Hi, my name is Katie Crooks. I'm a public program coordinator here at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery.
Today, I want to show you a new craft that was created
for our 'Singing and the Silence: Birds in Contemporary Art' exhibition,
that we will be doing for our handi-hour program.
We are going to be making bell totas,
which are these fun chains.
They're basically stuffed
animals or birds, specifically in this case,
on a chain with a bell on the end.
You may have seen them in many different souvenir shops.
Especially, if you go to different marketplaces showcasing the arts of Southeast Asia.
Sometimes you can find them also with Latin American crafts.
Their exact origin isn't really known.
The idea behind them being that,
this chain can be hung at your front door and because it has a bell on the end if any
bad spirits would be following you into your home the bell would jingle and scare them away from entering.
So, kind of a fun folk tale idea of how to use this decoration.
They make great hostess gifts and just kind of fun decorations to have in your home.
They're very easy to make.
Many times you'll see them made out of recycled materials - silks and different types of fabrics.
They don't always have to be made in the shape of birds.
I've seen them with elephants, giraffes, and different types of shapes.
Because we're celebrating our contemporary bird exhibition,
we're going to go ahead and use these little bird shapes that I have created template for.
Today, I will show you the process of how to put together one of the birds and how to string it on a chain.
This same process can be used to create
just single bird ornaments that can have a bell or don't have to have a bell.
If you're not prepared,
or you're a bit intimidated to make several of these little creatures,
though it is pretty easy once you get started.
If sewing is not your preferred craft, you can also make the same type of chain with origami birds.
Here, I've just done a simple chain of five cranes in fun bright colors.
I've beaded them with complimentary colored beads and added some small bells on the end.
You still get the same craft and the same idea
as the sewn tota, just that this one is a little quicker to make
and involves no sewing.
Let's get started first with the felt bird and how to put that together.
You're going to need a pair of scissors and some sort of template.
You can draw the bird yourself or you can print something off online.
I made these very simple silhouettes of a bird shape.
Since you're going to need a piece of fabric for the front and a piece for the back,
I have two here to cut out.
Then I made some pretty simple,
slightly off centered, halfmoon shapes for the wings.
This is just an added detail to the design of the bird.
You don't even have to add them on there if you just want to make this very
simple and uncomplicated.
But I have those.
I have some bells,
because without the bells you can't have your bell tota.
I have a variety of different types of beads.
I have wooden beads, because I like the way they look.
Buttons work, sequins, and pony beads which are plastic.
Anything that you happen to have available can make a really nice chain.
I have these little clips, which will be helpful for clipping my pieces of felt.
I just have sheets of 8.5"x11" pieces of felt here.
I will use little clips to hold the templates on while I cut it out with a pair of scissors.
I have a variety of
colors of embroidery floss to sew everything together.
You will see your stitches, that's part of the decoration.
I suggest getting contrast colors of embroidery floss just to keep things fun and decorative.
You will need an embroidery needle.
It is probably a good idea to have this guy in a pincushion,
or, I have a little magnet that I keep him stuck to over here so that I don't lose track of it.
Alright, to get started the first thing that you're going to need to do is to cut out your template.
Just take the piece of paper with your images on it.
Clip it directly to your piece of felt.
You can trim excess paper around the side.
If you don't want to waste any amount of felt, if you want to be very conservative with the amount that you use,
you can trim the white portion closer to the silhouette of the bird.
I have plenty. I'm not quite worried about conserving it at this point.
You're going to literally cut through both the felt and the paper at the same time,
using your hands as well to help steady the material.
Go ahead and cut through.
When you get done, you'll end up with plenty of little silhouettes.
I've pre-cut many of these.
As you can see, they're very simple very cute the ones we have here measuring about
three inches across.
I've done them in a variety of colors,
Mixing and matching makes them a lot of fun.
I've used the same process to create wings.
I've cut out a variety of these as well.
So once you get to the point where you've cut out several of these silhouettes,
or just one if you only want to make a single ornament,
you can get started with sewing them together.
I've actually went as far as to sew
the wing on to this bird.
I've only done one side.
I just used a fun decorative stitch around the side.
If you need inspiration for different types of stitches,
please check out some of my earlier videos.
I did do an embroidery tutorial earlier that can show you some fun stitches on
making these wings very decorative.
I also show how to do the french knot, and that is how I did the eye.
I sewed just a clear button for a bit of embellishment on this one.
If we looked at my earlier tota, I also had
wooden buttons, sequins, and plastic buttons.
This earlier bird that I did simply has different stitches of embroidery.
You can make your little birds as decorative as you want
or as simple as you want.
You don't even need to sew a wing shape onto them if you don't want to have that on there.
Some people prefer a more streamlined look.
So, once you do your wing, if you decide to do one you can sew a back onto your bird.
