This and that and the other

This, is a wonderful mini reef embroidered paperweight from Paula at The Beauty of Life.  She sent it to me as a Pay it Forward gift.  I will decide soon how best to pay it forward.  In the meantime, if you want to make an undersea garden of your own, check out Paula Embroidered Paperweights post.





That, is another needlefelted creation.  I forgot to include this in the last post.  DD the elder made it for their riding instructor.  It is made to look like the filly we saw born last spring.

Finally, the other is another altered tin, this time for the president's challenge for my EGA chapter. I'm not done with this, but it will be the top.  I've based the tin on a quote from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.  "I know a bank where the wild thyme grows...
The top has thyme and oxlips.
Inside, are violet and woodbine (aka honeysuckle).  I will finish this as a cushion.

And the cushion will support a rose/eglantine pin in a posy holder.  I tried a new technique with the rose.  There are 10 petals and I didn't want 10 or 20 wires, so I worked around all 5 petals in each whorl at one time, leaving me with only 4 wires.  This had the added advantage of making it easy to embroider and bead the center of the rose.
DD the younger is still writing up her science fair project, but I think I can safely say it is not a good idea to dye anything with koolaid unless you won't be washing it.  I'll post more later.

Needle Felting Dogs

As promised, here is some artwork from my daughter.  DD the elder has been slowly refining her skills at needle felting and we finally got her some glass eyes so she can really get creative with felted animals.  This is our dog, made with real hair from the dog.

What was especially nice about this, aside from it being a wonderful tribute to our dog Candy who died back in November, is that even though I knew she had made the dog, the girls kept the whole gift a secret.  DD the younger sewed up the dog bed, and DD the elder used micron pens to add the pawprints, just like the real bed.  DD the elder made the book they used as a photo album at school, but said she had to leave it there so I never knew what it looked like.  They printed the  photos and card while DH and I were at a Christmas party, after asking for dog photos on the pretense of needing a couple for a school project. You can see the complete gift below.  I purchased the leather dog collar that holds the album closed but DD the elder said it was for an art project. My SIL took them out to get the engraved dog tag though, so I didn't have the wool pulled over my eyes on that one.
DD the elder also made a felted basset hound for my SIL.  This one is wearing a t-shirt that says 'bad to the bone' because the real dog loves wearing dog clothes and she is rather bad.