Would my wedding have been different post-Pinterest?

Recently on social media I've been following a few people that have just got married, and it made me think about how different things were when I got married not that long ago in 2007. Although I'd been using the Internet for a decade, social media was barely off the ground. In fact our wedding was the reason that I signed up to Facebook, in order to view wedding photos that I had been tagged in. People did take photos and even videos on the day, but only a few were ever shared publicly.

These days I wonder whether there is a lot more pressure to make sure that you have a photogenic wedding that will look good in the inevitable photos. You know that your guests are going to be sharing photos, and that many more people are going to see the details of your wedding than those that were actually there. I know that I would have made a better effort with the table settings if I'd thought that they might end up on Instagram. As it was, I just used the ones provided by the venue as their purpose was purely functional, and I think that the room did look lovely!

There is so much more inspiration available now when it comes to planning a wedding. All I had was a stack of magazines that I picked up on Freecycle, and occasional visits to a mainly text based wedding forum. I saw very little visual inspiration. 

I think that if Pinterest had been around when I was wedding planning then things would have been very different. I'm quite a crafty person, and we saved money by making our own stationery - invitations, order of the day and thank you cards. But I didn't really know where to start - if I'd had a board of ideas to draw from I could have come up with something a lot more unique and spectacular!

I've also seen ideas on Pinterest that weren't even thought of when we were planning a wedding. Obviously times and fashions change (to my dismay I've not seen a chocolate fountain since my own wedding) but there are all sorts of amazing ideas that have gained in popularity since then and I'm sure that Pinterest has played a party - photo booths, personalised signs, illuminated letters, cakes made from cheeses, Polaroid guest books, Instagram selfie frames for guests, sweet buffets...

Even though I found planning our wedding very stressful and overwhelming, sometimes I do wish that I could have another go at it with a few new Pinterest inspired ideas!

What I've been pinning recently

I'm a huge fan and user of Pinterest, and as well as my own Pinterest account I also work on the BritMums Pinterest account. Over the last few months I've been neglecting my own account a little bit as I spend a lot of time pinning for BritMums, so recently I've been making an effort to pick it up again. I love Pinterest as a source of inspiration (you can see some of my favourite Pinterest wins here!) and always feel rejuvenated and ready to craft after spending a few minutes browsing my newsfeed and looking back through my own boards. So I thought I'd share a few of my boards that I've been pinning to lately.

Most of my recent pinning has been to my Craft - Blankets board. It's one of my oldest boards, started way back when learning to crochet was just a distant dream. Now that I've picked it up and am running with it, I'm pinning crochet blankets that I could actually see myself making one day. But there are so many beautiful ones out there that I won't know where to start!



Another crochet board is my Sky Blanket board, which I started when I was planning my Sky Blanket, and I've been continuing to pin ideas that I might yet use in my blanket. When I began I was intending to just do simple rows of sky colour but I've seen so many variations that it's given me lots of ideas that I could use as the year goes on.


One of my favourite and most popular boards has always been Craft Inspiration. I pin ideas that I've seen for craft projects which are easily doable and that I'd love to try. I must admit that I try to keep this board looking quite pretty, with lots of bright, clear images of gorgeous crafts.


My newest board is the board that I created when I was planning Harry's Minecraft party. Even though the party was a few weeks ago I'm still pinning to it because creative ideas keep popping up in my newsfeed. I found that the Minecraft party required a lot of thinking about because there isn't that much official party merchandise about to buy, so I hope that my board will be a useful resource to anyone else that's looking for ideas.


Finally, I don't always keep up with it, but I do try to pin all my latest blog posts to my Jennifer's Little World Blog board, or at least my favourite posts.


What are your favourite Pinterest boards? I'd love you to leave me a link in the comments so that I can make sure I'm following!

My own Pinterest wins

I few weeks back I published a post about Pinterest Wins, where I shared some amazing things that people had made or done, all inspired by Pinterest, that turned out brilliantly. I had so many to share that there was no space to share any of my own Pinterest wins! So here are some of the things that I've made thanks to Pinterest, and that I was really proud of.

One of the very first new ideas that I encountered when I first started browsing around Pinterest was the classic Kit Kat and Smarties cake and it was one of the first things that I pinned. I attempted my own version almost immediately for a birthday cake, and I was so pleased with it! You can read more about it here - Pinterest cake - the one with Kit Kats and Smarties.

