Day of the Dead Sugar Skull Barrette

Description

The Day of Dead is a festival of Mexican heritage honoring ancestors and the recently deceased. Instead of fearing death this holiday embraces the dead; celebrating by leaving flowers on graves, creating altars to honor them and even leaving them their favorite food and drink. Celebrate Dias de los Muertos with this festive sugar skull barrette.

I’m pretty proud of my Mexican heritage so I created this felted version of a sugar skull, an elaborately decorated grave offering. White wool was needle felted and shaped for puffed effect, like a real sugar skull, and a piece of repurposed sweater was felted on as a backing; then all the lovely details were needle felted in place. This departed soul stares out from beyond the grave through cornflower eyes and magenta seed beads set his eyes to sparkling. A vine rose twines gracefully between his eyes and the leaves are delicately shaded in hand dyed mohair.

The sturdy nickel barrette is 70mm in length set crosswise. The whole piece measures 3”¼ x 2”.

This item is an entry in the NFEST August Felting Challenge. Please search “NFEST Team Challenge” to view more Halloween inspired entries by other talented members of the Needle Felters Etsy Street Team!

Added on Sep 01, 2009