Now you can do decoration on both sides. This little brown guy here, you'll see he has both sides.
Just make sure that when you are sewing
decorative wings on both sides of the bird form, that you are sandwiching it,
so that
you are sewing on opposite sides.
If they're both facing the same way you'll notice
that could be a problem with covering up all the work that you did.
So to get started, you can see the inside is going to have all of my back stitching, we want to cover that up.
You will just sandwich the birds together,
get your embroidery needle with a piece of floss.
Feel free to use as many colors as you like.
This particular birdie, I decided was going to be the medium pink with the light pink floss
contrasting nicely with the green color of the felt.
I put a little knot on the end here, so that it will hold everything together.
I'm going to start down towards the bottom of the belly of the bird,
I'm going to go on the inside to start my stitching.
Then that way the tail is stuck on the inside, and you can't see it.
I'm going to go ahead, and I'm going to just do a basic stitch all the way around.
You can make these stitches as fancy or as simple as you like.
If I were to use a dark green embroidery floss you probably wouldn't even see the stitches.
I have this bird here that I've already gone all the way around and did a very simple stitch,
in on one side of the bird pulled it all the way around,
continually putting the needle in the bird from one side.
I stopped so that I have about a fingers width of space in the bottom of the bird.
This is where you're going to need to fill it.
If you want fluffy little birds like this guy, polyfill works great.
That kind of synthetic fluff that you put on the inside of pillows and stuffed animals.
Cotton balls can work as well.
Old scraps of fabric if you want to recycle.
I happen to have some extra roving wool,
which is basically the type of wool that you use for felting.
It's really plush and since I had some extra I was going to use this up.
Just going to take it and you simply put it inside the bird.
Then, you stuff the bird so that it's pretty taut.
Then we're going to sew all the way up and do an indiscreet little knot on the end.
Just go ahead and do those stitches straight across and then you'll be done, and you'll have a finished little bird.
Once you get all of your birds done that you want to do,
you'll need to string them on a line to make the tota.
I will show you with this little sample guy here
how you can do the stringing.
I have a pre-measured piece of floss.
Think about how long you want your tota to be.
If you've only sewn three birds and you want a very long tota
you might need to use extra amounts of the beads.
You may want to use very large wooden beads like I have here.
If you've sewn many birds you might be able to get away using a smaller type of bead.
So the first thing I'm going to do,
so that I create a nice end for my tota,
I'm looping it like this and
I'm going to put a knot here in the top.
I might have to do it several times to make it work.
But, this knot is going to allow me to have a loop so that I can hang my tota.
Then, I will use both strings
I'm just going to lick my fingers here to stiffen these guys up a little bit.
Go ahead and thread that through.
I kind of like a random look so I'm just going to
randomly thread a few different beads on here.
What I'm going to do, is actually thread directly through the bird.
It's the easiest way, just treat it directly like a bead.
This is the top
make sure your needle is long enough, so you can grab it on the other end and tug it through.
Pull it to the top
and that's how you will thread him.
Then go forth, adding extra beads and birds all the way down,
and when you get to the very end, to finish it,
tie on one or two little jingle bells on the end.
That will allow for you to have a fully functioning bell tota.
Now if you don't want to sew, and you would prefer to do this
with the origami birds as I have in this alternate version of the tota, not a problem.
It's pretty much the same process.
You're still going to leave that loop on the top and you're still going to thread through the different beads,
except for when you get to your bird. I have a sample here,
we're just going to add it right onto this tota,
for the sake of showing you how to do it.
The origami cranes will have a little point right here and a small hole on the bottom.
So just go ahead and press your needle through
and use it if you're pressing straight through the needle will show through on the bottom side.
You can literally thread it just like you did with the beads and the other bird.
What's nice about
the paper birds is because of the way they are they'll stick on the thread.
So if you didn't have any beads,
and you just wanted to have a chain of paper cranes,
you could do that as well because they will stick in place.
Once again, when you get to the end just tie a bell and you have the tota.
The same principle works if all you want to do is create an ornament.
If I wanted this little guy here to just be an ornament, I wouldn't have created such a long thread here.
What I could do,
is add a couple more beads on the end, and then a jingle bell.
What I would do, is I would tie it off at this point.
Then you would have a
small ornament like this with a jingle bell.
That way you save yourself for making an entire line of the different birds.
So there you have it. That's how you do the bell tota.
There are plenty of great videos out there for how to make origami cranes,
so I won't go ahead and make another one.
Just go on your search engine and search for a video.
Lots of great ones.
You'll just basically need a piece of square paper in the color that you want
and roughly the size that you want.
This one here,
started out as a piece of paper about this big, so you're looking at about
five, maybe six inches square.
There you go! That is how you make a bell tota, either with a paper crane or a sewn felt bird.