Sunday, October 31, 2010

Mini Ornament Wreaths from Wool Scraps

What do you do with tons of scraps of felted wool sweaters?  (And I do mean tons!)
You make really cute mini wreaths for Christmas ornaments, some of them I organized colors, I love this blue and green one!
And this one that matches my snowflake wreaths!  I had lots of blue and white scraps...
My favorites were the multicolored ornaments. I thought they looked real patchworky!
But I also loved the green and red wreaths...very Christmasy!
And I made one all pinks and blues and white for baby's first Christmas.
Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of a fuzzy item and make it look crisp and sharp?
One more project done for my craft show next Sunday...that is only six days away now! 

Sheet Music Garland

I have been loving garlands lately.  I found this sheet music book at Goodwill for yes, that's right 30 cents! 
Doesn't really get any cheaper than that so I grabbed it and it has been on my craft table for almost two months now!
I cut out circles, I think mine were about 2.5 inches in diameter....I cut about about 100 for each garland, but with my Fiskars circle cutter and using three sheets at a time, it went pretty fast.  I was watching Titanic at the time, so I didn't really pay much attention to how much time it took me!  I love that movie!
I then fired up the sewing machine and picked a fall-ish looking thread...this is a variegated thread with some red, some tans, some brown, some off white.  Fit the bill perfectly!
I stacked two circles together and sewed them down the middle and then repeated it about as many times as I wanted for how long the garland was to be...
Once they were all stitched together, I knotted off the ends at the first papers and then about 6 inches out so there was a way to hang them up.  Then I opened up the two pieces so that it looked a bit like a butterfly.
They fold completely flat to store or mail them...
And look so cute opened up hanging on the wall or in this case, being held up in the yard.
Great Christmas present for a music teacher, huh?
You can use different color papers, or use maps, or use a children's book pages...lots of different ways to do this garland!

CraftGossip

The Christmas Version of the Felted Wool Rose Wreath

I decided to make a Christmas version of the felted wool rose wreath...I can't decide if I need to put something on it in addition to the roses, like snowflakes or something else.
I used three or four colors of both red and green. 
And I really like the way it turned out!
The felted roses never fail to please me! 

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Felted Wool Rose Wreath Tutorial

Supplies needed:  hot glue gun and glue sticks, scissors, circle patterns (I used bowls), felt (I use wool felt, but you could also use regular felt), marking pen, grapevine wreath.
Start by making circles all over your felt...I used blues and some light purples, greys, and cream colored felt for mine.
Now cut out on the inside of the marked line.  You can also just free hand the circles like I do, but I thought I would show you the scientific way to do it!
Now you have your circles all cut out for each of the flowers...for the large wreath I made 27 roses, for the smaller one in the last picture I think there are 20 on the wreath.  You can use less or more as you wish.
I drew on this circle to show you generally how I cut mine out.  I usually do not mark each circle like this, I just free hand cut each one.  You want to start cutting at the outside of the circle and spiral in toward the center, leaving a larger circle in the center which will become the back of the rose.
This is what you have now...
Next pick up the outside or the pointy end of the felt
and begin rolling it up keeping the bottom flat...
keep rolling until you are close to the circle you left...
and this is what you have. 
Adjust the circle so that it covers the bottom of the rolled area.  You can see that I made my circle too small, so I am laying part of the cut area on the back of my rose to cover it all.
Now add some hot glue to the flat back area and attach the circle to cover the back.
Now it actually looks like a rose...
Now trim the excess on the petals to even it out.  I don't always make it really even, because I want a more natural look (yes, even though they are blue roses!).
Now look at the edge of the bottom of  the rose.  It will probably look really uneven...
Trim off the excess with your handy dandy scissors...
Ta-Da!!  You have a finished rose!!  Now just make about 20 or so more!
This is what the floor under your work table will look like!
Now that I have mine all made, start arranging them (before gluing) on your grapevine wreath.  Anything goes!  You could just do a grouping of 10 roses on one side of the wreath, or cover it all so you can't even see the wreath.  No rules!
After you are pleased with the results, start gluing the roses on one at a time, holding them firmly into the grapevine until they are attached so they don't droop when you stand the wreath up.
I found some shiny fuzzy snowflakes at the Dollar Tree...
On the large wreath I added four snowflakes, on the smaller one I used three.  Just scatter them willy nilly.
That's all there is to it!  The roses go really fast after you have made a few of them. 

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