3 Things to Make With Felt Flowers

Regular readers of my blog will know that I love coming up with project variations: ways you can change, adapt and make the best possible use of craft tutorials. "Why use a tutorial to make one thing when you could use it to make a whole bunch of things?" is pretty much my crafty motto.

So today I thought it would be fun to share three things I've made using my felt poppy pattern - I think they look fab with the poppies, but the ideas would work with many felt flower tutorials. You'll find several free flower patterns in my tutorial archive, and I'm also sharing a free flower pattern with my newsletter subscribers this month!

1. Use Them to Make Bracelets.

You can of course use felt flowers to make brooches, headbands and hairclips (in fact, she said in her best salesperson voice, my poppies tutorial shows you how to do just that!)... but have you thought about using them to make bracelets?

Felt flower bracelets are super pretty, especially for summer and for wearing to parties. They're really easy to make and you don't need any fancy jewellery-making equipment, just a bit of narrow elastic!

When you've sewn your felt flower, cut two lengths of elastic to comfortably fit around your wrist. Sew the ends of the elastic to the back of the flower to create the bracelet loop, then cover the sewn ends neatly with a piece of felt. For the poppies I used a piece of felt the same shape as the whole flower to back it neatly and hide all my stitching, but for other flower designs - like these, or the flowers I'm sharing with this month's newsletter - you can just use a circle of felt.

Here are some small poppy bracelets I once made as a custom order for a wedding - each member of the bridal party wore one, and the colours were chosen to match their dresses!

2. Sew Them Onto Stuff.

Okay so this one sounds a bit obvious, but it is my absolute favourite way to make full use of a flower tutorial. You can use felt flowers to decorate store-bought things like purses or cushion covers (or make those things yourself, of course!), or to make little practical gifts like these lavender sachets.

There are lots of people in my life who I'd never sew a flower brooch for as a gift because that's just not their style, but something small decorated with flowers? Sure!

When I was a teenager lavender sachets felt a but fusty and old-fashioned, but with the recent rise of the dreaded clothes moth they've become a thoughtful and useful gift again. They're super simple to make - you'll find instructions for making them from felt in my tutorial archive but they're also great projects for using up small bits of leftover fabric.

Small felt flowers like ones from my primroses and auriculas pattern look great sewn together in clusters on things like pincushions...

... and for 3D flower patterns why not use them to make fabulous flower crowns, decorate a yarn-wrapped wreath, or stitch them to fabric framed in an embroidery hoop to make a bit of floral wall art?


3. Make Them From Paper Instead of Felt. 

This variation won't work with all felt flower patterns, but it's perfect for flowers with a 2D design. Cut the pattern pieces from colourful paper or card and use a pen to draw on any details you would have added with embroidery, beads, etc.

Turn the pattern pieces upside down and trace around them with a pencil or pen onto the back of your chosen paper/card. Once you've cut out the shapes and turned them over, any remaining line marks will be hidden. If you want to make lots of paper flowers, draw or glue the pattern pieces onto some sturdy card (e.g. from an empty cereal box) to create templates you can quickly draw around again and again.

You can use paper flowers to decorate so many things! They're perfect for making cards, of course, but you could also use them for scrapbooking, for making art and decorations, embellishing paper bunting triangles for a wedding or summer party... there are so many possibilities! Enlarge or shrink the pattern pieces to best suit your project idea and let your creativity run riot.

Visit my shop for printable patterns, including my felt poppies tutorial!

 

For lots of free crafty project ideas and step-by-step tutorials, check out my tutorial archive.

Bags and Bags of Lavender

I finished my first Use It or Lose It project!

Lots and lots and lots of lavender bags:

 

That's not even all of them - I had so much dried lavender to use up I made a massive 29 sachets!

Lots of happy hours of hand stitching later I've got lots of scented goodness to add to our wardrobes and chests of drawers to keep them smelling fresh and help deter those pesky clothes-nibbling moths.

In a bit of magical de-stashing coincidence, I had exactly the right amount of that moth and butterfly print fabric to use up all the lavender. Hurrah!

 

I've just got a few small scraps of the fabric left now, plus a pile of these thin strips...

... which I am totally planning to use in another de-stash-y project soon.

Use It or Lose It: A Crafty Challenge for 2015

I've been doing lots of decluttering this year and I've found that one of the hardest things for me to clear out is the stash of random crafty stuff I've kept because "I might be able to make something with that sometime!"

