Lost in the Wood

Lost in the Wood Designs will have a stall at this craft fair on Saturday, 4th May (this weekend!). The previous incarnation of this small and popular craft fair was housed monthly in the Market Hall. Owing to the Hall's ongoing refurbishment, it's now found a shiny new home at Galeri in Doc Victoria. It'll be the first Saturday of the month from 10am-4pm. Please come along to see quality crafts by local artists.

  Apart from weekends (which are undoubtedly best of all), I love my Tuesdays where I get to pretend I don't work in an office (only 3 days a week so I shouldn't really complain) by staying at home and being creative instead. I've realised there's even more work involved in starting a business than I'd ever thought and lots of other tasks to master which don't involve any actual making but are nevertheless vital to getting any products ready to sell and be seen. I'm still trying to get to grips with it all but am trying to assign Tuesdays to be purely making days where I don't worry too much about the other stuff and just enjoy being crafty. I've cheated a bit by diverting my attention to blogging now but it seemed a bit overdue and I am pleased with my two cheery photos from this morning's efforts (please note, most of these were not made today, I'd love to be this productive!). I've made myself happy this morning by making litt...

  Hurrah! Have finally finished the bunny heads so now they look the way I imagined they would. Now they seem very glam with bespoke made shields (MDF as it can be shaped more easily than wood for the shields, so I'm reliably informed) painted in pastel colours. The shields were made by the very lovely John at Ogwen Art & Crafts based in the picturesque Ogwen valley (North West Wales http://www.ogwenartandcraft.co.uk/   These three- Freddie, Bettina and Millie are now on sale in my Etsy shop  http://www.etsy.com/shop/LostintheWoodDesigns The fourth bunny, Rosey, sadly can't be pictured as it turned out pale pink didn't do much for her colouring (she's a soft grey which I imagined would be perfect but that's how much I know) so she's awaiting a hot pink shield (paint to be purchased this week from the extensive range of B&Q mini tester pots, I now have a lot of them!). My next post will continue the talk of paint and expand on my new paint rolle...

Hello, just a very brief post to say that the first seven items from the 'Abandoned Tea Party' collection are now available in my Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/LostintheWoodDesigns?ref=search_shop_redirect Please come to have a browse!

Abandoned Tea Party -mice and insects In between the bees, bunnies and felted fox heads, I've been working on my 'Abandoned Tea Party' collection. The concept is that a tea party has been laid out which has, for various reasons, been abandoned (there's a back story to this which I'm still writing & which will be used to illustrate a bigger feature during my North Wales Helfa Gelf display in September) and little creatures and insects have moved in on the food.  Mouse Tucking into Cake I've started with cakes and fruit first as I had some left over from a recent making spree and I find them the most pleasurable foods to crochet. I like to add in some needle felted details ie the strawberry & leaves, and find the mice and insects easier & more satisfying to needle felt than crochet as I have more control over the result! I'll be adding these to my Etsy shop and plan on encasing a few in bespoke box frames to give a ...

Hurrah! I've finally finished my foxy needle felted head (& named him Kasper) and am thrilled how well he's turned out. More a mask really than a complete head but certainly very foxy indeed! I was set on making a fox head as my first foray into needle felted faux taxidermy (or 'woolidermy' as I've termed my crochet & felt creations). I used a basic car sponge cut into a vaguely face shape and piled on this lovely russet coloured merino tops fleece, felting it in with the barbed needle (usually just one but a multi needle holder was used especially for the back & top of the head). I hadn't planned exactly how to do the muzzle so it's entirely made from layers & layers of fleece, slowly built up and shaped. I had tried coaxing a friendly urban fox to pose as a model but he/she was too busy (it was bin day) so had to make do with photos instead.  My absolutely favourite bit was putting in the eyes. I'd bought 2 pairs of 'fox ey...