A few months ago, I shard my take of creating 140 paper roses for my wedding place cards, by hand. They turned out beautiful, and I loved them! But one thing I wish I maybe would have thought about before creating my place card flower garden were different types of flowers. Would tissue paper flowers look pretty? What about felt? And maybe could I make different types of handmade flowers than just roses?
There were so many possibilities, I couldn’t allow myself to think about all of them. “Just be done and move on” I told myself. I had spent enough time on them as it was.
But now that my wedding is over, and I have more free time to craft, I began to think about handmade flowers again. Hmm? I thought it might be time to play with different mediums (besides cardstock) and try out different types of flowers!
And I started my experiment with felt. Felt is relatively cheap, and pretty easy to work with. So I wanted to see if I could recreate my rose, plus a couple other different types of flowers, with felt! Hopefully it would be less time consuming than my paper flowers were, and look just as beautiful!
I know what you must be thinking – why am I creating so many flowers by hand when I could just buy silk flowers at the craft store or – better yet – pick REAL flowers out of my garden to spruce up my home. I’ll tell you why…
Firstly, I think making something from scratch adds a whole new dimension to home decor (especially if you take your time and do it right). Secondly, you can make things from homemade crafts that you’d never be able to even FIND in stores. And when people come over, they notice.
And for example, I found this ADORABLE DIY flower photo booth backdrop made from all homemade flowers:
Incredible, right? Not only are handmade flowers ADORABLE, but you can use them in so many more ways than something that’s been pre-made by customizing them to your exact specifications.
And lastly…not only are homemade goods (done the right way) so much cuter than cookie cuter decorations, but they are also WAYYY less expensive.
Silk flowers are about the same price as real flowers, and can cost you a FORTUNE if you want your florals to last forever. That’s right, by making your own flowers you avoid the retail sticker price and get a beautiful, boho look for wayyy less. Whether it’s the Anthropologie or Pottery Barn look you’re going for, you can achieve it and have it last forever in your home, and not worry about it wilting for your event. Sounds like a winner to me.
Although making things yourself takes time, if you find crafting cathartic, it’s a fun way to spend your time!
Below, I give you 3 different tutorials how to make felt flowers: step by step instructions and all the supplies you’ll need to DIY. One for felt rose buds, one for felt roses, and one for felt daisies. And a special treat how to utilize your your new felt creations 🙂 Hopefully they’ll give you something entertaining to work on during those nights when you’re just staying in and watching TV!
How to Make Felt Flowers: Roses
The Necessary Supplies:
- 1 sheet of felt fabric (9×12″ – any color)
- Hot Glue gun and Glue
- Scissors
- Rose design template and pen for tracing.
Step 1:
- Download the rose flower template here. Print it out directly onto your felt, or cut the pieces out and trace them onto your felt. Then, cut the pieces out of felt.
- Once all the pieces are cut out, put a dot of glue on the side of each piece. Then, connect the sides of each piece together to make each piece into a conical shape (see picture above).
- If you’re having trouble doing this, please see my paper rose tutorial. Follow these exact steps, just with the felt instead of paper.
Step 2:
- Start with the littlest piece, and put a dot of glue on the bottom of the conical felt shape. Then, place it in the center of the second smallest piece. Repeat with each piece, putting a dab of hot glue at the bottom and placing it inside the next largest piece, until you finish with the largest piece.
- TIP: Between each piece – and before putting the dab of glue on – cut the bottom of the felt so it lays flat. The flatter the bottom is, the easier it is to place inside the next piece of felt.
2 steps… is that easy enough for you? DONE AND DONE!
How to Make Felt Flowers: Rose Buds
The Necessary Supplies:
- 1 sheet of felt fabric (9×12″ – any color)
- Hot Glue gun and Glue
- Scissors
- Circular object (such as a CD, DVD, or top of a cup) and pen for tracing.
Step 1:
- Take a round object (preferably an old CD or DVD if you have one lying around) and place it on top of your felt. Trace around the border for as many times as you can fit on one sheet without overlapping.
Step 2:
- Cut out each round felt piece.
- Once each piece is cut out from your tracing, then take each one an cut into the side of one round piece in a spiral motion until you reach the center of the piece. Repeat with each circular piece (cutting them into spirals).
Step 3:
- Finally -to begin the rose bud- take one of your spirals and place a dot of hot glue at the very outer edge of the spiral (where you started your cutting – NOT the center of the spiral). Then, with the glue still hot, start rolling the felt into a tight spiral around itself.
- Keep rolling, and apply a dot of hot glue to the spiral every couple inches or so to keep it from unraveling.
- Once you reach the center, roll the last little bit underneath and onto the bottom of the “rose bud” you’ve just created, and glue it down. Ta da!! All done 🙂
Ok – 3 steps this time. Still, not too shabby.
How to Make Felt Flowers: Daisies
The Necessary Supplies:
- 1 sheet of felt fabric (9×12″ – any color)
- Needle and Thread
- Scissors
- Rose design template and pen for tracing.
