Fox Bead Brooch

Is this background bright enough for you?
 I love the woodland theme that comes out in Autumn and a bit of costume jewellery to pretty up my winter wardrobe.  A weekend project before the madness of my Christmas preparation begins!
[P.S - nightmare to photograph]

I have been planning to make a bit of costume jewellery for the Autumn/Winter and I am a big fan of the woodland themes that are in all the shops at the moment.  In particular, the fox and stag embellishments.  I decided to start small and design and make a brooch, however; this project can be scaled to create large embellishments for clothes and accessories as well as jewellery and the design changed to suit your taste, but still following the same project steps.

What I Used:

Beads

Felt/Fabric

Brooch Bar

Thin Needle/Thread/Scissors

Paper/Template

Glue

Over time I have managed to hoard myself a nice collection of beads/sequins and embellishments and for this project used brown, white and brass coloured beads.  They are quite cheap to pick up and a pack which will contain over 100 beads can be 99p, in any craft store and supermarkets.

I decided on a fox head as my design, but you could choose any shape or design that suits your taste.

I also chose to free-hand draw my template on to paper, however; you could find a photo, picture or drawing online and print to use as your template, or even in a magazine.  You just need it to be to at the size you are after.  The more simple to detail, the better, as it will be easier to follow.  

Cut out your design.

I used a piece of scrap felt to base my design on.  I find felt sturdy and of a thickness that makes it easy to work with and give some structure.  I chose an orange as a good base colour for my fox head.  Very lightly glue your template to the fabric [I lightly fixed the edges] to hold it in place. 

Using the template as your guide, begin to fill in the main features with your beads.  Secure them tightly with your stitches and if you want the beads to remain flat, ensure that you thread and stitch them in place with enough stitches to keep them flat.  As my design is simple, I only fixed the beads for the eyes and nose in place before moving on to removing the template, however; if you want to continue to use the template, skip this next step until you start filling the template with your final colour.

Cut around your template and carefully begin to peel the paper template away from the fabric.  Once you reach an area that you have beaded, rip the paper and carefully remove.  If needed, tweezers can help remove any bits of paper that are hard to reach:

You will now be left with a fairly simple-looking base of your design!  

You can now begin building any detail - I kept my template on hand to act as a guide of the design and went a colour at a time, starting with the white fur detail around the eyes, ears and cheeks.  I also used small tube beads for this detail, threading each bead individually, and then securing by taking a stitch through all the beads to secure them and keep in place:

Next, I added dark brown bead detail and the design started to take shape:

Leaving for the final colour to be added.  I was much less structured in my approach to filling the rest of the design and chose a brass colour, rather than orange or red to keep the design muted and more in keeping with something that I would wear.  Once completed, my fox looked something like this: 

You could finish your embellishment here and either glue or stitch it to clothing or accessories, however; if you want to add a clip to the back, you can turn your embellishment in to a brooch/badge. 

I used a brooch bar, however; a safety pin would also work.

Cut a piece of fabric slightly smaller than the design to attach the brooch bar to and secure with tight stitches, either side of the bar.

With a generous amount of glue [either fabric or craft glue], fix the fabric to the back of the brooch:

 Once dry, your brooch is ready to be used!

This design could also be easily modified to be other woodland animals such as a badger or racoon, but using the simple techniques, you could apply this to make any shape/design you wanted - roses are next on my list for the Spring.  If you have a go - let me know [thethingsshemakes@yahoo.co.uk] Enjoy!

Thanks so much for popping by the blog this week - I cant wait to get started on some of my Christmas projects this weekend and share them next week - have a great weekend! x

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