Fuelled by my success, I went on to attempt another Pinterest classic - the Rainbow cake. It was a great success, and introduced me to gel food colourings which have produced an array of brightly coloured birthday cakes ever since! I must get around to making another one. You can read how I made it here - My Rainbow Cake.

Finally, another cake that I'd seen everywhere was the piñata cake. My version was very well received, and I've made several more since. It's really easy to do! Here's how I made mine - How to make a simple Pinata Cake.

Pinterest is packed full of ideas for things to make for the children. I loved the idea of making my own I Spy JarIt was so easy to put together and the children still enjoy playing with it years later, they love it. You can read about how I made it here - I Spy Jar.

Pinterest has also inspired me to take up crafts again that I enjoyed in the past. I liked crafting with Fimo when I was little but I didn't really know where to start when I bought some recently, so I turned to Pinterest and saw a sweet Fimo owl. I found it easy to make my own version, which made a lovely magnet. You can read more about it here - Fimo Owl.

Pinterest has also been full of inspiration when it comes to sewing projects, something that I've taken up again recently. I was really pleased with how easy I found it to follow the simple pattern, and the little dress fitted our doll perfectly! You can read how I made it and find a link to the pattern here - Sewing a simple doll's dress.

These are just my favourite Pinterest inspired wins, there have been many more and hopefully I'll continue to make more Pinterest inspired creations!

What are your Pinterest wins?

Pinterest wins! When Pinterest inspiration was a success.

I love reading posts like this one - 31 Horrendous Pinterest Fail Monstrosities. But I also love seeing the fantastic things that people have made when inspired by something that they've seen on Pinterest. It's not just filled with unachievable examples of crafting excellence, there are some fabulous ideas out there and Pinterest has definitely been a huge inspiration to me over the last few years. You can see some of my own Pinterest wins here - My Pinterest Wins, and I asked around for other people to share some of the things that they have made, inspired by Pinterest, that turned out really well.

I've discovered some fantastic cake ideas thanks to Pinterest, like my rainbow cake and piñata cake. Sonia at Mummy Constant spotted some carrot shaped carrot cake slices and made these fantastic cakes, based on the design but using her own recipe.

Kath at Dreaming of a Craft Room made a fantastic birthday cake. Inspired by a pin she created this awesome birthday cake with a rabbit popping out of a hat!

Debbie at An Organised Mess also turned to Pinterest for birthday party inspiration when she was organising a Lego Ninjago party. Even though the original pin only provided a photograph she was able to recreate the design and make her own fantastic invitations:

Pinterest is great for home decor ideas. Jenny at The Gingerbread House was inspired by a Playmobil Clock and made her own brilliant version using vintage Playmobil figures:

Kath at Dreaming of a Craft room used Pinterest for ideas when decorating her daughter's room, and found some fabric wall decors. She recreated the method on her daughter's walls, and it looks wonderful!

Rachel at The Ordinary Lovely was inspired by decorative pinboards to create her own simple and lovely pinboard:

My friend Cherry also turned to Pinterest for organisational ideas and saw a kitchen command centre. She made her own version which is perfectly adapted to her family's needs, and I love the jam jars attached to the walls to hold pens and pencils!

 Pinterest is filled with ideas for things that you can make for your children. My friend Debbie pinned these lovely ruffle skirts and used the tutorial to make some gorgeous matching skirts for her daughters.

Cerys from Rainy Day Mum pinned a tutorial for repairing a broken pushchair seat and used the instructions to make a replacement seat that looks much prettier than the original!

Finally, Pinterest isn't just about arts and crafts. Joanne from Kids Days Out Reviews used Pinterest to plan a trip to the Lake District, and discovered Aira Force Falls. They had a great visit, and her daughters were able to see their first waterfall.

You can see some of my own Pinterest wins here - My own Pinterest wins. 

You might also like to read about how Pinterest has changed my life!

How Pinterest has changed my life

Okay, I'm sure that overall my life wouldn't be that much different without Pinterest, but it's true that it has had a massive influence on me over the last few years! I first heard of Pinterest on some US craft message boards that I used to lurk in, way back in 2011 when it was invite only, shortly after I started blogging. My sister had got there first, and it was thanks to her invitation that I was able to set up an account. At the time, it wasn't really heard of over here in the UK, and bloggers hadn't yet cottoned on to how important it would become as a social media network.

In May 2013 I was really excited when I was invited to join in with many other bloggers to host the #PinItForward campaign to help introduce Pinterest to potential users in the UK.

