Made It - Small Gifts

Hello! Made a couple of small gifts recently for a friend's birthday. The first one is of my own design, although I'm sure others out there have made similar projects:

Behold, a handmade "flower". The center is a small styrofoam ball studded with gold sequins that are held in place with beads and sequin pins. The petals are made from a vintage restaurant menu that I'd altered. For a little extra finish, I glued a piece of art paper to the back of the flower. (the flower shape itself was traced from a clothing tag I'd saved years ago). The stem is a vintage pipe cleaner that I glued to the flower base, and then I shaped the leaves. 

This was pretty quick and fun to do. Made with red flower petals, I think these would look nice for Christmas. 

I made this flower for my friend because she'd given me the styrofoam balls and the gold sequins. I thought she might like to see what I did with them!

I was sewing her another gift when my sewing machine began acting up. Took it to the repairman, which meant that I had to come up with another, sew-free project. Fortunately, I had gotten this book earlier in the year at an estate sale.

The projects in Felt Wee Folk  are seriously cute! But I was feeling a bit lazy about the wrapping-the pipe-cleaner-body-with-embroidery-floss part, so instead, my doll looks like this:

This little doll is about 4" tall. Her body is made from a gold pipecleaner and her head is a wooden bead that I painted. Her hair is made from doll hair and her hat is an acorn cap. Her dress is made from vintage felt and the belt is hand-dyed cotton string. Hand embroidery was used to decorate the dress and to sew it together. 

She turned out well enough that I was reluctant to give her away, but of course I can always make one for myself! 

The author is quite particular about the craft supplies she specifies for the projects in her book, but I used what I already had on hand. I think she turned out just fine anyway!