Totoro Earrings - Handmade Jewellery!

When I needle felted this trio of forest guardians you might have guessed I was a Totoro nut, well I've taken it one step further and done something I've been meaning to do for almost half a year!
I've made Totoro Earrings! :D

(Click here to see needle felted Totoro)

Some of you may have spotted me wearing this set of earrings at Thought Bubble last weekend, and I promised I'd be posting up a blog with photo examples and pricing for anyone who is interested.
Well this is what you've been waiting for!

Each stud is made out of coloured Fimo with the details painted on using acrylics and then varnished with a satin finish. The earring posts are silver Surgical Steel and the backs are soft clear plastic stoppers (as pictured further below).
Please make sure you are able to wear Surgical Steel before ordering, as of yet I do NOT have any Silver or Gold earring posts for those with sensitive ears. Sorry!

Totoro measures approx - 13mm tall x 10mm wide (at the tallest/widest points)
Chu Totoro measures approx - 10mm tall x 6mm wide
Chibi Totoro measures approx - 7mm tall x 5mm wide

I will be making these available as a set of three (6 earrings in total, 2 of each) or as individual pairs, so you can wear each as modelled above by me.

£6 Totoro pair

(not including postage)

£4 Chu Totoro pair

(not including postage)

£2 Chibi Toroto pair

(not including postage)

£10 Set of three 
2 of each pictured above, 6 earrings total.

(not including postage)

This is still in the very early stages at the moment so I shall only be taking on limited commissions and will be making them to order. 

So if you plan to give these as a christmas gift to someone, please get your orders in early!

If you are interested then just drop me an email: sara-dunkerton@hotmail.com

More Minion Mayhem - Dave

If you remember a couple of months back the Minion Kevin made a needle felted appearance on my blog?

Well he's since been joined by Dave!

Here's how he looks in the fuzzy flesh.

I made this little guy using the exact same steps as I used to make Kevin, so I shan't be posting a step by step guide. However if you'd like a reminder of how the minions are made click here!

Kevin and Dave have since gone off to serve their new masters, however they were kind enough to take a couple of photos of the two of them causing mayhem at work! Bananaaaaaaaa!

Minion Mayhem - Kevin!

Minion mayhem is gonna sweep this blog shortly as I've been asked to make a trio of the little yellow mischief makers!

So to get the ball rolling, here is Kevin!

The Minons should prove pretty straightforward to make, with their rounded bodies and simple colour scheme, Kevin here was no exception. I shall be building each minion up in the same way as I have with Kev, so I'll only go through the making process once. 

Here's how its done!

 

As with all my Needle Felted makes I begin with a sketch, in this case Kevin is the tallest of the three Minons that I'm going to be making, so I needed to plan to make sure they're all going to be in scale with one another. I started with a simple wire armature and loosely felted a core finer around it for his body, I then felted a yellow wool over this.

 

 Next I worked on shaping his body a little more and then felted wool around his wire arms.

 

I then felted his blue dungarees onto the lower half of his body and worked on the definition of the side pockets.

 

He was looking slightly legless, so it was time to add those next.

 

 

And then I worked on his goggles (or is it goggle if he only has one eye?) 

Firstly felt the grey base of the goggle separately leaving a raised ridge around the outside to accommodate his eye and then attach it to his body. Then you felt the black strap around his head followed by the grey attachments to the base either side to cover up the ends.

 

Next up are his feet, which are simply black balls of wool felted around the wire armature. This step may take a bit of tweaking and adding to to get him to stand without support.

 

And now his hands! The palms were done in a similar way to the feet, just balls of black wool felted around the armature, but fingers were all felted separated to the hand and attached one by one, possibly the trickiest part of this make. Once the cuffs of his gloves are added to cover the rough ends, his hands are done!

 

Finally we have the last few touches, Kevin's eye was just a ball of white wool felted into space inside the raised ridge we'd left and his iris and pupil are another couple of tiny balls of brown and black wool felted into position. Kevin's grumpy little frown is just another slim strand of black wool, as is the G logo on the front pocket of his dungaree's, which was felted separately and attached before the logo was placed. I also glued on a couple of small black beads for his buttons.

Lastly the hair is just a few strands of black cotton thread sewn into the top of his head and felted down a little to secure it in slightly. And there you have it!

 Dave and Stuart will be joining Kevin, so if you're a minion fan keep an eye out!

A Chocobo Adventure!

So yesterday I showed you all the process of how I made the rather adorable needle felted Chocobo!
(If you missed it then click here!)

Well I let him out in the park to explore, here are some photos of his adventures!