Then, a short while back, Pinterest chose to make me a featured pinner, meaning that new users that selected certain areas of interest would follow me automatically. That has come to an end now unfortunately, as it did wonders for my follower count! I'm not sure why they chose me, but it probably had something to do with the fact that I use Pinterest pretty much daily and I pin a variety of content. I don't spam it with links to my blog, in fact I'm not very good at all at using it to promote my blog, instead I use it naturally for my own interests.

My use of Pinterest brought me to the attention of BritMums, and I was invited to speak in the session "Winning Ideas from Leading Pinners" along with Helen Neale and Jen Stanbrook. I was so far out of my comfort zone and found it pretty terrifying, but luckily the other two ladies were brilliant and I think that the session went well. And it was an amazing feeling of confidence when I'd done it! I am also currently running the BritMums Pinterest account which I love doing, it's a great excuse to browse for fun things to pin in some different categories to the ones on my boards.

I mainly use Pinterest for inspiration for my own projects. My new interest in sewing is due to all the gorgeous sewing related pins that I've been seeing over the last few years. I've also been introduced to new ideas like sensory play and simple science experiments for children which I wouldn't have come across otherwise.

Pinterest has also made me think more carefully about the content that I produce for my blog, from trying to make more of an effort with my photography (still working on that one!) to being clearer and adding more detail to my tutorials.

Finally Pinterest is a great way to spend a few minutes on my phone just browsing and pinning pretty things, even if there is no expectation that I'll actually do any of them! I also have several boards that are there purely for me to look through when I want to spend a few minutes looking at nice pictures!

Visit Jennifer Jain's profile on Pinterest.

Are you on Pinterest? Leave a link to your profile in the comments and I'll make sure that I'm following you!

Fimo Owl

I remember making things with Fimo when I was little and really enjoying it, so when I was given a starter pack I started building up a board on Pinterest for inspiration - Fimo craft inspiration board. I wanted to start small, and I wanted something easy to make, so I chose to make a little fimo owl keyring. You can find the original in an album on Flickr by user lecielrouge.

He measures about 5cm across. I decided not to turn him into a keyring in the end, but he seems sturdy enough that he'd be a durable keyring. I'm really pleased with him! It was a bit fiddly, but I really enjoyed doing it and it was very satisfying.

I've got plenty of Fimo left so I'm going to be keeping an eye out for some more ideas. I really like the idea of making a Fimo Nativity Scene, but I think that I might need quite a lot more Fimo for that! The children also love creating little bits and pieces, they've made their favourite Pokemon and we also made some Fimo accessories for their Sylvanian Families.

Bean bag comet with ribbons

I was looking for a simple sewing project when I found these bean bag comets. I first saw them over at Entertaining Monsters and followed back to the original tutorial at Twig and Toadstool. I'm not very good at sewing, I lack the ability to make neat stitches in a straight line, but even I managed to make one. I was actually able to complete it during one of Mia's rare, short naps, and if you have a sewing machine you could make these up very quickly.

I was recently lucky enough to win the monthly prize from the PinAddicts challenge which was a voucher to spend at Abakhan. Never having bought fabric before I thoughtthat  I'd treat myself to a fat quarter of pretty flowered fabric, and I've used some of it to make this bean bag. I will admit that the fabric I used was my least favourite in the selection, but it reminds me a little bit of garden furniture so it's a good choice for a garden toy! I've never bought ribbon before but I seem to have loads of it, I hoard it from chocolate boxes and other gifts, and so I easily found some in co-ordinating colours. I used rice to fill the bean bag.

I was really, really pleased with this project. Like I say, I'm not really a sewer, and yet this was so quick and easy to make. I have another sewing project in mind, and this success has inspired me to make a start!

More love for Pinterest

Following on from my recent participation in the Pinterest #pinitforward campaign, I asked my sister to write me a guest post about Pinterest. You see, it was through Anna that I first discovered Pinterest, and so I have her to thank for introducing me to it! So here's over to Anna:

When I first started using Pinterest I thought it would be one of those things I'd play with for a bit and then forget about. But now I love it and go there every day. It’s a brilliant way of saving things you find as you browse the web – a recipe you’d like to try, or a craft you think the kids would like – as well as looking through the things other people have found.

I have 22 boards. They range from recipes, crafts, pattern inspiration and ideas for things to do with the girls, as well as things I think are just cool and interesting! The board with the most followers, and my favourite to browse myself, is my crochet & knitted blankets board – I love all the colours and the designs, and it always leaves me feeling cosy.

