Embellishments: Beautifully Handmade © Tania Willis 2009 Embellishing with Felt

• From felt scraps to lovely flowers & accents • Using templates

Embellishing with Felt In today’s session we are going to explore several ways to make plain, boring, lifeless felt look absolutely amazing. When felt is pieced together with some buttons &/or fabrics, then embellished with a bit of hand stitching, you end up with a unique, one of a kind, inexpensive accent. That’s what I call a recipe for success! This project is one that looks rather complex and complicated (read: like you spent a lot of time making it), but it’s so very simple that I often have my 6 year old joining me to craft some of her very own. It’s another project that I love to tote along during those times when I know we’ll have a wait or even just sitting for a spell to watch some television. LET’S TALK SUPPLIES. Before we get started actually making some flowers, I want to share some insight into the supplies we’ll be using and offer some tips to help keep things organized.

TIP #1: Felt by the Yard. If you aren’t familiar with fabric stores you may not know this, but felt can be found in the general crafting section in pre-cut 8x11 rectangles, AND can also be found on a bolt, just like fabric and can be cut by the yard. Some fabric stores offer a larger variety of color choices by the yard; if you can’t find what you need pre-cut rectangles. TIP #2: Printed Felt. Sure, I know, printed felt looks rather cheesy, but you just might want to add a piece or two to your stash. Trust me? I’ll show you some examples using it later in the tutorial.

TIP #3: Go Stiff. I love to use a mix of pre-stiffened, glittered felt, along with the regular felt to give my projects some added dimension and sparkle. These types usually cost about 10 – 20 cents more, but are worth the extra money, rather than trying to stiffen/glitter them yourself with a fabric stiffener or glitter spray.

TIP #4: Look for Pre-packaged Cut Shapes. If you aren’t concerned about the frugalness of the craft, you can certainly look to pre-packaged product. There are many manufacturers in the industry that make plain, un-embellished felt products. Prima has some really cool options. American Crafts makes them available in various shapes & colors, sold in clear canisters. Making Memories sells them in clear pillow packs. Queen & Company sells intricate felt ribbons. Other companies that sell basic shapes are Heidi Swapp, Jenni Bowlin and KI Memories.

TIP #5: Die-cutting Felt. Oh, YES, you can! For those of you with personal die-cut machines (i.e. Sizzix, Cricut, etc.), give it a try. If you don’t have a personal die-cut machine, turn to your local scrapbook store or even your local library. Most offer use of an Ellison or Accu-cut machine for a minimal charge, and at the library it is FREE. There, they are generally located in the children’s department. Often times, you will find them at the main branch, instead of your smaller suburb locations. TEMPLATES: I’ve included some template pieces at the end of this tutorial—hearts & flowers, but I just wanted to share some other ideas for templates. Your felt pieces surely aren’t limited to just hearts & flowers.

• Use stencils to draw your own template pieces • Use die-cut pieces already in your stash • Use raw chipboard pieces (butterflies, people icons, houses, etc.)

• Use negative space from chipboard die-cuts. As you punch each piece out, you’re left with what is called negative space. This space instantly becomes perfect to trace around for a template piece.

USES FOR FELT ACCENTS:

• Embellish cards/layouts • Attach a bobby pin for a unique hairclip • Attach a pin to wear as a brooch • Gift topper just like the yo-yo flowers • Embellish kid’s clothing • Use with a felt board for homeschooling projects.

Let’s Get to the Making Part! SUPPLIES: Felt Rectangles Embroidery Floss (also known as DMC floss) Needle Buttons Thimble (optional) 1. Gather your supplies. 2. Trace your template pieces onto your felt using an ink pen or fine-tipped marker. 3. Cut out just slightly inside the line so you are cutting away all of the traced markings.

4. Cut a 12” (or more) length of embroidery floss. 5. Knot one end several times and thread the other end through the eye of your needle. Again, when stitching you’ll want to hold the pieces with your non-dominant hand and take control of the needle/thread with your dominant hand. 6. Gather the other pieces you want to layer on top of your felt accent and begin stitching them in place to hold all the pieces together. Bring your thread up through the bottom of your largest piece, through all layers and grab the needle and pull out through the top. 7. At this point you can add your buttons by threading your needle through one of the holes. Do this by threading the needle through the bottom of the button, coming up through the hole and then pushing your needle back down through the other hole, through all layers of felt. My favorite kinds of buttons to use are the kind with the holes hidden on the bottom like this one.

8. Tie 2 or 3 knots on the backside of the felt to hold the button in place. Do this before going any further with decorative stitching. 9. Embellish further with some decorative stitching. You can see the stitching on the photo above. OTHER EXAMPLES:

For this one, I stitched the 3 layers together with a long straight stitch in the cream floss and then I finished it off with a polka-dotted button (Doodlebug) with coordinating orange floss.

This is pretty self-explanatory. I just poked through a handful of brads and a brad-pronged eyelet to spruce up the plain flower.

Remember that cheesy flower printed felt? Here’s an example of it put to use! I simply cut a felt heart using the template pieces, and then added the decorative stitching with orange floss. Then, I cut out two flowers from that pre-printed felt. They were each stitched individually to the heart and embellished with buttons to cover the centers. The blue flower piece is a pre-packaged piece from Prima.

Here’s an example of how simple, yet beautifully handmade these flowers can be. Who knew stacked felt with a button could be so beautiful?

This example shows the stiffened/glittered felt stacked with just one other felt piece and a slew of buttons. When doing this it makes the most impact if you use the same color of floss to sew all the buttons instead of changing the color to match each button. A FEW MORE POINTERS:

• Don’t worry about the messy look of the stitching on the backside of your piece as it doesn’t get seen, and really it is helpful when you want to make it into a hairclip. (Shown below.)

• Use glue dots to hold your finished accents on your projects. • Cut several templates in one sitting making the creative process of layering and

embellishing seem a little less tedious.

• When traveling with your supplies, make use of empty spice jars to store a small supply of buttons. Pack it all together in a pencil supply box.

• Consider wrapping your floss onto embroidery floss cards, or small pieces of chipboard to keep them from becoming a tangling mess. you can even label the cards with the floss number (found on the wrapper) to keep from purchasing duplicate colors next time you shop.

• Trace all template pieces onto chipboard or a recycled cereal box and label them just like we did with the yo-yo tutorial. Keep them all together in one spot for use over and over again.

BONUS TUTORIAL: Turning your embellished felt into a hairclip. SUPPLIES: Headband Bobby Pin Embellished Felt Flower

1. Gather your supplies. 2. Insert a single bobby pin through the messy stitching on the backside of your felt piece.

3. Slide bobby pin onto headband. I prefer to have mine off-center to the right or left.

4. Wear in hair and look super cute!

NOTE: You can also wear these in your hair without a headband. Just clip back some hair with bobby pins, then pin the flower over top of them.