So I've decided that in 2015 I need to either get on and actually make stuff with the supplies in my stash, or admit to myself that I'm never going to use them for anything and just get rid of them.

This will be a slow, ongoing process but I'm hoping to have lots of crafty fun along the way and (fingers crossed) a lot more space in my studio at the end of the year. I'm rather looking forward to the creative challenge of coming up with projects to make with my long-hoarded supplies and I will, of course, be blogging about my progress!

Thanks to taking some time off over Christmas, I've already made a start on my first de-stashing project: making lots of lavender bags.

I'd been keeping two huge bags of dried lavender (harvested from my mother's garden) which was waaaay more lavender than I thought I'd ever need but so lovely and scented and potentially useful that I'd not been able to bring myself to just (gasp!) throw it away.

So when my sister mentioned this Christmas that something she owned had been nibbled by moths, I offered to make her a big batch of lavender sachets to help keep the pesky creatures at bay. It's been a while since I made some lavender sachets to proect my own wardrobe so I'll also be making some for myself.

I'd planned on using some scrappy fabric like an old pillowcase to make the sachets. However, looking through my fabric stash I found an old dress my sister had made many many years ago and then given to me in case I wanted to use the fabric for something...

... it's been sitting untouched for about ten years, it belonged to the sister for whom I'm sewing the lavender sachets, and the print is a pattern of butterflies and moths. Perfect!

As well as using up some long-forgotten-about fabric and a big stash of dried lavender, I'm also using some odds and ends of ribbons (mostly the sort of loops I'd cut out of new dresses and kept because "they might be useful for making something!") to add to the smaller sachets so they can be hung on coathangers.

Three de-stashed birds with one crafty stone = an excellent start to the challenge!

How To: Butterfly Silhouette Lavender Sachets

It's time for a tutorial: make some simple but stylish felt lavender sachets decorated with butterflies.

 

Lavender sachets are one of those things that used to feel super old fashioned but have started to be popular again - not least because the pesky clothes moth is on the rise! (Boooooo).

They make lovely little gifts and if you're just learning to sew, making these is a great way to practise running stitch and blanket stitch.

You will need:

The butterfly template found here, printed at 50%
A square template, 3 x 3 inches (7.5 x 7.5 cm)
Felt in two colours
Thread to match your butterfly colour
Dried lavender
A needle & pins
Sewing scissors (embroidery scissors are ideal for cutting out detailed shapes like the butterfly)

1. For each sachet, cut out two felt squares and one butterfly shape in a contrasting colour.

2. Pin the butterfly in the centre of one of the squares, and sew it in place with small running stitches in matching sewing thread.

Your butterfly will now look something like this.

If you want you could add the butterfly body shape included on the template or decorate the butterfly like these butterfly brooches, with sequins or embroidery, but for these sachets I'm keeping things simple.

3. Place or pin the two squares together and sew around the edge with blanket stitch - make sure your stitches are quite close together so there won't be holes for the lavender to escape from, and leave a gap for stuffing the sachet in the next step. 

I used the same thread as before, so the stitching stands out as an extra decorative feature. If you prefer you could use matching sewing thread so your stitches will blend in with the felt.

4. Fill the sachet with dried lavender. I use a small teaspoon for this (I have one that I keep in my craft stash so it only ever gets used for crafty things), spooning the lavender from a small tub or tray like an empty margarine tub. Use the handle end of your spoon to gently poke the lavender into the corners, and don't overfill the sachet. 

5. Sew up the gap with more blanket stitches and finish your stitching neatly at the back. Your finished sachet will now look something like this:

If you prefer, you could use whip stitch to sew your butterfly in place - like the butterfly on the right in this photo - but I like how the butterfly shape stands out more from the backing felt when you use running stitch.

 

These are so quick and fun to sew, you can make a whole batch in no time. Matching pairs of sachets (like the reverse-coloured pairs I've sewn) would make a lovely gift, tied together with pretty ribbon.

This tutorial is for non commercial use only: you can use it to make as many lavender sachets as you want for yourself or as gifts, but please don't make any for sale. You may borrow a couple of photos if you want to blog about this project, but remember to credit me and link back to this page on my blog, and do not reproduce my entire tutorial / share my templates on your site. Thanks!

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DIY Stocking Stuffers

Looking for some quick and easy gifts to sew as stocking stuffers or small gifts for friends & family this Christmas?

