Perfect Craft Parties for Creative Kids in South Yorkshire

Cute Owl - dry fibres BEFORE wetting and felting 

 AFTER the wet-felting process

Every year mums (and dads and carers too) want to do their best to make their children’s birthday celebration memorable and extra special. 

It is quite a challenge but if your son or daughter likes making things and being creative then a good start would be to Google, ‘Kids creative birthday party entertainers’, and to make things easier you could then add where you live- like, Sheffield or South Yorkshire. So maybe Google, ‘Children’s Craft Parties Sheffield’.

That’s how so many of my customers seem to find me and often they don’t come directly to my website or Facebook page to very often they find me through Netmums or FreeIndex

Whatever way that they find me, very often the next step is a phone call, e mail or text to chat about dates, when the party will be and most importantly, what the birthday girl or boy is into and would like for their Perfect Crafty Birthday Party

Rainbow- dry fibres BEFORE wetting and felting 

AFTER the wet-felting process

I love working with children- I love their energy and enthusiasm and I also like their honesty; for example if they don’t like something they will soon tell you. 

One of my mottoes is ‘You can’t kid a kid’, and I have to say that in the 9 years since setting up www.allsensesart.com in 2007 I have never had a child say that they haven’t enjoyed one of my creative craft parties. 

Even one of my most skeptical customers; an 8 year old boy at a felted cushion party where he was the only boy and he had had to miss his football practice session for the party-  Even he was thoroughly won over. At the end of the party he was busy munching sandwiches while proudly sitting on the football cushion that he had just made!

A design making use of cut shapes from pre-felt- dry fibres BEFORE wetting and felting 

AFTER the wet-felting process

Often I find that people are a bit puzzled by the idea of wet-felting- I mean, 
How exactly does it work?

Well you 
1. Gently fluff out two or more layers of wool fibres.

2. Gently arrange a final layer into a picture. I describe this as ‘drawing’ with wool.
3. You cover this all in netting 
4.Then you wet the wool with (slightly) warm soapy water 
5. And gently rub to tangle to wool fibres together,

This is the magical wet-felting process. 

Samiah using knitting yarn to write her name - dry fibres BEFORE wetting and felting 

AFTER the wet-felting process

While I am leading a children’s craft party I tend to whizz around the table making sure that every child has all the attention, encouragement and also freedom to work with whatever colours they prefer and also to create a design that is completely unique and their own.

A graphic design in a dramatic colour scheme - dry fibres BEFORE wetting and felting 

AFTER the wet-felting process

Given completely free reign to make a felted picture what would you ‘draw’? 

The photos above show a selection of pictures made by 11 year old girls in one of my creative two hour sessions.
Yes they only had two hours to, not only devise these design ideas, but to also make their very own first piece of handmade felt!

For more craft party options (cushions, bags, mini-beasts and jewellery) and feedback from previous parties visit www.allsensesart.com

and you can also watch a short video of one an AllSensesArt Felted Flower Jewellery Craft Parties. 

Prices start at £105 for 7 children with £15 per additional child.
South Yorkshire UK.

e mail kirstyallsensesart@gmail.com kirstyallsensesart@gmail.com
text or phone 0773 995 9951

Kirsty’s Craft Birthday Parties: Happy kids and parents from Birmingham to Sheffield and further!

A fab collection of hand-felted cushions made at Aimee's 11th birthday party. Brilliantly creative kids!

I know it sounds like blowing my own trumpet but I just can’t help having a warm glow inside myself when I have just finished one of my AllSensesArt felting parties; it is such a rewarding feeling to know that not only is the birthday girl or boy happy and satisfied but their friends and mum, and dad and even their grandma is excited and happy too. 

My felting parties seem to be even better than expected!

“Couldn’t think of any negatives as everything went even better than planned!”
Sarah Brindley, Cannock, West Midlands May 2014

When people book me to do a felting party for their child they will usually have Googled something like ‘Craft Parties’. They might also have Googled ‘Craft Parties Midlands’, ‘Craft Parties Staffordshire’, ‘Craft Parties Derbyshire’ and more but actually I have travelled all over the UK to deliver AllSensesArt felting parties. Fife in Scotland, way over in the East of the East Midlands and up to Sheffield in South Yorkshire too. 

Parents who like my parties like something a bit different.  They know their child and know what they and their friends like. They know that their child likes making things and loves to create and usually has friends who are into making and crafts too and a felting party is usually a completely new experience for everyone. 

