Tiny Christmas Hat Tutorial

I expect you are starting to think about Christmas! Well if you wanted to make some little creatures with Christmas hats here's a quick tutorial to help you. You can find my free tutorial to make the little sleeping cats like the one shown on my blog here.

Cara Jane's Free Sleeping Cat Tutorial

Of course any animal could become a Christmas animal with a little Santa hat not just cats - the owls love them!

You will need a little creature such as this cat and a small amount of red and white polymer clay

 

Roll a small ball of red clay and then roll it backwards and forwards with your finger on one end only to make a cone

Here's a nice hat cone

I like to chop the other end off so the bottom of the hat will be flat

Test the hat for size, this was a little big so I chopped a bit of clay off and rerolled it into a slightly smaller cone.

Roll a very thin log of white clay - moving your fingers out towards the end as you roll will help the log spread out and get thinner.

Wrap the white around the very bottom edge of the hat to look like a fur trim. Trim of the excess white and join the ends so you have a neat band of white around the bottom of the hat

Roll an even tinier ball of white clay to be a pom pom on the end of the hat. I poke a hole into it so that I can push the red point of the hat into it and then firm it gently in place so that it will stick to the hat but still be round.

Put the hat on your creature and bend it over if you wish - I like them like that myself but you can off course leave it sticking up. Your sleeping cat is now a lovely little Christmasy ornament. A lovely gift for a friend who likes cats!

Or add a hole and something to hang your cat (I used tiger tail and crimped it underneath the cat) and you have a unique and special  tree decoration. The head end of the cat is lighter so I make the hole slightly nearer  to the tail end rather than in the middle.

If you've got any questions please do get in touch. I love to get comments on my blogs - or emails!

If you haven't already found me on facebook I have a page there and I'd love to see you there too.
www.facebook.com/CaraJaneContemporaryJewellery

Hope all your Christmas Preparations go smoothly!

Cara

More things....

Here's some more of the things I've made for my thing a day challenge. I am really enjoying the challenge and so far have made something everyday without having to cheat. Sometimes it's a cane, sometimes it's finishing something already started and some days it's a something from start to finish.

 

If you want to see all of my Things for February so far, and another one added daily (I hope!) you can find them in this Flickr set

52 pairs of earrings a year challenge - week one for me

I was wondering what type of earrings I should make first - then it became obvious - little cats of course!
(You can find my free tutorial to make them yourself here  - I wouldn't recommend starting so small though, they are very fiddly small!)

They  are 2cm across, I had to make 3 cats as I realised after I made the second identical to the first they would look better mirroring each other.

If you like to make things why not join the challenge? They don't have to be made from polymer clay, just be earrings. It was set by Anke Humpert on flickr, to make 52 pairs of earrings a year. I am starting this week so I should play along for 52 weeks and finish this time next year. My intention is to make a pair and list them for sale in my online shop but I haven't got my shop up together yet, nearly there! I am not happy enough with these to sell them anyway. Week 2, next week the earrings will be listed for sale!!!!!

Check out the earrings made already this year in the group photo pool

What challenges have you set yourself for this year?

Cat tutorial

I am so thrilled that you are enjoying my cat tutorial and delighted with the results I am seeing! I have had a few suggestions for further improvement which I shall implement but they are fairly minor changes. I wanted to share some of the results that people have been kind enough to photograph and share, I loved seeing them! Please do let me see a photo if you've had a go.

Beautiful little cat by Pippa - love the colours and the flower she has added petal by petal!Adorable!

 

 

Love this cat by Lupe Meter ! Really love the markings on this cat and the crystal in the centre of the flower looks great!

 And another cute little cat by Lupe Meter, I hadn't thought of using other things to decorate.

 

A collection of cute cats from Kim Mack. Great photo - love the arrangement and beautiful cane on the big ones bottom! That one on the branch looks rather smug ;)

A collection of cute cats from Fiona, love the range of colours she's used. She's not sure she can pick a favourite and neither can I! 

I have a cane tutorial almost ready to share with you too, so watch this space!

My Sleeping Cat Tutorial

Here is the promised cat tutorial, I hope you enjoy it! It is also available as a PDF document which I can send to you if you email me, I am really happy to do so - just couldn't find an easy way to have it as a download online. If you use it I would be really grateful for some pictures of your cats, and as always a comment, or like here or on my facebook page really makes my day. I would also appreciate any feedback you have to help me write even better tutorials in future. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. Have fun making cute cats! Cara

** You are welcome to make cats for your own use, or to sell them. I would consider it polite if you post/sell them online that you link to this tutorial - or at least mention my name! You may share this tutorial with your friends or your group/guild but I ask that you don't teach them when you are being paid to teach without asking me first**

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Cat tutorial is in production!

You may remember these cute little fellows with flowery bottoms.

 

Well I also made plenty in random coloured stripes with odd little scraps of clay ...

and I did promise you a tutorial.

Well I have started working on the cat tutorial and the deal is I will share it with you all as a thank you for encouraging and supporting me when I get to over 100 blog followers - so if you don't already follow my blog please take a few minutes to do so by clicking on the 'join this site' button over on the left. If you are new to blogs and don't already follow any let me reassure you that it's nothing scary or sinister, or time consuming (unless you get addicted to reading blogs like me ....) - being a follower allows you to keep track of new posts on blogs you are interested in.  If you really don't want to be a follower fair enough but please be kind enough to keep my smiling by leaving a comment on my blog (any time you fancy - it's good to know your opinions on my ramblings!) or come 'like' my facebook page - you can find me there by following the link or by searching for CaraJaneContemporaryJewellery

If you already follow my blog a huge thank you to you! I really appreciate knowing that people are interested.

I hope you are enjoying the first few days of 2012. I am off to play with some of my new tools and books I got for Christmas and then sometime soon I will work on that web shop......

Christmas owls

I suddenly had a seasonal moment last night and made some Christmas hats for a couple of new owls

and a sleeping cat!

They came along with me today to Bristol's Shortest Art Trail (in 2 houses 2 doors apart). We all had a jolly time drinking mulled wine and talking to lovely local Fishponds people. One of the other artists suggested I should put hanging loops on them so they can be ornaments - so obvious, why didn't I think of that! Watch this space for Christmas owl tree ornaments! All these owls were made from scraps from my latest red and green jewellery set - I'll show you that when I have strung the necklace.