I tend to think of myself as a crafty person, but usually the things I try to make end up mediocre at best. However, there are some people out there who can create true art, and their skill level is absolutely impressive.
Hanna Tsukanova is someone whose creative skill is unmatched. Her specialty? Felted portraits and sculptures that look exactly like your pets.
It's almost unbelievable how well she can copy the likeness of a real animal in felt. Needle felting is a really interesting type of craft you can do, and while it's not necessarily hard to get the basics down, it is hard to do it well.
It involves taking loose fibers of wool and using a special type of needle that has little barbs and cuts in it that help to tangle the wool together. By combining different colors, you can build it up into almost anything you want. In theory it's really simple, in practice, from experience I can say that it's not simple in the least.
I would tell you how many times I accidentally poked myself in the fingers, but I honestly lost count after about a half hour. But Tsukanova makes it look easy, beautiful and fun, and the best part of all is that her specialty is custom animal portraits.
She creates Christmas ornaments and portraits of your beloved pet based on whatever picture you give her, or if you want to go all out you can get a mini replica statue of them!
She has even shared a video where she shows you how it's done. You can see how it starts off as just a pile of loose fibers but with a few pokes (okay, thousands) of a needle it turns into a perfect picture of a dog.
While it takes hours to create one of her masterpieces, it's clearly worth it.
These sweet little art pieces make for the perfect gift, and honestly, I can't stop looking at them. The pug is probably my favorite, but that's because I have a bit of a bias given that he looks like my dog!
Would you ever want to get a portrait of your dog made? She's got an Etsy store, Instagram, and a Facebook that you can check out more of her work and make your orders.