As a designer, I also find Pinterest useful for my work. Pinterest recently started allowing ‘secret’ boards – perfect for making mood boards and collecting inspiration without sharing it all with the world. And scrolling through the main page feeds is great for spotting trends and seeing what people are looking for.

Pinterest is one of those things that, once you get used to it, you wonder how you managed without it! It’s such a convenient way to organise not just pictures but online information of all kinds. Give it a try, but be warned, it’s addictive!

(Anna is mum to Laura (4) and Emily (2) as well as designing knitting patterns. She blogs at http://beepbeepdesigns.blogspot.com

Tactile alphabet cards

Today I'm sharing a craft that was inspired by Pinterest and appealed to me as soon as saw it - some tactile alphabet cards which I pinned from Fairy Dust Teaching, the letters of the alphabet created using found objects. I probably don't spend enough time working on letters with Harry at the moment, I tend to think that it is something that he'll pick up easily enough when he starts school. But I loved how bright and colourful these alphabet cards were, and it looked like something that would be a lot of fun for us to make together.

For the cards I cut up an old, sturdy nappy box, it's best to use the strongest cardboard that you can as the paint and glue can warp thinner card. Each alphabet card measures approximately 8cm x 12cm. First we painted the backgrounds in a variety of different colours, then before we started putting letters on I planned the layout in advance so that I was happy with the spread of the colours when they were all displayed together.

To make our letters, I drew the outline in pencil and let Harry glue on the different things. I was a bit worried that I would struggle to think of 26 different things to use, but once I got started I kept thinking of more and more ideas! I loved watching Harry's fine motor skills at work. He's also enjoying patterning at the moment, so some of the letters are made using patterns in the colours like the alternating beads.

I used lowercase letters instead of the uppercase letters in the original pin, because those are the ones that I want him to become familiar with first. Perhaps we'll go on to make an uppercase set next!

Here's what I used for the different letters:

a - star eyelets
b - small beads
c - curtain hooks
d - sequins
e - cord
f - macaroni pasta
g - red lentils
h - gold stars
i - cotton wool
j - small stones
k - ribbon
l - lollipop stick
m - pipecleaner
n - felt
o - scraps of wool
p - large beads
q - pom poms
r - shredded paper
s - glitter
t - washi tape
u - scrap of fabric
v - lace
w - nails
x - sandpaper
y - tin foil
z - paperclips

The cards are still loose at the moment but I'm planning on attaching them to his bedroom wall somehow, perhaps gluing them on to a larger piece of cardboard as a background.

Altered book pages

In those long, empty days before children I used to enjoy having a go at altered books. You can combine all sorts of crafts, and in particular two that I enjoy - collage and painting. I completed one small board book, lots of pages in a larger hardback book, and bought a third hardback book to make a new, themed one.

Then the children came along, and it has taken me until now to pick the craft up again. The book that I am using is called "Three" (purchased from the "Withdrawn for sale" shelf at the library) and I quite like the idea of theming some pages around the number three and things that come in threes. I'd been putting off working on the book for a long time as I was a bit stuck for inspiration, so I did a bit of searching on Pinterest, and found loads of ideas to get me started. I chose two altered book page designs that I really liked, and had a go at them myself.

I couldn't find anywhere to credit the original images so I haven't linked them here, but you can see them on my growing Altered Books pinboard. The first is an outline tree and the second is a cartoon sketch of a little girl, outlined in white. They are both very different to anything that I've painted or drawn before.

I might add something to the tree as I think it's a bit bare, perhaps add some writing in and turn it into a family tree or story.

I wanted the little girl to resemble Mia, but she came out looking a bit older than I intended. She is also a bit more bright and cheerful than the original, she also appears to have been unintentionally inspired by illustrator Nick Sharratt! I used watercolour to paint her and then outlined with slightly diluted white acrylic paint. I quite like the fact that the name Angelique has ended up above her head, it wasn't intentional, but it's nice that she has a name!

I loved working with the watercolours, and even better I actually managed to complete some of the painting while I had small children about, either occupied elsewhere or doing some painting of their own. Both pages were very quick and satisfying to finish.

Now I'm going to carry on with the book, but start to incorporate some of my own ideas. I really like the idea of drawing another girl, so I might try her out again on a different page, and maybe put a little boy in there somewhere too. I'd like to have a go with some collage too.

