Open House.  I helped, along with her friends and family, to get the shop ready for the open house.  The transformation was truly magical and I was happy to be a small part of it.   It was nice to met many of Amy's loyal customers and friends on Friday and Saturday as I helped write sales tickets or wrap purchased items.

A few weeks ago, Amy gave me a cream wool sweater to felt and create a felted wool pillow.  Imagine my surprise when the cream 100% wool sweater came out of the washer thicker than you can imagine.  It looked and felt like a rug rather than usable material.  After my initial shock, I decided this was just a creative challenge.  I decided to look through some books and Pinterest for inspiration.

I  came up with two options.  Triangle shape trees and houses.  I will take a picture of the trees later this weeks (they are at the Pink Attic Cat shop) and add them to this post.  Here is a picture of one of the houses.  This one is blue but most of them have red trim (will post that later next week).

Felted Wool House created by me for Pink Attic Cat

After I created the felted wool houses and trees for Amy, I created some houses for Isa Creations. This led to creating felted wool snowmen/girls using vintage trims.  They were a part of the Pink Attic Cat's 7th Annual Vintage Christmas Open House this past weekend.

Houses & Snowmen created for Isa Creations

You would think this would of ended here, but no.  This only led me to find my Gingerbread Sizzix die.  Creating the gingerbread boys and girls was fun, although rather time consuming as it took more time than expected to add all the ric rac trim.  The trim is front and back but well worth the effort since ornaments tend to rotate somewhat.

After I created the Gingerbread boys and girls using many vintage trims, including the ric rac; I decided I had to create gingerbread/sugar cookie houses.

Honestly, creating all these felted wool ornaments was not part of my plans 2 weeks ago.  I am always amazed at how my creativity happens; sometimes,  it just happens.  These felted wool ornaments came about in probably the most organic manner.

They will all be available at the upcoming sale at the Checkered Corner, November 15, 16 & 17th.  Along with Sugar Plum Bazaar November 30 & December 1st and Rue de Noel, A Paris Street Chrismtas Market December 6 & 7th (still waiting on acceptance of booth application).  Details on all these shows will be forthcoming.

Here are pictures of my felted wool Gingerbread boys/girls and Houses.

I only had time to create 2 Extra Large Snowgirls.  I have many more in progress.

Felted Wool Snowmen and Snow-women Pins

Last week I was having to die-cut many leaves for unfinished  felted wool flower pins I found in a box.  Apparently, last year I tried to finish many new flower felted wool pins for my last craft show of the year, but ran out of time.  I never finished them.... probably because after my last craft show last December, our family went on a Disney family vacation.  Thankfully, while doing some re-organizing (I seem to continually do that!) I found a box full of unfinished flowers.  That was a wonderful surprise because with a little more work like adding leaves, minor details and pin backs, I had a fresh new batch of felted wool flower pins.  These will be ready and available for my upcoming craft shows and .... well, I have a surprise but I will wait until Wednesday to tell you about that.

So, long story short, I found myself doing more than die-cutting leaves last week.  I found my snowman sizzix die which I have never used before.  I decided it was time to use it.  So I cut lots of felted wool snowmen shapes.  Of course, I wanted them to have a vintage feel to them so I looked through my vintage lace, buttons and crochet doilies to see what I could come up with.  They took some time to create, mostly because I have a hard time deciding which materials to use and in what combination.  Once I decided on a style and materials, it became easier.  To make my pins sturdier, I glued two layers of felted wool snowmen shapes together...that way, they can "stand up" straighter.

So, here are my latest Snow people pins!

More Snow Couples from Vintage Tablecloth

These snow-people are a little lighter than the felted wool snow-people.  Most of these have a clip on the base so they can be clipped directly to a Christmas Tree.  Since I had a limited amount of these clips, I have 2 sets of snow-people that don't have the clips, but with a little piece of clear thread, they can quickly become ornaments.  I also decided to create a more simple version.

Felted Wool Happy Snow-People Couples

I create items that I love.  In my home, snowmen have always been a favorite.  In fact, during Christmas time, our home is decorated with many Christmas Trees (if I told you how many, you would not believe it).  Anyway, we have two trees that stand side by side...decorated in nothing but snowmen.  Snowmen from our travels, craft shows, gifts from friends and of course, a few I have created over the years.  It is quit a collection.  The base of these tress are covered in layers of stuffed snowmen.  So, when I tell you our home loves Snowmen, it's really true.

I wanted to create felted wool snowmen with a vintage feel to them.  I thought of simple embellishments like German glass glitter, vintage buttons and a Martha Stewart yarn with the feel of tinsel.  On my post from August 9, 2012, you can see I had created my little prototype snowmen.  As usual, I was sidetrack by other projects, like creating more vintage linen pin cushions since my inventory had dwindled pretty much to nothing.   And, the inspiration struck to create my mix media Halloween Houses and origami style paper dresses (including Halloween theme).

So my little snowmen project was on hold for over a month.  During that time, I realized I wanted to create Snow-women.  How do I do that while maintaining the vintage feel?  I wanted these Snow people to become a happy couple.  The inspiration came from my studio where I have a wide variety of vintage doilies.  I found doilies small enough to create little aprons.  It still needed something else.  Vintage paper flowers....vintage crochet doilies!  It all came together in a way that made me happy.

These snow-people took more time that I anticipated, mostly because they are all slightly different.  I really want to sell these in upcoming show/markets as couples.  I guess if someone only wants to buy one or the other, I should do that....but to be honest, I don't know if I will.  I know it's silly,but, I really want them to  stay together...as a happy couple. 

So here are my little sweet Snow-people couples:

A little experiment, I started by adding a touch of German Glass glitter to the snowmen.  I decided I liked them more without the glitter, so only a few of them have the glitter.  The vintage mother of pearl buttons have a side covered with German Glass Glitter...so, only the buttons have the German glass glitter.

Created a few snowmen with ear muffs using German glass glitter. 

Snomen in August?

It's still warm during these August days in Colorado yet I have been thinking of Snowmen! Crazy, I know.  I wanted to create snowmen with a vintage flair.  I just tried using felted wool to create snowmen, embellished with mother of pearl buttons, silver German glass glitter, yarn that reminds me of tinsel and lace. These two are my first ones.  Still working out some of the details but here is what I have so far.  My plan is to create many more little snowmen friends...