Karate Pisces aka Fish of Fury

While wandering through Barnes & Noble came across a felt zodiac book, Zodiac Felties.  It had some really cute ideas so today I did the pisces one.  My friends who were shopping with me that day happen to be pisces and are some of my karate buds.  So I decided to make some "Fish of Fury"

As with all projects the first thing you do is move the cat out of the work space.  I copied the fish page and cut out my patterns in black and white instead of the recommended liliac and tangerine.  My fish are fighting, not fruity.  Originally I was going to use some leaf sequins that I had on hand but that didn't look to good so I went with black netting.
Mine don't look quite as good as the illustration but they are a nice group of fighting fish, fishermen beware.  I would recommend if you have the paperbck version to blow up the pattern a bit, these ended up a bit small.
Overall a cute book with a nice take on the zodiacs. 

Blessing Dolls

Recently a friend of mine and her partner had a bouncing baby boy.  She asked that I do a blessing for them so I decided to create some blessing dolls.  1st you have to have a pattern.  I picked a Russian doll type pattern for felt I found on line at Dragon & Phoenix.  This is a site about a Mom with twins and she made hers into a tooth fairy pillow so this pattern fits many uses.

Print the parts of the pattern you like and expand/contract to the sizes you need.  Using the pattern cut out the felt.  I had some leftover felt from when I made my owlements.  My friend is a big Alabama fan so her doll is in red and white.  I cut the faces and the holes in the hair wrap the same size with my cuttlebug, next time I will cut the face part larger so it sits better behind the hair portion.

For the blessing packet that goes in each doll I gathered herbs relevant to what I wished for each person.  Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs was my resource.  I pulled a rune thinking of each person and re-created that rune with felt.  I then surfed the wonderful Internet for blessing poems, I can't write poetry so I had to go surfing.  Printed each poem real smalled and rolled them into little scrolls. The blessing items were placed in scrap of silk and sewn into a pouch.

I then added the decorations to the dolls with fabric paint and iron on flowers.  My sewing skills aren't all that great but you can add embroidered embellishments if you are more accomplished in that area.  You can also sew runes or other symbols on the dolls if you so desire.

Once they are ready sew the backs on, stuff with fiberfill, add the blessing pouch while praying to your deity.  And they are now ready to be gifted.  One happy littly doll family.

Children's Five Fold Kiss

Blessed be your eyes, that you may see clearly.
Blessed be your ears, that you may hear with compassion.
Blessed be your lips, that you might speak the truth.
Blessed be your hands, that you might help others.
And Blessed be your feet that you might

walk the path of Beauty and Spirit all the days of your life