When I describe an AllSensesArt kids felting birthday party I always say that they are lively and full-on. Not mayhem but simply buzzing with creative energy. And what we achieve in two hours of craft activity always amazes people. 

Me, Kirsty E Smith, having fun with Sienna's friends at her felted bag party 

“Just wanted to say a huge Thank you for  the fabulous workshop you carried out for Laura’s party yesterday.

All the girls had a wonderful time and I  had some lovely texts last night from their moms thanking me and saying how the girls were still buzzing and hadn’t  stop talking about it all evening!!!!

They are all so proud  of their cushions and the parents were amazed to see what they had produced when they collected them.” 
Jaki Hingley, Stourbridge, West Midlands 

Happy and proud children at various AllSensesArt craft birthday parties

It is such a nice surprise to start with just fluffy sheep’s wool fibres and use just soap and water to make, not only make a piece of hand-made felt, but to actually make an item such as 
-a cushion
-a bag
-a piece of jewellery-a picture
or 
-a mini-beast creature.

there are so many many gorgeous colours to choose from 

The children have an exciting time working with materials that they usually haven’t handled before. 
And everyone always loves the soapy water rubbing part of the process of making hand made-felt. Felting is a very sensory process. 

The various stages during an AllSensesArt kids craft party are:

-First choosing colours

-Then learning how to break the wool fibres into short tufts and lay-out a bed of fluffy fibres.

-Designing a picture or pattern is a favourite part of the process for children who enjoy designing,and planning.
In an AllSensesArt party you learn how to ‘draw’ with wool.

-Next wetting the wool, adding some lovely mild soap and rubbing to felt the fibres together. This is such a relaxing process and totally different from other craft processes. 

At yesterday’s cushion making party Aimee and her friends burst into song while they were felting; this is not the first time that I have had a merry band of felters who enjoy it so much that they start to sing!

-And then before their very eyes the fluffy wool fibres have transformed into a piece of hand made felt.

When making a felted bag we wrap up a rock to begin with. 
Well that’s an unusual craft party idea! 
And we make a felted bag with no sewing at all.... okay we do sew on the button at the end.

a rock wrapped up in sheep's wool fibres. All ready to be transformed into a cute and colourful bag 

Detail of Sienna's felted bag. It was her 8th birthday party. 

"It was lovely to meet you and be introduced to a new skill. The flow of the party worked really well, the only downside it went far to quickly! You engage well with the children and adults making us all at ease and encouraging us to just enjoy it which we all did. There were some proud girls (and one Grandma) at the end of the party. They make a wonderful substitute for the standard party bag and could be used to put a few goodies in!  Oooh and my hands felt so smooth with the use of Olive oil soap!
Sarah Brindley, Cannock, West Midlands May 2014

Sienna's craft party for her 8th birthday

At a felted cushion making birthday party the children first make their piece of hand-made felt, then they cut a matching shaped piece from some shop-bought felt. Next they sew the front and back together using running stitch and then they stuff their cushion and sew up the gap.

Build-a-Bear is nothing compared to an AllSensesArt Felted Cushion Making party!

Stuffing the cushion with some super soft filling

Sewing up the last gap to complete the cushion

For more craft party options and more feedback from previous parties visit www.allsensesart.com

and you can also watch a short video of one an AllSensesArt Felted Flower Jewellery Craft Parties. 


Prices start at £105 for 7 children with £15 per additional child.

I travel all over the country to lead kids creative craft parties - most are in The Midlands, Derbyshire and South Yorkshire but don’t hesitate to contact me even if you live further afield as travel costs can be discussed. 

e mail Kirsty Smith  allsensesart@btinternet.com
phone 0773 995 9951

If you want an extra-special, very unusual and memorable Craft Party for your child then an AllSensesArt felting party is the perfect choice!

Fun and rewarding creative sessions for young people in hospital

'Magic' Ball mini-beasts are one of my most popular felting activities and are especially good for drop-in sessions

Since 2008 I have been one of the artists who have had the privilege of working with young people while they have been in Birmingham Children’s Hospital; these creative sessions have been some of my most rewarding experiences. 

I am sensitive to people’s needs and can pick up on feelings or anxieties quickly and have an ability to put them at ease. 

I also see everyone simply as people and ideally I prefer not to say ‘young’ people or ‘older’ people. I feel that we are all people just at different stages of life. 

I work with all sorts of materials when making my own mixed media sculptures but over the years I seem to have done most of my outreach projects using the unusual medium of felt-making. I have found that felting is an amazingly versatile medium and I have developed my own methods to speed up the process - this has been especially useful when working with people with limited attention spans. I have also developed techniques which make it easier for people with limited physical abilities. 

