Art, in general, has always been a part of my life. Before I discovered needle felting, I would paint, draw, sculpt...the list goes on. I would love to draw cartoon characters, and make homemade greeting cards as a child. I learned a lot of the basics while studying art in college. I would take courses in drawing and painting, which gave me a good foundation to work from.

 

After college, I started experimenting with different mediums of art. For a while, I was making decorative birdhouses and working with wood. I started to practice wood carving and discovered that I loved working with natural materials. This is also the time I discovered my love for making animal sculptures. I would sit for hours, and carve miniature animals out of blocks of bass wood. 

 

Around this time, I became engaged to my now husband, Brian. My focus shifted from crafting in my spare time, to preparing for a wedding. I was determined to put my craftiness to good use for our wedding. I made everything from our wedding invitations, to our thank you notes. In the midst of all this wedding madness, is when I discovered the art of needle felting.

 

While searching for ideas on how to make a cake topper, I came across an artist who specialized in animal cake toppers, which were needle felted. I was not familiar at all with needle felting, but I was very intrigued on how it was done. These felted animal cake toppers looked so real and had so much character; it was so different that it completely caught my attention. 

 

From that point, I started researching the web about needle felting. I found one particular artist who offered excellent online tutorial videos, and I used these videos as a starting point. After I got familiar with the technique, I would practice in my spare time. I instantly became hooked. Even though I had explored many other forms of art in the past, with needle felting I felt as though I had found my niche. It brought my adoration of animals, nature, and art all together into one expressive form. 

 

Once I decided that this was my true artistic passion, I was steadfast on learning more about crafts' main material; wool. There are many different kinds of wool, which come from different breeds of sheep or alpaca. I versed myself on which kind of wool would work best for the specific animal I wanted to make. I even learned how to wash and card raw wool, so I could experiment with making custom carded wool batts for my projects. Throughout this learning process, I feel in love with not only needle felting, but with fiber art and fiber in general. 

I now enjoy sharing my work with others through the internet and various art shows. Thank you for visiting my site and learning a little bit about me!

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