Now that you’ve started using your newly acquired needle felting skills, you could try putting them to use to make a creation for Halloween! I spotted this “How to Make a Halloween Felted Skull” project recently and wanted to share it with you as it’s needle felting with a difference. This project is ideal for beginners but does give you a rather specialist outcome at the end. A great way to get kids crafting and interested in learning needle felting all in one fell swoop!
You Will Need
- Polystyrene skull
- Clover pen style needle felting tool for three needles
- Pack of fine clover felting needles
- Needle felting pad
- 2 x white roving
- 1 black roving
- 1 bright pink roving
- 1 turquoise roving
- Ball of black wool yarn (not acrylic, tapestry wool would work fine)
- Ball of bright green wool yarn (not acrylic, tapestry wool would work fine)
- Project Templates (pdf)
– right click on the link and choose “Save Link As” to download the template to your computer – it downloads direct from the Hobbycraft website.
How to Make
Pull off tufts of the white wool roving and lay them over the polystyrene skull. Use the pink Clover tool to stab the wool so that it adheres to the polystyrene base. You’ll need to use enough wool to cover the whole skull hiding the polystyrene underneath. Ensure there are no loose bits of wool as this will create a solid base for the rest of your wonderful creation.
Needle Felting the Eyes and Nose
Lay a small amount of bright pink roving over the eye socket, use your finger to push the centre of the wool to the back of the socket and fold in the edges and use the pink tool to stab into position.
Work all the way round the inside of the socket. Add some semi-circles (from sheet of templates) to add the petal shapes to the outside of the sockets.
Take one end of the black yarn and one single felting needle. Outline the flower eyes. Only cut the yarn when you have outlined the eyes and got back to your start point. Use the pink Clover tool to stab over the whole surface of the eyes to ensure it’s well and truly secured.
Use the black yarn to outline the shape of the nose, so that it looks like an elongated upside down heart.
Pull off a small tuft of black roving, lay it over the outline of the nose and stab it into place, folding it back on itself where necessary.
I decided at this stage to create some black centres to my pink flower eyes with the black wool roving, in order to give them a bit more depth.
Needle Felting the Teeth
Draw a line with your yarn through the centre of the teeth, using the single felting needle to tack it into place.
Starting from the corner of the mouth use the yarn to draw ten semi-circles, keeping them approximately the same width but getting slightly longer as you reach the two front teeth. The bottom teeth are easier because you’ll already have the shape and width of the top row to use as a guide.
Making a Sheet of Pre-Felt
Make a sheet of pre-felt for cutting out shapes to add as decoration to your skull. Lay out some wool roving across your needle-felting pad (in one direction and not too thick), layer more roving across the top at 90 degrees. Ensure there are no visible gaps and stab it all over with the Clover tool. Every now and then carefully peel the pre-felt from the pad, turn it over and continue stabbing from the other side. Hold it up to the light and if you see any thin patches just add more roving. Eventually you will have created a sheet that is strong and which you can cut shapes from.
Make a sheet of pink and a sheet of turquoise for the following steps.
Decorative Flowers and Petals
Use the pink pre-felt to cut out the large flower shape and four teardrop shapes (see templates) Use the turquoise pre-felt to cut six tear-drop shapes.
Place the large flower over the centre-top of the skull and use the Clover tool to stab it in place securely. Outline it with the green yarn and bundle up a little of the turquoise roving and stab into the centre of the flower.
Arrange and stab the tear-drops into a symmetrical pattern. Outline them with the green yarn and add a few spirals! Be as creative as you like – the brighter and more colourful the better!
Original article can be found here.
