Happy Christmas everyone!  At the moment you are probably up to your eyes getting ready for the days of festivities which lie ahead.  So, I will give you a few options here.  Here is a slideshow of my blog which you can go through in a few minutes if you are stuck for time.  Alternatively you can read my narrative or if you have a while to spare why not grab a cuppa, pull up a chair, watch the slideshow and read the narrative!

 

I was so delighted when I drew Karen in the Christmas card exchange this year.  I was also a bit daunted as I have been going through a bit of a dry patch creatively over the past number of months.  I knew I wanted to do something that ‘stood out’ (in other words 3D) but this can be a bit of a challenge when it comes to postal systems.

While searching through one of my fibre presses I came across a deep small box that I had used to transfer a porcelain bowl home from my holiday in NZ earlier in the year.  We won’t even talk about how my weird creative mind works but seeing the box instantly brought to mind bells so, decision made, I got to work on them.

First I made my resist.  I intended making two bells.  I covered the resist in an orange viscose fibre and then laid two layers of red merino on top. I added a hanging loop to each bell and some silk paper to each bell which I later pulled off as I didn’t like it.   Once prefelted I cut through the resist to make two shapes and then started working on shrinking and shaping.  Next, I searched for a suitable bell shape which I could use for the next stage.  That’s where the beeswax came in! The lid is shaped like an old fashioned beehive which is an ideal shape to work with.  Lots of rubbing and shaping ensued (and I will admit a bit of cutting as the shapes were too long), until I ended up with bell shapes I was happy with.  Then I rolled the bases so that the orange showed on the outside.

I decided I wanted a simple embroidered design on each bell.  I drew my tiny design on water soluble paper and added my stitches and a few beads to each bell.  Then I dissolved the paper and reshaped the bell on the top of my little beehive!  Once dry, I got to work on the ‘rope’ and the bell.  My little jingle bells were silver and I had been searching, to no avail for gold ones which I thought would look better.  Then I thought of using some nail varnish on the outside of the bells.  Worked a treat!  I then took some cotton embroidery thread and made the ‘rope’ which I attached to the body of the bell and to the inside of the little ‘jingle’.  Then I threaded ribbon through the loop at the top of each bell so that Karen could hang them up.  They fitted nicely into the box but I felt there was something missing.  So I added a few little squares of Nepalese paper which I thought Karen might like to experiment with.  Some of these are quite a lot heavier than the usual ones which are used in felting but I have managed to felt them into pieces.  I thought she might have fun trying them out.

Next to the card.  My cards were the same size as the box so I thought it might be fun to attach it to the box when it was ready.  I opted for a monochrome effect to start with; I prefelted a tree which was made from black merino and margillan silk.  Then I laid the tree onto a white merino background and felted the lot together.  Once fulled, I cut it to size.  Then it was decorating time which I did on my sewing machine using free motion embroidery.  I added some beads too.

Time to address the card!  I stippled the outside of the card with a stencil brush using red and then gold paint.  Then I decided to do the same on the inside but got too creative and used masking tape so I could control the area where I was adding the colour.  Once happy, I went to remove the masking tape.  Disaster! It took away a goodly portion of the card too.  I was not a happy bunny!  On to the second attempt with the card (without masking tape this time), I was more successful.  All done and ready for the post.

Karen has received her card today and I got mine from her yesterday.  I love my card.  Karen has gone to such detail with it I am going to treasure it. Like Lindsay’s card from a previous swap, it will be putting in an annual appearance at Christmas time.

I love the concept of the card swap.  It keeps my felting friends close in my heart, especially at this time of year. Thank you to Ann who organised it and us.

Wishing everyone a merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and peaceful 2025!

Helene