Tutorial! Your Friendly Neighborhood Skully Necklace...

July is birthday month in my family.

My Grandma, Dad, Cousin, both my sisters and I are allllll born this month.
And just to spice things up, my parents unconsciously decided to have my sisters and I all within a day of each other.

So what better way to get out of a mid-summer craft funk than with lots of impending birthday parties? (No better way obviously.)

My littlest sister is super-cool and original, (in those early teen years, that's a feat!) has gauged ears (ALREADY!) and wants to be a tattoo artist (a profession my mother actually endorses).

All in all, she's a pretty hep cat.

So I decided to make something that would fit her personality.



A friendly family of felt skulls she can wear around her neck!!

This is a super easy project and the technique could be used to make a felt necklace out of any design IN THE WORLD you can draw, photocopy or find clip art of! ANYTHING!!!!

(Ok now, don't get too excited)



Materials:

Felt!
Freezer paper  (Like wax paper but with wax on only one side. Check you grocery store.)
Iron
Drawing utensil (I like pencils. I find them to be a classic.)
Exacto knife + cutting mat
Scissors
Fabric paint (regular paint might actually work too. I'll explain later...)
Something pointy (embroidery needle, push pin, etc...)
Necklace chain + jump rings / or a nice fancy ribbon

Step 1:



Draw your design on the back (the not shiny/not waxy side) of the freezer paper. Keep it simple because you'll have to cut out all the little details.
Also, keep things (like the skull heads) connected, unless you plan on doing something crazy and connecting the peices with jump rings or something (you're on your own with that).

Step 2:



A. Cut out your design! The spaces you cut out is where the paint will go, so plan your designs and cut accordingly!

B. Lay the design on your felt (put all the little center pieces like my skull eyes in place too) and press your iron over them until
they stick to the felt.
Don't set the iron on the felt for too long, you might melt it!

Step 3:


Once all the corners are stuck nicely, PAINT! Make sure you cover all the exposed felt.
Once it is dry you can apply a second coat (I got too lazy though).
I haven't tried it, but acrylic paint (as opposed to fabric paint) might work well too. Felt soaks up a lot of whatever you put on it, so something that gets good coverage is best.

Step 4:



PEEL THE PAPER OFF!
This is the most fun part. (Make sure the paint is dry though!)

Step 5:



Cut off any excess felt.

Step 6:



Use your pointy object to open up two holes on equal sides of your felt piece. I folded mine in half to make sure it was even.

At this point you can either string a ribbon or some embroidery thread through the holes and be done with it OR attach it to a jewelry chain by poking a jump ring through each hole:



Yay, jump ring action shot!

And then attaching the rings to your chain!



TADAA!!

Here is my sis modeling it with style (and a PF Changs for birthday dinner):



SO PURTY!

And this freezer paper techinique is good for ALLL kinds of things like putting your designs on tshirts... pillows... wall hangings... go crazy!

GO CRAZY!

Ok, not that crazy.