alisaburke: creating with jules: cloud pin

It’s winter over here in Australia, and where I’m living we’ve had a fair amount of cold days, cloudy skies and rain. But I don’t think this cute brooch needs to be only saved for the winter months! It rains in the summertime too, hey? I think it can be gorgeous anytime of year :)

This is a fairly quick and fun project to make; and you don’t need a lot of supplies.

You will need:

-White felt

-Beads (I used white, pearly green and bigger blue beads, but use what you have- I think different colours would look interesting)

-Firm plastic for reinforcement- such as an ice cream container lid

-Pin back

-Craft glue

You will also need:

-Beading needle, sewing needle, thread and scissors

Print out your pattern sheet at 100% size. Cut along the lines of the cloud shape that doesn’t have the rain drops. Use this to lay on your felt, trace around and cut two out.

Lay your plastic piece over one of the cloud shapes and draw a shape that is around .5cm smaller than the cloud. If your plastic is opaque cut it to size first then trim down. This leaves space so you can still sew your clouds shapes together.

Take your beading needle and your white seed beads and randomly sew them all around on the right side of one cloud. Then, Using the pattern sheet as a guide, sew on the raindrops. I reinforced with a few stitches at the top of the rain drops, threaded beads on to the length I wanted, then threaded a larger bead on. Next, you take the needle through the smaller beads again and reinforce again at the top with a few stitches. Repeat for all of the rain drops.

Take your back cloud (make sure you’re doing this on the reverse side of the back cloud) and place your pin back on so you can mark where to cut.

Snip two little cuts and push your pin through the felt.

Now, lay your front cloud face down, and pop some craft glue on where you will stick your plastic down. Place some more glue on top of the plastic, and place the back cloud on top of the plastic. Make sure there’s sufficient glue underneath where the pin back sits for strength.

Now, you take a needle and thread and stitch all around the outside to finish your brooch off. Fold your raindrops to one side when you reach sewing up the bottom of the cloud.