Bunny Pattern and Needle Felting Kit Giveaway!

If you've been reading for a while you might remember that for the past few years now I've been making these cute knit/felted bunnies for Easter.

This year I'm going to be making a bunny for my nephew and a few others for some special people.

Want to make a bunny too?

Well your in luck because the fabulous people at Fiber Trends have generously supplied Five felted Bunny Fun patterns for my giveaway!

I really love this pattern, it's great for a beginner (it was actually the first stuffed toy I ever made AND one of my first felted items) but years after those first bunnies I'm still so enchanted with the pattern that I use it ever year.

Last year I bought their needle felting starter kit and tried doing some needle felted features on a few bunnies.

It turned out even better than I expected so this year I'm going to experiment some more and try adding needle felted patterns onto some rabbits.

So... One super lucky reader will be getting a needle felting kit in addition to the bunny pattern, courtesy of Fiber Trends!

To Enter: All you have to do is visit the Fiber Trends website then come back and leave me a comment telling me something else you liked on their site. (I loved their felted birdhouses!)

• I'll randomly draw 4 winners who'll each get the Bunny Fun felted rabbit pattern
• And 1 grand prize winner who'll receive the pattern AND a needle felting starter kit!

This giveaway is open to readers worldwide and ends Sunday April 3rd at 11:59 pm EST. I'll randomly select the winners and post them on Monday April 4th.

Good Luck!

This Giveaway is now closed. Thanks to all who entered. The winners can be found here.

Pysanky Style Gourds

In a few weeks I'll be taking a pysanky (Ukrainian dyed eggs) workshop for a third year in a row. And hopefully this year I can avoid the disaster that befell last year's egg!

But in the mean time I've been having tons of fun making these pysanky style gourds.

I got the inspiration from Pam's post at Gingerbread Snowflakes about decorating gourds using markers and colored pencils. It was a fantastic idea- that literally had me running down to the studio in the middle of the night to get my gourds and markers! (You should really check out the beautiful ornaments she made in her post!)

At first I did some flowered designs but soon realized that this idea could be used to make Pysanky-like patterns all over a gourd instead of on the traditionally used egg.

This is the first one I made. It was left natural and colored with markers.

On these two, I got brave and not only made more intricate designs but also painted the gourds white with acrylic paint before I started.

All of them were sprayed with sealer after they were finished.

• If you'd like to try making your own gourds (or eggs for that matter) you can find free pysanky patterns here.

• You can see more about the traditional process of making pysanky eggs here and here in my previous posts.

• And this is a great place to buy materials for making the eggs.