Needle felted creatures from the sea and beyond, by Chrissy of “The Felted Chicken”

Chrissy lives in California and has an amazing collection of needle felted creatures indigenous to the sea. I especially love her blowfish! On Chrissy’s Flickr account and her blog she shows you her dying techniques for the blowfish. She has brought a whole new dimension to needle felting. She has a wonderful imagination and living in California near a sea, must help her develop her realistic looking sea creatures. I love her octopus, lobster and of course her awesome sushi. Take some time and visit fried chicken! You will find unexpected creations that I’m sure you will enjoy. You can find Chrissy on her The Flted Chicken blog, her ETSY shop, Flickr and on Facebook. If you are a member of Facebook you will want to become Chrissy’s fan.

Chrissy also is creating a sweet line of (re)Gift Boxes and bags “Pictured” made of a pre-felted fabric called Eco-spun. This is a synthetic felt that is made of 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottles.

Chrissy tell us!

I am a scenic sculptor living in West Hollywood. Right now I’m really trying to focus on my new ETSY shop.

Currently I am making many things out of felt. I love the fabric; it reminds me of craft projects I did as a child. My sculptures are 100% hand-felted wool made by Needle-felting. Needle-felting is the process of matting and compressing animal fibers into felt by stabbing a barbed needle into the fibers over and over and over and over again. It is very time-consuming, but also amazingly fulfilling. It allows me to hand sculpt fabric without having to use a sewing machine. It combines many of my favorite things – sculpting & stuffed animals – fine art & toys – innocence & craftsmanship.

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I guess moss and lichen are more things that you see in the spring than in the summer, but there are some deep shady parts of our yard that stay mossy all year, and summer is a fine time to look for plants that like to live in shady, wet areas.

Raising Up Wild Things has a really pretty set of printables to use for a moss and lichen unit study.

And just in case you’re like me and don’t really know the difference, moss is a plant that grows in damp wooded areas, while lichen is a combination of fungus and algae that live together. Lichen can live in different environments but are often found in places where you would find moss, too.

The printable includes drawings of some common moss such as sphagnum moss and wood moss, as well as common lichen shapes (crusty, leafy and shrubby). There are good sized images you can print out and laminate to use to compare to specimens you find when you are exploring nature.

There’s also a forest floor coloring page and a printable journaling page where kids can write or draw their observations and there are a few questions older kids can answer.

You can use these when you go on a walk in the woods (or the back yard) to talk about what you are seeing, or combine them with other resources to talk about things that live in the forest. Check them out at Raising Up Wild Things.

This PDF from the Morton Arboretum has a bunch of pictures of different kinds of moss and where to find them, which could also be helpful in your studies. Learn more about lichen, including what they are and what they are not, in this article from the US Forest Service.

[Photo: Raising Up Wild Things]

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