WOYWW - goodies in the post and flower felt update

Happy Wednesday everyone!!
The postie brought two more little parcels to my door this weeek.
Firstly, this beautiful little bird winged it's way here from Liverpool Lou  in Wakefield.
We have missed her on WOYWW and Annie and I often mention the other Anne!
So what a surprise when, in exchange for a little dumfling, Anne sent me the gorgeous little fabric bird.
Thanks lots Anne - it sits happily on my hall cupboard now - although I took this pic with a backdrop of the misty hills and fields behind my house.

Next came this cute little owly ATC and matching woodstamped envelope.
I remembered seeing  Fiona - Staring @ the Sea  making them on her blog and thinking how nice to make an envelope too.
I love all things birdy and owly so they are two special swaps - thank you both.

Now just a few update pics of my progress on my felted flower garden.
Lots of you left such lovely comments and I know you want to see how we work our dumfing magic, so thank you for willing us on and here goes.....

Remember the pre-felted stage from last week....

Well, this was it once it had been wet felted......

 Then on fun day Monday, Annie and I dumfed all afternoon.....
I added more wool rovings and yarns.....

Then a few more bits and bobs to deepen the colours and emphasise the shapes....

Here are a few sneaky peeks......

  I will reveal all once I have added the finishing touches.

AND lastly - my effort at a Christening card this week....

Have a great week everyone.
Pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground and join in our Wednesday blog hop!!

x Jo

WOYWW - felting or dumfing

Good morning all!!

Before you is a nice neat room and tidy table - I just had to clear out some of my untidy mess after my weekend of crafty activity (See gorgeousness on post below!)

On my table this morning are three pieces of handmade felt. I spent yesterday morning wet felting these.

This one is for Annie. She finds wet felting difficult because it hurts her wrists and shoulders so, I offered to make a piece for her to use as a dumfing background.

This is what it looked like when all the wool rovings were laid out ready to wet felt.







And below is my experiment.
I fancied making a flower garden so I wet felted a background piece and then I will work on it with my embellisher (dumfer) and see what happens.

The little pictures below were needle felted onto a piece of wet felted background  and then machine embroidered and beaded.

I think we will pop them in the shop once they are finished off.

I have started the "mini felted picture" shelf already.

I put a few of my little dumflings in there so click here to have a look, if you are interested.

And lastly....

the latest little ATCs to arrive through my letterbox.

They are all so beautiful and will just about fit on my A3 collage board, so I will be finishing that off later. Thanks lots everyone - it's been a fun going global!

Now to see what Julia has been up to in her Stamping Ground this week.

Have a great day.

See you later

x Jo

Dumfing workshop.

Saturday was dumfing day!!
When M came home to see her Dad for Father's Day we had time for an hour or two in the sewing room.
She loves to craft with me and uses it as a good stress buster.
Having seen my poppy picture (last pic on this post), she decided she wanted to make some.

She had already made the tiny dumflings in the picture but fancied a different style.
So with a little direction from the one who knows......
She made the 3 gorgeous little poppy dumflings in the front of the pic above.
They are made with wool rovings and yarn, dumfed with the needle felting machine into felt.
Then the detail is added with free machining and beads.
Here she is at the sewing machine..
 


















And here are my little poppies that I made earlier.

It was just lovely to spend time together and share a crafty session.
She went home happy, with a box of baking that we made for a fund raiser for the charity she works for and her 3 little dumflings.
I just cleared up the mess and then carried on where I left off......... pop back tomorrow to see a few more dumflings.

Thanks for calling by.
x Jo

WOYWW - Dumfing magic!

Our WOYWW ATC fun continues.

As our little dumflings are winging their way around the planet, then by return, come these wonderful little works of art.

Many are accompanied by cards, notes, good wishes and some even included lovely crafty bits and bobs.

Thank you all for your lovely comments and beautiful ATCs.

We have had such a lovely week - made even better on funday Monday when Annie and I got together to play - you show me yours... I'll show you mine!! We both think we should make a big collage of them so that we can keep them all together and display them as they deserve.

 What a wonderful way to "meet" new and old WOYWW friends. I think our Julia deserves a medal for having such a brilliant idea.

As for fun day Monday.....
well it didn't get off to a good start...
Look at the girl - she has been so poorly.
As I looked across the table at her peeping over her dumfing machine it reminded me of those captioned war time posters (Chad? Mr Wot?)

WOT NO MOJO?

                                                                                                             

But then we started crafting and somehow it worked its magic.
The needles dumfed, the felt flew and before we knew it she was back on top form and creating the most fab and gorgeous crab apple blossom dumfling!

Of course - I was busy dumfing on my machine opposite her.
So we chatted and giggled, drank coffee, ate chocolate - oops did I just admit that!!! YES we ATE CHOCOLATE! How else does a poorly girl get better?
Here are my little dumflings.

 We have had such a giggle over Maxine's suggestion re clearing her mortgage by selling my dumflings.
Seriously though - they have turned out rather well so, we think we might make dumfling mini-felts with them and make a shelf in our blog shop for some of them. So keep a look out after next fun day Monday.

Lastly, here are my latest little jumpers and beanies for the fish and chip babies.
I posted them to Dawn yesterday. She is the blog friend who wrote a post about them (read here)and who has kindly collected them and passed them on to a local organisation ready to send out to Africa.

Well what a colourful post that is!!
Have a great week everyone - see you on my blog hop.
x Jo

WOYWW - a little dumfling update

Happy Wednesday everyone!!

What a wonderful weekend of jubilee celebrations it has been - I hope you have all enjoyed it.

AND - what fun WOYWW was last week.

Thanks to all who visited my blog and especially a big thank you to those who joined in the ATC swapping fun!

Due to popular demand I spent a day making a few more.......

Some of my ATC dumflings, that I posted on Thursday, have already reached USA, Canada AND Australia!! So dumfing has officially gone global!!!

However - lots of you wanted to know what it is and how I did it.
So I took a few snaps as I went along this week.

Here is my piece of green pre-felt from Sara of www.SarasTextureCrafts.com
I have used my needle felting machine to attach yarns and wool rovings for the foliage.

 Now I have added some bright petal coloured wool roving for the flowers.

Then I use dark thread to free machine the detail into the flower shapes and foliage.
I put some firm vilene on the back and zig-zagged round each one to make them ATC size.
That's it!!!
Here are a few fuschia ones....

My daughter M had a brilliant idea to help pay off her mortgage....

She thinks if I make thousands of little dumflings and sell them at £1 each then she will be debt free in no time!! Something didn't quite add up to me  ...
I make - she sells - her mortgage is cleared mmm!

I wonder what Alan Sugar would make of that as a business proposition!!

Hope you have enjoyed my little dumfing class - do email if you want to know more.
Now let's pop over and see if Julia our WOYWW queen enjoyed her anniversary celebrations too.
Have a great week .
x Jo