Pizza cookie with sweets

Pizza is a favourite meal in this household, and cookies are a favourite treat. This recipe for a giant pizza cookie combines the two!

My original inspiration for the pizza cookie idea came from the A little bit of heaven on a plate blog, sorry no longer available. I wanted to make more of a biscuit base though, so I used the recipe from another pin - A Mothers Ramblings, changing it slightly by keeping it plain as I was going to be adding plenty of sweets on top.

Ingredients:

Base:
125g brown sugar
75g caster sugar
125g butter (softened)
2tsp vanilla essence
1 egg
1tsp baking powder
150g plain flour

Topping:
Icing sugar
Red food colouring
Water
100g bar white chocolate, grated
Sweets

Method:

Start by making the base. Cream the sugar and butter together, it's a lot easier if the butter is softened first. Then add the vanilla essence and the egg, then finally the flour and baking powder. The mixture will have the texture of a thick paste. I lined a pizza tray with grease proof paper and then spread the dough out evenly on top with a knife. It will spread a little when cooking so leave a small gap around the edges. Mine spread out really nicely leaving a good, realistic looking crust.


Bake in the oven at 180C (slightly lower for fan assisted ovens) for about twenty minutes. It is ready when it has started to brown on top, but it will still appear quite soft. It needs to cool for a little while, and then it will harden up. You can see how the crust has curled up slightly resembling pizza crust, perfect.

Then for the fun part - the decorating! Originally I was going to use jam for the tomato sauce, but my son suggested using icing and I think that worked better. I just used icing sugar, with lots of red food colouring to make it nice and dark, and water. I'm afraid I can't give exact quantities as I always guess my icing! We spread it out over the base, and then sprinkled the grated white chocolate on top before scattering with sweets. I didn't choose particularly realistic ones as I just used what we had, but you could try and choose sweets that look like the different ingredients that you like on a pizza! 

I think it looked pretty good when it was finished (and it tasted delicious too!). This would be a great alternative to a birthday cake for a pizza loving child (or adult!).

Pinterest cake - the one with Kit Kats and Smarties

I've been using Pinterest for quite a while, almost as long as I've been blogging. In that time I have pinned many things, and one of the very first things I pinned was this cake. I think that it will probably be familiar to most regular Pinterest users, in fact if you use Pinterest you probably have it pinned somewhere yourself! When I recently spotted a brilliant version by another blogger it reminded me that with Ram's birthday coming up it would be the perfect opportunity for me to try it out.

In the end it is probably the most impressive, and yet easiest, cake that I have ever attempted. I just made a basic Victoria sandwich cake, with plenty of icing in the middle and on the top, and blobs around the sides to hold the Kit Kats in place. It doesn't matter if the icing is lumpy or poorly spread, as it is all covered up anyway. The ribbon holds it all nice and tightly together.

For reference, I used 18 Kit Kats and four tubes of Smarties. It could ideally have done with another tube of Smarties to achieve full coverage, but as long as you have icing underneath it's fine!

I Spy Jar

Our I Spy Jar was inspired by Pinterest, and in fact it was one of the first things that I ever pinned. I held off making it for a little while because I wanted to make sure that my children were old enough to handle a glass jar safely under supervision.

I've seen many different versions of the I Spy jar online, but the one that I first saw was over at Meet the Dubiens, unfortunately the blog post is no longer available.

This is my version:

I used an old pasta sauce jar. To remove the label from the jar I soaked it in WD40, and it peeled right off. I like to think that our home is fairly uncluttered, but I found it very easy to gather together tiny items to put inside by raiding the toy box, my craft supplies and the bowl in the kitchen that we keep for keys and other junk. I used brown rice for the bulk of the jar (just what we had in the cupboard) and I found that you don't need to leave much space at the top of the jar at all as the contents easily shift around with a bit of shaking.

My contents are - leaf bead, old heart earring, toy handbag, flower bead, heart cutout, nut, marble, butterfly eraser, pom pom, penny, shell, stone, craft flower, paperclip, plastic cow, silver bead, eyelet, googly eye, blue button, star sequin, snowflake brad, yellow button, tiny clothes peg, doll crown, pink drawing pin, safety pin, flat shell.

Harry is fascinated by it and I can't stop turning it around myself!

Update - it's been a few years now since I made this and it has become one of the favourite toys, still played with long after. It would be great to remake one in a plastic bottle to take on car journeys, and I'd love to print off a little checklist of things that are included to attach to the lid.