Felting is a process which starts by participants first being intrigued by the wonderful range of colours of soft sheep’s wool fibres. 

When we get onto the wet part of the felting process everyone seems to get very relaxed and absorbed; the rhythmical rubbing with lovely Olive oil soapy water never fails to relax.

Making sure that we get results quickly is important too as sometimes I am working with a group of people who have very short attention spans or who have anxiety disorders. This sea themed felted wall hanging was made very speedily by a group of young people in Heathlands Ward at Parkview CAMHS clinic in Moseley, Birmingham (one of the largest Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in the country).

Before and after pictures of the fishy sea themed wall-hanging

I have also worked on other wards. In one afternoon I worked with three young people on Irwin Ward and we made this wonderful space inspired sparkly wall hanging. 

Detail of space themed felted wall-hanging

I had gone all prepared to make something 'Doctor Who' inspired but when I arrived Callum (not his real name) had gone on a home visit. Being flexible and having ideas up your sleeve is pretty important when you are working in hospitals. The three young people who made this space picture came and went from the session as their energy allowed (they were all suffering from anorexia). But no matter how low in energy they were they all made a felted bangle at the end of the session too! It is always especially nice to make something that you can take home with you at the end of your time in hospital.

Getting the staff involved too is an additional reward when running creative activities in hospitals. Again at Parkview I worked with young people in Ashfield ward; there was only three in this group but they all had very different interests and needs. I was so proud of Alex who, on my second visit, made this Aston Villa felted picture. 

I made yellow pre-felt in advance of the session. This meant that Alex could trace the shape of the Aston Villa lion and then cut the shape from the pre-felt using his paper template. 

His confidence was extremely low but with the encouragement of one of the support team he managed to move from a simple felted ball to a felted picture. Raising his confidence and leaving him with something that was a concrete reminder of his abilities was exceedingly important. 

Sophie had big ambitions and worked away very quietly and made her own 3D felted cat in the same session- again one of the staff encouraged her by making his own felted cat alongside her. This was a great example of working alongside someone; just by sharing the experience you are helping them to gain confidence, you are both doing something new for the very first time. 

Two of my most admired felted wall hangings have been made by children on Ward 7, a clinical ward, in the main, Steelhouse Lane, Birmingham Children’s Hospital site. For this Summer Arts Project my brief was to engage as many patients as I could; to go to the hospital with no preconceived ideas of the theme of the wall-hangings but at the end of the day the expectation was that I would have facilitated the making of two wall-hangings which would be on permanent display in the ward and be seen by children of all ages. 

I took a selection of images along with me- Pokemon, Hello Kitty, Mario and Spongebob amongst others.

Very quickly I had a group of three girls aged about 10 and they were very keen to make a Hello Kitty themed wallhanging, I also had a student nurse in the group and she was very enthusiastic too. We worked around children going off for treatments but that can be tricky as I wanted to make sure that everyone was involved will every stage of the process.

Hello Kitty wall-hanging.
Top- dry wool fibres laid out. Bottom- after the wet felting process

With the first wall-hanging completed we were able to show more patients what we had made and in the afternoon a couple more joined my little ‘felting posse’. Believe it or not we worked from a tiny image on someone’s smart phone. I had admired her new Muppets tee-shirt (it just had Animal on it) and that was where the idea of making a muppets wall-hanging came from. It is amazing what you can do with just an image on a smart phone to work from! 

I was especially pleased that we made Miss Piggy’s necklace using circles cut from sparkly fabric. I have found that you have to go to hospital art sessions with a wide range of materials... just incase ...as you never know what you might need!

Ward 3 - now called Ocean Ward - is  one which I have worked in on several projects in 2008, 2009 and 2012.

I am still so very proud of the felted glove puppets that were made in the All About Me project. After my first session with the young people in this ward I discovered that football was a what most of them were especially interested in. I took a note of favourite teams and players and went along to the next session armed with images printed onto cotton fabric. The young people were wowed that I even knew the players numbers (I did need to research this!) When finished, the glove puppets were able to play table-top football with the big stuffed felted ball that Amir had made in the first felting session. 

Some of the young people had dexterity problems but that didn't stop their enthusiasm and everyone was really proud of their achievements 

On Ocean ward we have made quite a range of creations, Mini-beasts, cushions, felted flowers purses and another large felted wall-hanging. 
This was based on a fantasy digital game and everyone in the group added to the design. 

