Craft Tutorial: Felt TARDIS ornament

I recently discovered Doctor Who and have become a huge fan of the show.  One of the coolest things about becoming a fan of Doctor Who is discovering how many of your friends are already fans of the show!  I had no idea I was missing out on all this magic.  When my friend Claire (who also occasionally writes for this blog!) sent me some super cool Doctor Who goodies from the UK for Christmas, I decided to return the favour with a handcrafted Valentine's Day present.  

Here's how you can make your own TARDIS ornament:

Supplies:
- 1 sheet of royal blue felt
- 1 sheet (or just scraps) of white felt
- 1 sheet (or just scraps) of black felt
- royal blue embroidery floss
- white embroidery floss
- sharp scissors
- glitter glue in black or navy (optional)
- pretty ribbon for hanging (I used sparkly black ricrac)

1. Freehand (or google) an outline of a TARDIS (here's one) and draw it on some white paper.  Cut out two identical shapes from your blue felt (for the front and back of the ornament)

 2. Take one piece and cut out the boxes.  (You'll want one piece with holes cut out, and one piece solid - they will eventually be sewn together).

Cut out scraps of white felt to fit behind the top three windows.

Behind the top three boxes, sew in your white felt using blue embroidery floss.

At this stage, I actually decided to stitch around all the bottom windows as a decorative element.  This step is optional, but I think it looks kind of nice.  :)

Cut out a small piece of white felt as the light at the top of the TARDIS.  Stitch it down with blue embroidery floss.

3.  This is probably the most challenging part.  Cut out a small rectangle of black felt.  Using 1-2 pieces of white embroidery floss, stitch the words "Police Box" - If you're not really an embroiderer (like me) this can be kind of frustrating.  Don't give up.  The crooked letters are totally part of the charm! haha.

Once you've got the letters stitched onto the black felt, use your blue embroidery floss to stitch the entire black rectangle onto the top of the TARDIS.

4.   At this point, you should have something that resembles the photo on the right.  Two TARDIS boxes.  One has the windows cut out and embroidered with the Police Box and light up top.
The other is just a plain blue outline.

Take your blue embroidery floss, and stitch around the sides of both boxes to sew them together.  When you get to the top of the box, stitch in a ribbon to act as a holder.  To make it extra secure, make sure your embroidery floss goes through the back, the ribbon, and the front of the TARDIS.

5.  At the very end, I used glitter glue to add crossbars to the window, and some squiggly lines as script in the third window.
(If you prefer, you could always do this with some black embroidery floss... but I was pretty tired of sewing!)

This is a closeup of some of the details.

Finally, I packed it up with one of my Valentine's Day Doctor Who printable cards and a TARDIS bracelet that I found at Hot Topic.

What do you think?  Easy right?  ;)
Questions? Comments?

If you try this project, link up your pictures or blog posts in the comments below so I can feature them!

Crafty Gift Idea: Cupcake Ornament

Christmas is long-gone, but here's an idea for next year! (I couldn't post this earlier, because I didn't want the people who were getting this gift to see!)  It's a simple gift for a baker, or a crafter... or just someone who likes a little sparkle on their tree - a cupcake ornament!

There are a few different tutorials for this on the web, but this is how I did it.  It's really simple and quick - the most time consuming part is waiting for the glue to dry!

Materials:
- 1 cupcake liner (mine is from Ikea, because they tend to have really cute ones there)
- 1 styrofoam ball
- 1 small plastic red ornament
- glitter
- white glue
- hot glue gun (optional)

Directions:
1.  Carve an indentation, the size of the small ornament into the top of the styrofoam ball.  Use either white glue or a hot glue gun to add glue to the indentation, and press the red ornament into it, on a slight angle.  (I just used white glue - if you use the hot glue, make sure you work quickly, as it will dry fast)

2. Spread white glue over the bottom half of your styrofoam ball, and slide it into the cupcake liner.  Try not to press too hard on the liner, because you don't want all the natural creases to go away.  Let the glue dry overnight.

3. The next morning after it's all dry, add your first layer of sparkles.  Do this by spreading glue all over the top of the ornament, and sprinkling glitter all over.  Make sure you add some right around the seam of where the red ornament is.  Repeat 3 times, waiting for the glue to dry in between.  On the third time, you can be a little more creative, adding droops or swirls, like cupcake frosting would have.  You can even use a different colour of glitter.  The only thing limiting you is your own imagination!


Then, you're pretty much done!  Find a nice box to present it in... and give to the cupcake lover in your life!