Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

This week a dice tray caught my attention on Thingiverse. This project also had the benefit of bringing together 3D printing with regular crafting, which is right in my wheel house. I printed this project using the instructions on the post on Thingiverse: .2 resolution, 15% infil. Other than that--the print had no special instructions. As long as your bed is level, this is a simple print. It's printed using black PLA filament and the entire print took about 8 hours. It was dark when it finished printing, but it turned out perfectly. You may have to let this one cool on the bed for a bit before prying it up since it has such a large flat area--mine was fairly well stuck on there. Next up, the crafty bit. I dug through my craft stash to find some felt and I opted to use a rotary cutter to cut it nice and straight. The original post has the exact dimensions listed for the felt, so I used their dimensions and cut the pieces out with a rotary cutter . For the side pieces, I used the...

It's been so cold here this November. This weekend we had a warm snap and we put the Christmas lights up on the house for fear it would be freezing from here on out. We usually wait until after Thanksgiving, but we weren't alone. Several of our neighbors put up lights too. So it's officially beginning to look a lot like Christmas out there. So I knew I wanted to do another holiday craft this week.    Since I needed to drag my tiny sewing machine out to fix dear husband's Tae Kwon Do uniform, I figured I'd sew up some felt ornaments that I had cut out and waiting to be sewn. I actually cut these out years ago. I finished one of them to give as a gift and the other two just sat waiting to be completed. These felt cut-outs are in the shape of Meeples , which are popular game tokens for strategy games (especially Carcassonne ). I found a meeple outline online and adjusted the size of it in Word, then I printed it out on paper and cut around it. I used the p...

I've been on a bit of a felt flower kick lately. They are super easy and inexpensive, so it's hard to say no to making more.  This wreath was originally inspired by a wreath I saw on Pinterest that took a dollar store wreath and spray painted it.  So that's where I started, with one dollar store wreath and some spray paint. After I successfully painted the wreath orange, I opted for making some orange and black felt flowers since the orange would be lost on the background of the wreath and the black would be so dark that you wouldn't be able to see the details.  Cut two circles of felt the same size and stack the strips up as you roll them up. (For more pictures of this process, see my first felt flower project )  The flower below started with two circles about 4 inches in diameter. Once the felt has been rolled up, glue it all together on the bottom with some hot glue or fabric glue. I liked the orange and black flowers so much that I ...

In honor of another college football season, I decided to make a little wreath to hang on my door for the Iowa State Cyclones.   I started with a small wreath from Dollar Tree, Red "I," "S," and "U" letters (from the Christmas craft section at Michael's for 79 cents each after coupon), a red wire garland (65 cents at Michael's after coupon) and two sheets of felt (16 cents each at Michael's after coupon) in school colors. To make the cute felt flowers, I started by making simple roses in cardinal and gold using the instructions from my yarn wreath tutorial . Next I made two different pom-pom inspired flowers. The first with the loops is created by cutting two pieces of felt about 1 1/2 inches wide (I did not measure). I wanted to make a fairly small flower since this is a small wreath--so I cut it the short width of the felt square (9 inches).   Next, fold the strips of felt in half and cut slits every quarter of an inch or so...

I wanted to make something to hang on the door after Easter and I have seen lots of yarn wreaths and tutorials for making felt flowers floating around the internet, so I thought I'd give one of those a try. I picked up a foam wreath form fro m the dollar store and gathered up my felt squares and got to work. You'll need the following: a wreath form (I used a foam one, but I've seem these done on straw and wire forms as well) yarn of your choosing (mine is Vanna's Choice --yeah Vanna White has yarn--in Seaspray Mist) straight pins a few squares of different colored felt fabric glue scissors ribbon for hanging Start out by tying your yarn to your wreath form. I also pinned it to the foam form so that it wouldn't slip as I wound the yarn around the form. Just keep winding and pushing it tight to completely cover the wreath. This was by far the most time consuming part of the whole wreath project. Not difficult at al...