Needle felted Bride of Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s Puppets by Laura Lee Burch
Halloween is pretty much my favorite holiday, it’s creative and fun and it inspires me; this year I’ve needle felted several Halloween puppets. Most of these puppets were time intensive and they have lots of details; I want to share some of my techniques and thoughts about needle felting faces in this post. Not all portraits have to be photo-realistic, cartoon techniques and-caricatures are also good ways to make needle felted portraits. My needle felted portraits tend to be realistic. NOTE: This is an advanced project but it can be simplified. This puppet is not a toy because of the hair and eyes which can be choking hazards for children. If you wish to make a puppet as a toy, needle felt the eyes (don’t use glass or plastic eyes or fake eye lashes) and felt the hair firmly so it can’t be pulled out.
These puppets can be used for puppet shows and they can also be conversational pieces of sculpture for your home or business.
Wiener dogs make me smile because they’re full of moxie; every Dachshund I’ve ever met was brimming with attitude! I’m please to present a free needle felting tutorial: Moxie Doxie. This tutorial lists all the materials you’ll need to felt one brown (short haired) Dachshund.
For the holidays, I’ve designed a needle felted winter scene and several needle felted ornaments that utilize NEW FELTING TECHNIQUES!!! The first needle felted project is a winter scene…..
Needle Felting with Angelina fiber
Winter scene using Angelina fiber
This beautiful winter scene of three pines trees and two snow covered deer use Angelina fiber in the creation of the needle felted trees.
shredded green Angelina fiber
Angelina Fiber: This fiber comes in all different colors and can be blended with many types of textiles; when heated it bonds with the fibers creating a beautiful shiny, sparkly effect. You can find this Angelina fiber here or here. These shiny fibers are the perfect extra little something to make your felted creations festive!
Materials list: 25g. green wool, 4 felting needles, sponge (felting surface), .05 oz. green, .05 oz. white, heat bondable Angelina fiber, felting handle, 100g. poly fiber-fill stuffing (pillow stuffing), thread, iron, glue, paint brush, white glitter.
1. With sewing thread, bind poly fiber-fill stuffing into a cone shape.
Approximate Poly fiber-fill/wool breakdown:
Large Tree: 45g of poly fiber-fill/ 9g green wool
Medium Tree: 30g of poly fiber-fill/7g green wool
Small Tree: 17g.of poly fiber-fill/5g green wool
2. Cone ready to felt with green wool.
3. Felted cone (tree). Needle felting is the art of sculpting raw wool with special needles. The needles mesh the wool fibers together, creating a firm and durable form. This craft is surprisingly simple and fun!
4. Felt (poke continuously ) the wool covered cone with the Angelina fiber; it takes patience to felt the Angelina into the cone because it’s a little unruly.
5. Felt the white Angelina fiber (snow) on last.
6. After the Angelina has been felted into the pine trees set your iron to the silk setting and use an ironing cloth while ironing the Angelina fibers. Iron for only a few seconds.
7. Felted, ironed Angelina tree; the fiber changes color once it’s ironed. The finish is stiff and a little “crispy”.
Three needle felted pine trees with Angelina fiber.
Felt the trees in different shades of green for a more interesting look.
Snow covered deer
8. Paint a little glue onto the deer; sprinkle with white glitter.
Add white or silver glitter to a few deer, rabbits or other foresty friends to make the winter scene come alive 🙂 Put them on a silver platter and use them as a holiday center-piece.
I started this post by listing what I considered my accomplishments and important “stuff” that happened this last year, but decided that was boring and if you really wanted to know that, you could read several of my past posts. Reflecting back on the past year’s events, I saw a pattern that I’d like to share with you: One thing leads to another. It may not seem very profound, but when something “bad” happens, I try to figure out what “good” -if any-resulted from the event in the first place. When I closed my store almost 3 years ago, it was a big loss for me in many ways but recently I’ve started to see good things come from that 5 year store experience. The life experience, the people I met, the skills I learned and the work that I produced seem to have made a path for me that I’m now walking. You just never know what’s going to happen in life!
I’d like to wish my readers a Happy Hannukah, a Merry Christmas and a healthy and peaceful New Year! Now imagine that I’m handing you a present with a pretty bow on top, open it and you’ll see my gift to you, a needle felted gnome and his pet hedgehog tutorial:) Needle felted gnome and Hedgehog tutorial
Needle felted gnome and his pet hedgehog Spike
You can find more needle felted kits on my lullubee site, the kits comes with everything you need to make the projects and detailed instructions.
Because the Fairytale Frog tutorial that I did was so popular, I decided to do another tutorial with the same multi-jointed technique. Feeling a little artsy after I made my chimp, I fashioned him as “art” after a few famous artists. For the above shot, I draped my chimp in the clothing and head covering to mimic Girl with a Pearl Earring, I placed him in front of a black background (like the Vermeer painting) and took his picture. I photo-shopped his eyes to look at the viewer and blurred him a little to look like a painting.
Salvadore Monki
For Salvadore Monki (after the famous photo of Salvadore Dali), I took Monki’s photo with a needle felted moustache. I photo-shopped his eyes to look like the expressive eyes of Dali in the photo and changed the image from color to black and white. The cropping and the moustache here were key!
The Chimpanzee Scream
My final piece of chimp art is the Chimpanzee Scream. I created the background with pastels (to look like the famous painting by Edvard Munch, The Scream). I positioned my chimp in the lower right hand corner and took his picture. Voila!
I had a lot of fun recreating these Chimpanzee pieces of art, a little something more to highlight my needle felted work!