Even boys like making their own special purse

Cushions and flowers made by children in Ocean Ward. Part of the 'AllAbout Me' creative sessions at Birmingham Children's Hospital

Completed wallhanging designed and made by children in Ocean Ward

Here you can see how everyone's ideas were included in the fantasy PC game wall-hanging design 

And finally, even at Christmas a stay in hospital can be made more fun; we even made our own small felted Christmas Stockings. 

It is my philosophy that everyone, whatever their abilities and personal circumstances, has the right to learn a new skill and to have the opportunity to make unique artwork of their own. My mission is, “To nurture and encourage people’s imagination and creativity in a fun and enthusiastic way”. 

I feel privileged to have been part of these young people’s lives especially during a hospital stay which will have been a challenging time in their lives and I look forward to leading more exciting creative sessions with children (and indeed people of all ages!)

www.allsensesart.com 

Felted Wall-Hanging inspired by Monet's Waterlily Paintings- a fantastic School Project

This impressive felted wall hanging was made in a day by 24  four and five year olds (120cm W,  85cm H)

It’s great that I love working with children! 
One of my fun days last summer was working with 24 Reception/Year 1 children at Beech Street Primary School in Eccles (on the outskirts of Manchester). 

Teacher and School Arts Week Co-ordinator, Gill Douglas, contacted me and asked if I could help and of course I said yes! 

We decided that the children would make a wall hanging inspired by Monet’s waterlily paintings. 

Working in schools is interesting as there is always so much going on but often the logistics of fitting in and around things (like pirate parties and PE lessons) can be a challenge. Luckily for me Gill had left me with some fantastic staff who helped me to sort the children into smaller groups and to work out timings for bite sized chunks of felting throughout the day.

Working with six children at a time I gave them a simple introduction to Claude Monet. I had taken a selection of library books and had also printed off some relevant pictures. Even though the children were aged just 4 and 5 I really wanted to give them some interesting information and images of Monet. 

Well Monet had a BIG beard and he had a BIG garden! 

and he painted big paintings too!

Although I had photos of waterlilies I would really have loved to have been able to take a real waterlily flower into the classroom!

I explained that Monet was an artist who made his pictures with paint but we were going to make our wall hanging using colourful wool fibres. 
At this point it is always better to just get started with the physical act of felting. 

I had separated the wool fibres into greens for the waterlily leaves and pinks and purples for the flowers, so with each group we either made flowers or leaves. 

Wool fibres laid in a swirl; a simple way to make felted waterlily flowers

Softly felted waterlily flowers made by the children

We made lots of these flowers and leaves and laid them out ready for the afternoon. 

At lunchtime I got the classroom ready for making the big wall hanging so that as soon as my first group came back from their pirate party they were ready to go! I definitely wanted to make sure that every single child had taken part in every stage of the process.

Once the table was covered in a layer of white wool fibres we then changed to a pallet of blues and purples. This was fun as the children really do enjoy breaking the wool into small tufts. (This part of the felting process is called ‘laying-out’) and they were pretty impressed that we were working on such a large scale.

We used a range of blue coloured fibres to lay over the white layer (these were laid at right angles to the white layer). Now we had a ‘pond’ and next we had to decide where all of the waterlily flowers and leaves had to go. I showed the children Monet's waterlily paintings again as I felt it was important to remind them of what we were doing. The felting can all get a bit exciting  and I just wanted to remind them of the ‘big picture’ ie our Arts Week project.

One of Claude Monet's waterlily paintings

Again I feel that it is very important for the children to take ownership of their own art so I let them place the felted flowers and leaves on and then together we adjusted the position of some until we were happy with the composition. At this point I was really pleased that the teaching assistants felt happy to tell me their observations and they helped with the composition too.
Next I stood up on a chair and looked down at it to give the design a final check.

Once happy with this we got onto the big job of wetting, soaping, rubbing and rolling.

The laid out design completely wet and soaped with Olivia olive oil soap

Logistically this is the hardest bit of making a large collaborative piece of felt as there just isn’t space for 24 children to roll at once. 
Miss Morris, my fantastic teaching assistant, came to the rescue; as the children took turns with the rolling she and the rest of the children launched into a cavalcade of songs. They were absolutely fantastic and the singing made the rolling all so much easier and lots of fun, especially for me!

Rolling the wet and soaped design up in a bamboo mat

We stopped and admired our felt. Wow! There was no denying it, it was pretty impressive and all made by 24 children aged just 4 and 5.

