In April of 2016 I took pictures of my kids against the strong light of a window to get an image of their silhouettes. I then digitized the outlines and used my Cricut cutter to cut colored cardstock. My favorite result was where I layered the two cut outs on some beautiful hand marbled paper my sister gave me.
I really admire the people with the skills to cut out silhouettes free hand. I leaned heavily on technology for this setup.
In my stash I have some nice thin goat skin leather. Unfortunately, it was wrinkled and was starting to feel a little dry.
I used a generous application of Weiman’s leather conditioner to ease the wrinkles and return the suppleness.
Other leather conditioners, such as mink oil, would have also worked to add oils back into the leather.
A white cat with gray stripes was next in the order of cats on the Bucilla felt kit for the house cat wreath. Hm. I grabbed a piece of darker gray felt from my stash and substituted parts of the white felt in the instructions to make a gray tabby with white face, chest, and feet.
I used the stamped white felt as templates to cut the gray felt, and appliquéd one on the other. I also changed the eye color to gold, and used up all the silver sequins so the back leg and tail tip have white instead.
You may recognize the model. Thor the gray tabby was the inspiration for the cat color. It amuses me that the felt cat is wearing a bright red collar bow, the real cat removes any collar placed on him by biting through the buckle.
Cat number three is complete on the Bucilla felt wreath kit.
I changed a couple small things on the brown cat, giving it three stripes of sequins on the forehead to break up the space, and making the eyes green rather than the pattern indicated white.
Two more cats to go, and I am feeling particularly rebellious.
In March of 2016 I crocheted and embroidered a Roman military helmet with face guard for my sister, who teaches ancient history.
I did not record my sources, so am not sure what specific style I was emulating, if any. It did amuse me greatly to make it.
Critters and Craft 