Hello I'm back!

Wow it has been over a year since I blogged!

Oh that is terrible of me but I have a good reason and that is I have reopened my etsy store!

But this time my creativity has taken me toward the world of jewellery or specifically earrings.

Why you may ask?

Well simply put it, I wanted people to wear tsumami zaiku every day and I thought this would be a great way to do so.

I experimented on different designs to find out what was possible and when I finally felt happy, I created my first design.

Pink Blossom on silver hoops with tiny pink pearls.

The wire for the hoop is made from wire wrapped with fine silver thread which I made myself as this is not readily available in UK however it is very therapeutic.  As for the flower and the leaves, they are folded from hand dyed habutae silk. 

I liked the design very much so I made another one in blue.

Adventures in felt kanzashi - part 8

I have a soft spot for kusudama kanzashi because they appeal to my inner mathematician.

The rotational symmetry is just nice.  

So when I brought a bag of mixed felt I knew I had to make one.

However, time is never on my side and it is only now that I managed to actually make my idea become a reality.

They are so cute and soft just like the rest of my felt kanzashi.  

Adventures in felt kanzashi - Part 3

So far my adventures in felt have led me to make the following.

Now to make a flower that I always lived the look.  Iris!

I love the colour purple and something about the rotational symmetry is very pleasing to my mathematical mind.

Luckily I ordered a selection of coloured felt as making irises requires three colours, purple, yellow and green.

As normal, I cut the require amount and set about creating the iris.

Unlike the other flowers once the three large base petals are attached, the remaining petals all require a gentle touch.  This is due to the fact that each set of three is essentially balancing on each other.  However I have been making tsumami kanzashi since 2007 and this has taught me that with a steady hand and patience nothing is impossible and within no time this little blossom came into existence.

Is it not sweet!

Adventures in felt kanzashi - part 2

Now that I made a white rose and plum blossom I thought the next step would be to make something in a different colour.

So off to my local fabric store and I brought myself some baby pink felt.

Mmmmmm soft and fuzzy!

I had a busy week at work so I had to make these during the weekend but look at them.

The rose just perfect and my plum blossom got turned into a sakura or cherry blossom.

Well could not resist.  Pink fabric and flowers in my world implies sakura blossoms.

Adventures in felt kanzashi - part 1

For a while I had a thought of making kanzashi using different materials.

Obviously silk and cotton are the perfect choice but there must be other fabric that one can try.  Then it dawned on me, how about felt?  It is easy to cut and fold but it will create a lovely soft finish.

Differently need to give this a try so out comes my white stash and after cutting the require amount to play with here it is!

I had to tweak the rose design a little to accommodate the felt thickness but it has indeed create a kanzashi the has a soft look.

As I had to tweak the design, there was spare felt for me to try another flower.

A simple ume or plum blossom.

I think I will enjoy working with felt!