Water play in the garden

I spotted an idea for a garden water play structure on Pinterest fairly recently, and it stood out immediately because Harry has a fascination with water and pipes at the moment and it looked like a really fun activity that he would enjoy. The one that I have pinned is from Taming the Goblin and is based on an idea from Sun Hats and Wellie Boots. Both are far, far more sophisticated than mine!


Luckily our recycling bin was full, so I was able to collect together a variety of different plastic bottles and pots. We have a trellis wall leading into our vegetable patch which was a perfect spot to use. I attached the bottles to the trellis using string and coated wire (cable ties would also have worked really well). I began with a simple top to bottom structure as it can be easily changed, and also it was more difficult than I had expected! The water had a habit of splattering off in unexpected directions. I think that perhaps I placed my bottles too far apart.

This was really fun, and I'm looking forward to expanding and improving it over the summer!

Five Little Ducks felt puppets

This blog post was written as part of the PinAddicts challenge, where a group of bloggers actually made crafts inspired by some of the things that they had pinned! These felt ducks were inspired by a pin from ohsofelty, although they are sadly no longer available.

I've posted before about how Harry loves acting out stories and rhymes using props. I've seen some great ideas online, and one that caught my eye was some felt ducks to use when singing the children's song "Five little ducks went swimming one day".

I didn't have much yellow felt left, but I was pleased to make use of some which was rather poor quality (I think it may have come in a reduced children's craft kit). I didn't have enough yellow to make the backs, so I used felt in a pale coral colour.

They were very easy to make, I just drew out a basic template for the body shape and cut out the two pieces and sewed them together. The wings and the beak are sewing on separately, with tiny stitches for their eyes. My finished puppets came out quite big, which makes them a little uncomfortable to hold, but you don't need them all in place for very long as you sing the song!

However it does mean that they are too big for a small child to hold, so next time I would make them a bit smaller. I had assumed that he would be quite happy to sit and watch, but of course he wanted to join in too!

In case you are unfamiliar with the song, this is how it goes:

Five little ducks went swimming one day
Over the fields and far away
Mummy Duck said 'quack quack quack quack'
But only four little ducks came back

and so on until there are no ducks left...

No little ducks went swimming one day
Over the fields and far away
Mummy Duck said 'quack quack quack quack'
And all five ducks came swimming back!

How to make your own cress heads

I've really been getting in to planting things lately with Harry. We've planted lots of vegetables and flowers, but they take a long time to grow so I thought that it was time to try some cress.

I found these lovely cress heads on Pinterest so I thought we'd give them a go for this month's Pinterest Challenge, which this month is being hosted by Sew Scrumptious. You can find the pin here on my Pinterest board, and here is the original picture and instructions.

You just need to take the feet from an old pair of tights, put a teaspoon or so of cress seeds in first and then fill with compost. Tie at the bottom, use an elastic band to pull out lumps and make a nose, and then decorate. I used some foam stickers that we had lying around. Although the original instructions actually say to use two teaspoons of seeds, I found that this was too many really so you can use fewer. I sat mine in plastic cups for stability. Here they are after just a few days:

They start growing almost straightaway, so are great for pretty much instant gratification. I'm not too keen on actually eating the cress though, but the seeds were cheap!

Framed felt owl picture

For my second entry into the PinAddicts challenge, hosted this month by 76 Sunflowers I was inspired by these gorgeous little Felt Owls at Bugs and Fishes. Bugs and Fishes is a fantastic blog if you are looking for felt crafting inspiration, there are all sorts of lovely little bits and pieces!

I decided that rather than making a stuffed owl, I would use the design in a small picture frame. I used an Ikea Ram frame, which I also used to make my felt name picture.

I made my own owl template based upon the Bugs and Fishes design, and chose colours from my felt stash. It was very tempting to go mad with lots of different colours, so I tried to introduce some continuity by making most of the stitching yellow. I also painted the frame yellow to match. My owl came out a little wonky (perhaps because I drew him freehand rather than use the template which the designer kindly provides), so I set him at a jaunty angle to try and hide it.

I had some space left in the frame which needed to be filled. I originally cut out some small letters to spell 'owl' and placed them along the top, but I didn't feel that it looked right, so instead I made him a little branch with a leaf, and I also gave him some feet. I glued all the pieces onto some white linen for a backing. Owl designs are very popular at the moment, and I'm really pleased with him!

If you are looking for more owl crafts you might also like my Fimo Owl.