Step 1:
- I started here by using the petal design from my rose template. I singled out the solitary rose petal, and duplicated it as many times as I could on a single sheet of felt. Then, I cut out each petal piece, by hand.
Step 2:
- Then, I took one of the petals – folded it in half like a hot dog- and strung my needle and thread through the bottom tip of it.
- I repeated this with 6 more petal pieces, giving me 7 total petals on my thread.
Step 3:
- Next, I took my needle and brought it around and back to the first petal (putting all 7 petals into a full circle) – making sure the bottom tip of the petals were all pointing downward towards the bottom of the circle/flower.
- I continued by threading my needle and thread again through the first petal (along with the remaining 6 petals) just as I had done in step 1. But this time, it was to complete the circle of petals and make sure the thread held them all tightly together.
- Once tight, I made a knot with the thread at the bottom of the flower, and cut the thread off.
Ta da!
What to Craft with Felt Flowers
Now that I had all these beautiful, multicolored felt flowers, I obviously wanted to utilize them for a crafting project. But what did I want to use them for? There are SO, SO many things you can do with pretty homemade flowers (which I’ll eventually go into here on the blog). But today, I decided I wanted to put these flowers together to make a beautiful front door wreath for my house.
If you follow my posts here on Miss Bizi Bee, you already know by now that I am obsessed with sprucing up my home. So this project made complete sense. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to make outdoor decor that could be utilized YEAR ROUND! YAY!
Since putting the wreath on display, I’ve received a ton of compliments (with the exception of my crazy home owners association. And if you live in a home with an HOA, you feel my pain). So although I can’t put the wreath in front of my fence for the world to see, those select few I invite beyond my gate have greatly admired my front door decor.
Making a beautiful door wreath out of felt flowers is much easier, and cheaper, than you would think! And for your crafting pleasure, I’ll tell you how easy it is to DIY yourself – below!
Steps To Create a Felt Flower Wreath
The Necessary Supplies:
- Felt Flowers (supplies and tutorial above)
- Glue Gun and Glue
- 2-3″ Wood Numbers
- Paint (paint color that goes with the color scheme of your felt flowers)
- Paint Brush
- 1/4″ Grosgrain ribbon
- 15-20″ Craft Grapevine Wreath
Step 1:
- First, decide where you’ll want your flowers and numbers positioned on your grapevine wreath.
- Then, take one of your felt flowers, and place a large dolop of glue on the back end. Now, place the end with glue on the part of the grapevine wreath where you want to start your cluster of felt flowers.
- Take a different color/type of flower, and repeat the gluing of the back end. Then place it next to the flower you just glued onto the wreath.
- Continue gluing the flowers to the wreath in a random pattern, until you’ve filled the entire area you want to be covered in flowers.
Step 2:
- Next, take your wood flowers and paint them a color that goes with the color scheme of your flowers.
- Let the numbers dry for at least 3-4 hours (or overnight).
- Once dry, put hot glue on a large area of the back side of each number, and one by one, place your wood numbers where you want them to sit on your grapevine wreath.
Step 3:
- Lastly, take your grosgrain ribbon and fold it in half. Then,place the folded end under the top and back side of your grapevine wreath.
- Bring the bottom, unfolded ends of the ribbon up and through the folded part – to make a slip knot with your ribbon around the top of the wreath.
- Lastly, with the top ends of the ribbon, tie a bow about 4″ above the slip knot (to make room to hang your wreath from a door nail).
And there you have it! A beautiful, custom, year round wreath for your door! Beats spending $50-$80 elsewhere AND it’s way cuter… don’t ya think?
But if this is too time consuming for you (or you just don’t feel like DIYing today) I won’t judge. I never do. That’s why I’ve made my Etsy shop, for people exactly like you. You can find this wreath to buy here. All the cuteness with none of the work – and you can still TELL people you did it yourself. Clever, huh?
But again, hopefully I’ve at least inspired you to try SOME of these DIYs. If so, here’s a quick recap of the things you’ll need to get started:
Felt Roses:
- 1 sheet of felt fabric (9×12″ – any color)
- Hot Glue gun and Glue
- Scissors
- Rose design template and pen for tracing.
Felt Rose Buds:
- 1 sheet of felt fabric (9×12″ – any color)
- Hot Glue gun and Glue
- Scissors
- Circular object (such as a CD, DVD, or top of a cup) and pen for tracing.
Felt Daisies:
- 1 sheet of felt fabric (9×12″ – any color)
- Needle and Thread
- Scissors
- Rose design template and pen for tracing.
Wreath:
- Felt Flowers (supplies and tutorial above)
- Glue Gun and Glue
- 2-3″ Wood Numbers
- Paint (paint color that goes with the color scheme of your felt flowers)
- Paint Brush
- 1/4″ Grosgrain ribbon
- 15-20″ Craft Grapevine Wreath
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