Needle felt a Cupcake Pin cushion!

I wanted to share something with you from my first book!  This was published a few years ago, so you might have seen it before, but if not I've just put together a quick version of this project for you.  You can see more of this one and others in the book which is still available to order in your local store or on Amazon.

Here's what you'll need! 

Foam to work on                    Core fibre                 Muffin coloured fibres

Felting Needles (sml & lge)   Felt sheets                Scissors and Ribbon

Taking your core fibre, wind it firmly around something, a pencil, chopstick, skewer or your finger!  The more firmly it's wrapped the less felting you need to do overall.  So get it as firm as you can, and needle it as you go if that helps as it can slip about as it gets bigger.

I like felting larger pieces like this one with a multi tool.  You can either buy them or make your own.  Let me know if you would like instructions on how to make yours but you can either use an oven bake clay, or just rubber band them together.  3 is usually a good number.

As you're felting try and created a rounded top and a flat bottom.  I find it helpful the press the flat part on my table top and then quickly felt over the surface fairly deeply.  Do this a few times and it should help you get a nice flat side.  As it starts to firm up you can change to your single needles but still use a large grade needle at this stage.

Here you can see me shaping the top, the bottom looks quite firm and flat now!

Time to start the colouring our muffin!  So I've mixed the fibre I want to use for the cake colour, this is where you will decide if it's chocolate, vanilla or red velvet!  Of course you can make it any colour at all and if you were my kids it would be green or purple!

Mix it well.

Here you can see me felting it with my multi tool again but you can use single needles at any time if that's what you have.

For this stage, make sure it's a large enough piece to cover the top of your cupcake and felt the surface, then flip and felt the other side.  

Do this a couple of times before applying to your cake.

Here you can see my applying the colour to the top of the cake.  

Start in the centre and work your way out to the sides.  This way you can make sure that it is going to go far enough down the sides and add small patches of fibre if there are gaps etc.

Here you can see I have finished covering the top and bottom.  I didn't bother with the middle as the next step will cover it!  

You could get away with not doing the bottom too if you were actually more lazy than me, but I'm sure you're too fussy for that!

:)

Next you will take your sheet of felt and measure around the cupcake marking in how wide you will need this strip (so making a mark where the bottom of the cake is) and then taking the felt all the way around plus an extra inch or so over overlap, and mark that too.  Overlap is needed as the strip will get shorter as you work around the base.

You can then cut your strip out using those markings.

Here I'm showing you where you will mark the bottom of the strip or if you are lazy like me you might just cut all the way around while you hold it in place.

You can see a little snip on the top edge which is where I marked the length.

If you want to be more precise you can always make this in paper first and use it as a template.

Next you will attach one end of the felt sheet to the cupcake.

Make sure you have lined this up with the bottom of the cake so that it finishes right at the edge.

Loosely holding the strip in place you will then make straight lines by going back and forth along the same line to create these little indents.

Do not hold the strip too tightly against the side of the cake or it will sit on the surface and not make a nice indent.

Do this all the way around until you reach the end.

You should have something that looks like this by this stage.

Time for the icing!

Taking the fibre for your icing you will mix it and then felt it as you did for the previous covering.  But this time go a little smaller so that your icing doesn't completely cover the top.

Once you have felted this a few times over you can work around the edge to create a nice, blobby looking shape to represent your icing.

Check out the finished picture of my cupcake to give you an idea of shaping.

You can see I've left some of the cake visible under the icing, no point covering it all up!  Work along the edge to define the shape and to make it look a bit more 3d.

Here you can see how I shaped my topping, the icing dribbles a bit down the side.  

You can exaggerate this more if you like and have the icing dribble right down onto the felted strip.

Now for that drizzle of toffee on the top.

There are many ways you can decorate the top of your cake and this is just one but I thought it looked pretty good.

Taking a small amount of fibre pull it out into a fine strip and then twist it to make it almost like yarn.

Here you can see I have laid it out in the pattern that I want to make.

I then start at one end and start felting.

Working along the fibre you can go back and forth till it's well attached. 

Felt along the edges with your needle angled toward the loose fibre as you work along the sides of this final layer.

And it's all done!  

I've just added a bow around the 'paper' casing and the pins in the top have little pearl beads on them which looks great on any style cupcake.

I hope you enjoy making this pincushion, have a go a some different styles.

You will find inspiration when you search online for cupcakes too I'm sure!

God bless and Happy Felting!

Liza Adams

How to Needle Felt a Brooch or Pin, for beginners!

 

Felted Heart Brooch

Welcome to my first free tutorial!  In this short lesson I will assume you have some knowledge of needle felting and already possess the basic supplies.  If you have any questions regarding what you need or want more tips do feel free to contact me on my facebook page Visit me here!

To create this brooch you will need:

💜 Felting needles in Large and small sizes

💜 Fibre in 2 colours (Merino or similar works best)

💜 Foam or similar surface to work on

💜 Small safety pin or Brooch pin

Taking a small amount of fibre, perhaps enough to fit into your fist when closed, mix well and then lightly roll into a loose ball.  Begin felting this on your foam surface with your large needle.  Keep poking and turning as you go until it begins to hold together.

This is a good way to start a very sculpted project, because the fibres are a little firmer and already beginning to hold a shape, we can then sculpt it as we wish.

For these instructions I am working on making an oval but you could make any shape you like.  Here I'm using a multi tool that holds up to 4 needles but you can do this just as well with a single needle, it just takes longer.

Begin to flatten this ‘ball’ out by felting on one side, then flipping over and felting the other side.  

To make a nice edge on your brooch, hold it between your fingers and felt around the sides, needle going directly into the middle and between your fingers.  

This can be a bit scary as you are likely to feel the needle or even get poked but working around the edge this way you can create any shape and get a nice even finish.

Keep felting until you are happy with the shape, size and surface.

For this brooch I’ve just done a simple heart.  I used two colours of merino fibre and hand mixed them together to get the blend I wanted.  This is really useful if you don’t have a lot of fibre, or if you need a specific colour for a project. 

Just mix and rub between your fingers to get them nicely blended.  Then felt into a soft ball so we can begin to sculpt the shape.

To make the heart shape I have pinched the fibre between my fingers and felted along to make a side, then turned over and made another side creating the bottom point of the heart.

To make the top just work the needle down into the fibre exactly where you want the top of the heart to be, use the finest needle and just felt softly to coax it into shape.

Check the fit and then you can begin felting your decoration onto the brooch, remember to start in the middle working outward

 Then work along the edges to form nice, defined lines and make your work stand out.

Keep sculpting all over with your fine needle, not poking too deeply as in this smaller piece it will cause dents or holes that are hard to make disappear.

You can see that for the heart I had to work down into the crease at the top of the heart to keep that nice shape and make sure it didn’t stop looking like heart.

How are you doing?  Looking the way you imagined?  Don't despair if it's not, every piece I make turns out different from the last, it's all learning and you're still having fun.  I do find that often people will love something I made that I'm not happy with, we all have different tastes and abilities!

 

To finish we will just sew on the brooch back or safety pin.  This is easily done as you normally would and you can use knots for this as they won’t be seen on the back.

Just make sure you don’t take your thread through to the front and that your pin is hidden and sewn on securely.

I hope you really enjoyed making this first project with me.  I hope to post more over the next few months so do pop back to see what's new.  Don't forget to find me on facebook especially if you want to ask any questions!