With christmas and new year now over. The making of christmas decorations is put on hold but not for long. Will have to begin soon to have enough stock to, fingers crossed, do some christmas craft stalls this year.
Now is the time to be looking at what I can make for the coming year, not christmas based, so that I can look forward to doing another few craft stalls this year before next christmas.
Firstly, though I need to crack on with writing about crafts, as I've been asked by our local magazine
'Leintwardine Life' to write a section on crafts.
Inspiration comes with practice. Walking around 'The Works' today, I found a 'Make Your Own Felt Bird' kit for £1, bargain, can't go wrong for £1.
So thought I might kick start the year and have a go at this kit and review it.
Make Your Own Felt Bird.
This kit is complete with everything you need, the quality of the materials in general are good but the felt is a little starchy and not soft like felt should be but as they say you get what you pay for and high quality felt would not be expected.
What you get in the pack:
2x ready cut bird bodies
2x ready cut wings
1x ready cut beak
Black and Pink embroidery thread
2x Beads for the eyes
1x Ribbon for hanging
Stuffing
1x plastic needle
Instructions
The sections are pre-cut, with holes which sets you up for a quick and easy project, so you'd think but then you look at the instructions.
The instructions are very basic and vague, so not really suitable for a complete beginner. There are no diagrams, except for the photo on the front of the box, which is a huge help. So don't throw that box away until you've finished making your bird.
Neither the instructions or the box state what age this is recommended for and states on the back 'keep away from children'?? In my opinion, this is the perfect project for a child and with better instructions could be done easily by a child 8+ but these instructions really would required adult help and supervision. So in conclusion, regarding instructions: diagrams needed, the correct lingo and a age specified would make this project easier, as it would a shame to not actually make this cute little bird. Total approximate making time 20-30mins or just over an hour with some guidance and patience.
My Step by Step Guide
Set out your materials like the photo above to make sure you have all the components.
The first instruction is to sew on the eyes. Thread your needle with the black thread and select one black bead. Take one side of the body and push the needle through the hole for the eye. thread the bead onto the needle then push the needle back through the same hole and tie of the ends as tight as you can of the eye will be lose and droopy.
Repeat this step on the second side of the body, but make sure it is on the other side, as shown below.
The next step in the wings. These need to be snipped out of the felt as you could risk tearing them.
The needle now needs to be threaded with the pink thread and the end knotted. Line up the wings on the body to resemble the angle in the photograph and push the needle through one of the four holes. The stitching needed for this is similar to that of a button or cross stitch (for reference, you could add a button to the shoulder of the wing). Then tie the thread off once the needle has been pushed through all four holes. Repeat this process for the other side.
The next step is too sew both of the pieces together. Again the needle needs to be threaded with pink thread but don't tie off the end. Push the needle through one of the holes on one side. Start at the bottom of the chest ready to leave a gap for the stuffing. Line up the beak opposite the eye in between the two body parts, as the beak already has to holes in it, then continue to sew.
BUT before you sew completely around the bird. You need to fix the hanging cord. Nowhere in the instructions does it tell you how to. So following this image showing the start and finish of the sewing the two pieces together, I will state how I fixed the hanging cord.
First I tied the included ribbon into to a knot.
Then laid it out in between one of the holes for sewing just before the eye. Then continued sewing making sure the needle past through the loop of the ribbon.
After continuing to the sew also all the way around, the bird is ready to be stuffed.
You only really need half of the stuffing supplied and I used a knitting needle to push the stuffing up into the the tail part and the head.
Once the bird is stuffed you can finish sewing round and tie of the ends to complete.
Overall, this product is great for the price and the supply of materials. You end up with a really cute and colourful, simplistic bird. The only thing that lets it down is the lack of detailed instructions and diagrams. I give it a 6/10 only due to the instructions.
I would recommended to get this product as a rainy day 'things to do with kids' as it lets you see what is needed to make them. So a template can be recreated and you could make more with varied colours, as you can get felt packs and beads really cheap from various pound shops. Plus you already have the safety needle left over, so you're part way there.