Finished felted wall hanging (120cm W, 85cm H)
It is still damp here so would look even better once dry.

Before I left Beech Street school I hand-sewed a strip of cotton fabric onto the back of the top edge of the wall hanging. Then I threaded a length of dowelling through it and left it with two hooks ready for the school's brilliantly helpful janitor to hang up once it was dry.  

And finally how lovely to get this e mail from Gill Douglas, the School Arts Week Co-ordinator. 

"The work produced is fantastic and the wall hanging has already gone up! 
Thank you for your wonderful work & enthusiasm - everyone had a great, productive time!"

Wonderful Paul Klee inspired Felted Portraits by year 4 students

Felted portraits made by pupils in year 4 (8 and 9 year olds). Paul Klee was their inspiration.

‘Taking a line for a walk’ is an expression that everyone who has ever attended a college art class has heard, but up until recently I had no idea that it was Paul Klee who first coined the phrase.

One thing about doing activities for schools’ Arts Weeks is that you get the chance to do projects on new themes and also take inspiration from artists that you haven’t used before. I was delighted to be asked by Beech Street school, Eccles near Manchester, to run a day long session on Paul Klee for their year 4 pupils.

Paul Klee’s work is hard to categorise as his style was very broad ranging. My friend instantly thought of his goldfish painting but I was reminded of the postcard that I had on my wall a long time ago when I was a student up in Edinburgh. I actually saw the original painting in the flesh very recently too (see below).

Original painting by Paul Klee. In the Peggy Guggenheim museum, Venice.

So I decided to use Paul Klee’s portraits as the starting point for my felting workshop with the Year 4 pupils.

We started the day by talking about what we knew about Paul Klee; for example I told the children that he was a talented violinist and that throughout his life he still listened to music for at least an hour before starting to paint each day. We mentioned his illness and how that affected his paintings in later life - paintings towards the end of his life are done using darker colours and also have thicker dark lines in them - and we even managed to mention how much he loved cats.

I had taken various illustrated library books and these along with images sourced from the internet were helpful in giving the children an introduction to the artist.

We closed our eyes and did some taking a line for a walk exercises. At this point I wished that I had taken some atmospheric music with me to play as Paul Klee’s paintings were very influenced by his own emotions and music is a very useful way to arouse emotions in these sorts of drawing sessions.

The children did four ‘taking a line for a walk’ exercises and it was good to see how each person’s evolved as they became more relaxed and realised that there was no right answer. All that I asked was that they didn’t lift their pen from the page until we opened our eyes.

We did consider the shapes that the pen was making; spikey or smooth, looping or wavy, and as the children had their eyes closed they had to feel these movements rather than see them. 

I was happy for the children to use two pens at once, either in the same hand or one in each hand. It's always good fun!

Next we progressed onto laying out the wool fibres. I did a short demonstration to show them how to handle the merino wool fibres and we all laid out our first layer of unbleached wool tops. Then I demonstrated two methods of ‘drawing’ with wool fibres; one that was more suited to this portrait style (see below).

Paul Klee portrait alongside my felted example.

and another method that was appropriate to this portrait style.

Paul Klee painting alongside one of the pupil's designs. 

Dry wool fibres laid out before wetting.

In the afternoon the classroom was absolutely buzzing with activity and it was exciting to see how the pupils took what they had learned in the morning and absolutely ran with it. 

I had taken a limited pallet of colours, yellows, oranges, deep red, russet and a couple of greens. These had been selected as the majority of the portraits by Paul Klee were painted using these colours. The good thing about using a limited pallet of colours is that it avoided the felted portraits becoming completely multi-coloured and helped us to remember that we were thinking about the lines that we were making and also that this was about using felting as a medium but the work that we were making was still inspired by Paul Klee.

Each felted portrait is unique and not just felted but felted to a good standard. 

I love this one for the energy and personality that it manages to convey

This minimalist one uses no lines at all! 

And in this one there are more lines than facial features

I can feel Paul Klee's anger as he suffered from a very painful illness here. 

I was really fantastically impressed and pleased with the children’s achievements and it was brilliant as a visiting artist to get such enthusiastic comments and feedback from them all.
“This was our best day!”
“I love doing this!”
“When can we do it again?” 

The day went so well because all of the children were enjoying the variety of the activities in their School Arts Week and also because I had excellent support from the class teacher Miss Orr, teaching assistants and parent helpers. 

And a Janitor who helps you in with all your felting materials and equipment is always a hero!