Teatime felt project and the Easiest Christmas Bauble – Ever!

Next up we have Rachael's felt roll challenge entry!

I was very happy to receive the “Jungle” felt roll in the felt roll challenge. I love this felt roll as it’s such a brilliant mixture of colours – you can go crazy with the truly bright blue and green shades or you can stick to the more natural greens and navy to create projects with a more muted calm and natural feel.  For the challenge I wanted to create a variety of makes using different techniques and different combinations of the jungle felt colours. My aim was to use the felt in combination with other materials so that I could create three dimensional forms that might not be normally possible with the felt alone.

In the end I ended up creating a tablemat, a butterfly brooch/fascinator and a non-traditional Christmas bauble.

 A favourite make of mine was the tablemat, this used fabric covered boning (the type normally used in corset making), some double sided tape, strong fabric glue (we used our old faithful Gutermann HT2) and a needle and thread.

To start making the table mat, you first need to cut strips of the boning up. You need to cut five 15cm strips and five 25cm strips. 

Then stick double sided tape on both sides on all your pieces of the boning. 

Cut  five 15cmx3cm and five 25cmx3cm strips of your felt to match your strips of boning - cutting along the length of your felt roll to give you long strips(I used “peasoup” and “deep sea blue” coloured felt from the roll and covered the longer boning strips in green and the shorter ones in the blue shade). Cover your boning strips with the felt strips by peeling away the double sided tape backing and pressing the felt strip around the boning.  

Now you need to glue your strips into tear drop shapes – pop a bob of fabric glue on both ends of the felt covered strip, bring the ends together , and then secure with a clothes peg to allow the glue to dry.

Repeat this process – transforming each strip of boning and felt into a teardrop shape and allow to dry.

When the teardrop shapes are secure you can start the final construction of your table mat. Put all the points of the teardrops together at the centre of your tablemat, alternating colours as you go. You will end up with a design almost like a snowflake or loopy star. Now using a needle and thread neatly stitch each loop to the loops next door to it (ladder stitch seemed to be best stitch to do this as it meant most of the stitching could be hidden in the layers of the felt). Then just carry on stitching like this until you have completed your tablemat – perfect!

The second project I wanted to share with you all is the Christmas bauble – it is just so easy that it’s the perfect make for supervised children – with a professional finish from very little expertise!

It’s so simple and all you’ll need a polystyrene ball, some pins, some buttons sequins or crystals, some fabric glue and a small piece of ribbon or trim for hanging.

Firstly cut lots of similar small shapes from the felt – (you could use any die cutting system suitable for felt or just old fashioned scissors are just as good) I cut all my flowers using a “Cuttlebug”,  but freehand flower,  leaf, or individual petals shapes would work just as well.

One you have all the shapes cut use the pins to attach them to the polystyrene ball – covering the whole surface. Use fabric glue (again I used Gutermann HT2) to glue on the crystals to the centre of the flowers and then finally pin on a loop of ribbon for hanging your bauble – see I told you it was simple!

 

 (P.S. If you don’t want to use buttons or crystals a cheaper option is to use pins with a coloured plastic or glass head to give interest to the centre of your flowers at the same time as actually pinning your felt flowers to the polystyrene ball)

Have fun!