Here are a few tutorials from my blog archive which might fit the bill...

Butterfly brooches decorated with buttons. You could make these in your friends' favourite colours, or use lots of shades of brown felt to make a moth instead of a butterfly. They'd also look super cute sewn onto a hair clip or an elasticated headband, and you could decorate the butterflies with sparkly sequins, beads or stitch a design with embroidery thread onto the wings instead of adding buttons.

A cute owl brooch. These are really quick and easy to sew, and everyone loves owls, right? Like the butterflies, this owl would also make a sweet hair clip or you could add a little loop of ribbon to make a sweet woodland-themed Christmas ornament.

Easy felt flower hair clips. These are a great beginner sewing project, and perfect if you need to whip up a little gift in a hurry! I used kirby grips / hair pins but you could also sew the flowers onto snap clips... and they'd look great with some sparkly seed beads sewn in the centre. You can make them look extra fancy by cutting a couple of slits in pieces of scrap card to make little display cards for the flowers (like the ones you get at the jewellery store).

A felt flower brooch. As with the butterflies, you could sew your flower onto an elasticated headband instead of adding a brooch clasp (great for teen girls!). This tutorial includes templates for sewing the brooch pictured, but is also a helpful beginners guide to designing and making your own brooches so you can get creative and make lots of different felt flowers if you want!

Teabag shaped lavender sachets. If you've got any dried lavender harvested from your garden this year, or can get hold of some from your local craft store these lavender sachets are a very fun gift for a tea lover. Lavender is a great natural moth deterrent, so lavender sachets make fab gifts for friends with pretty woollens in their wardrobes!

More lavender sachets... the little house sachets would also make sweet door hanger decorations, and the square sachets could become pincushions if you stuffed them with polyester stuffing or felt/fabric scraps instead of lavender.

I backed my little houses with cute house print fabric, but you could use fabric from your stash or felt instead. They'd make very sweet gifts for people celebrating their first Christmas in a new home, and you could personalise them by stitching their initials into the back of the ornament.

The square sachets are very easy to sew and a great way to use up scraps of ribbon or odd buttons leftover from other projects. You could also personalise them by embroidering an initial into the centre of the heart. I made a big batch of these sachets as gifts for friends and neighbours one Christmas, it was a huge amount of fun mixing & matching colours and making each one slightly different.

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Want some more ideas? You can find more projects on my crafty tutorials page.

Bits and bobs

This week I have been...

... sorting out receipts for my tax return, and swearing that this year I won't just stick them all in a box and forget about them, but will do my best to organise them each month. Ditto doing my accounts at the end of each month instead of once a year. (Chances of this actually happening: slim to none).


... sewing some more lavender sachets, this time from an old blue & white striped pillowcase. Love those stripes.


... preparing for, hosting, and then tidying up after an "open house" we had for friends & neighbours to celebrate the launch of my book, Super-Cute Felt. It was a very lovely evening!

I didn't take many photos but I did get a couple of snaps of the pretty napkins (teacups, yum) and a rather blurry shot of a stack of copies of my book.


I've also nearly finished my giant granny square blanket - hurrah!

I took a break from crocheting the blanket over the warmer summer months as it was too hot to sit with it over my knees as I worked on it. I've just got the last few rounds left now, and then I'll sew in all the ends, and take some pictures of it to share with you all.

Because of the irregular pattern I was using for the blanket, I've used up almost all the yarn I bought in some of the colours, and much less of others. I've added the leftover yarn to my stash of random colours to be knitted into blanket squares.


My evenings this autumn will be filled with yarn!

Simple Sewing

Thanks to some pesky moths, one of my woolly sweaters now has a row of little holes in it! Very annoying.

Luckily it was the only woollen garment being stored in that particular cupboard, but in case the moths decide to go hunting for more delicious knitwear to nibble on I've been speedily sewing a stash of lavender sachets to keep them at bay.


Dried lavender from my mother's garden + some bits of old pillowcases found in my scrap box + a few hours watching old movies = lots of simple sachets to stick in cupboards, drawers and suitcases under the bed. I've also sewn a couple with ribbon loops attached so I can hang them in my wardrobe.

They're very plain and functional but I quite like them that way, possibly because it's really satisfying using up old scraps like this (waste not, want not, right?), or perhaps just because they're so different to the normal colourful things I sew.