Tuesday 10 July 2018

My Handmade Felt Spring Flower Wreaths


In January, I set myself a list of goals for the year, and one of those goals was to make a spring wreath. Now here we are in July, and I'm proud to say I've smashed my goal by not only making one spring wreath this year, but four!


I originally intended to make a pom pom wreath with a few felt flowers mixed in, similar to the ones I made last Christmas, but as I got stuck in to the project, I changed direction and decided to ditch the pom poms and made floral wreaths almost entirely out of felt instead.

I started the project back in March, hoping to have the wreaths ready by Easter, but it took a lot longer than I had anticipated. Each stage was time-consuming, with each flower taking up to half an hour to make, and the leaves taking three hours to glue to each wreath alone. I was also hindered by my pain which only allowed me to spend up to an hour on them a day, so I didn't complete my last wreath until early June.

Okay, I might not have finished them in time for spring, but I like to think I'm ahead for next year!


I'd never made anything like them before, but I didn't follow any tutorials (except for how to make the roses, which seemed too complicated to figure out without a little help- they weren't), and made it all by hand through trial and error. I admit, I did have to Google for templates for the petals and leaves because I'm not brilliant at drawing free-hand, and needed something to draw around, but I made everything else up as I went along, using photos of flowers as a guide. I taught myself how to make felt daffodils, tulips, and pansies (with hand-embroidered faces), and enjoyed learning how to make felt roses using this tutorial from The Flower Art. Making the flowers was fun and super satisfying; after a while, I could almost do them with my eyes closed, and began to feel like a felt florist as felt flowers overflowed from jars and bowls around me. Once I got started, I found I couldn't stop making them! It's an addictive process.

I tried to make the flowers look as realistic as a felt flower can, and used a variety of bright and pastel felt sheets from Hobbycraft and The Felt Fairy in shades of yellow, pink, purple, peach, orange, and white, with three to four shades of green for the leaves. Two of the wreaths I made are made of pastel-coloured flowers, while the other two are a little bolder. Unfortunately, I haven't captured the true colours of the felt well in the photos as I suck at photo editing and couldn't get the photos right, but they're much deeper and brighter in real life. The yellow daffodils are bright and cheerful, and the dark green leaves are grass green, not forest, but you get the idea. I can't decide which style I like best- although, I decided to keep the second wreath I made with the purple ribbon, so perhaps I prefer the deeper coloured flowers after all.



To make the wreaths, I began by wrapping spring green wool tightly around one ring of a wooden embroidery hoop for the base, which took about an hour and a half for each one. The next step was attaching the felt leaves to the hoop with a hot glue gun, I used three shades of green felt for the leaves, and it took about three hours just to glue them on to each one- and that's not counting the time it took to cut them all out first. Once the leaves were in place, I played around with different arrangements of the flowers I'd pre-made until I found a look I liked, and then spent a couple of hours gluing them securely to each wreath. To finish the wreath I've completed, I tied a length of pretty ribbon to the screw of the hoop to hang it from (although, for the inner hoops, which don't have a screw on top, this is best done before you glue on the leaves, as you have to tie the ribbon around the embroidery hoop).

I still need to buy ribbon to finish the last three wreaths as I haven't got anything suitable in my stash, but other than that, my felt spring wreath project is complete!



Obviously, I'm not a craft blogger, but I had hoped to blog a tutorial to show you guys how to make a felt spring wreath, but spring has been and gone, and now summer is swiftly ticking away, I guess it's going to have to wait until next spring instead. If anyone wants to know how I made anything, though, just send me a message, and I'll try to talk you through the process. I am planning to show you how to make a felt Christmas wreath before the year is through, though, so watch out for that this November / December! 

I've moved on to making felt Christmas wreathes already, so that they'll actually be ready to hang on time this Christmas, and have been busy making red felt poinsettias and roses over the last few weeks. I'm going to figure out how to make felt amaryllis flowers next. Once you get started, it's hard to stop! 

Without meaning to toot my own horn, I'm really pleased with how well the felt wreaths came together, and proud of them for a first attempt at felt flower / wreath-making. Apparently, you really can do anything when you set your mind to it!

Have you ever tried to make a felt wreath or flower? What was the last thing you crafted?

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