Friday 1 August 2014

How to Make Felt Flowers | Poppies


Happy August! [August – how?!]
To start the month off, I have a flower DIY that is versatile and easily adapted to any colour scheme or material of your choice.  If you are terrible at keeping the real thing alive, here’s a fab alternative for decorating your home, accessories and décor with flowers.


What I Used:
Felt
Circle Template
Needle / Thread / Scissors

Post Note: sorry for the bits of felt fluff and stuff in all the photos - I know you didn't come here for
 my [lack of] Photoshop abilities........

The base of this DIY starts with a simple circle – very much adapted from this technique [another
easy way to create simple, but quick flower embellishments].  I used a coaster as my template -
but you don't need to worry too much about having a precise, curved outline:
Instead of cutting into the circle and following the curve in a spiral, I cut into the circle in wave/petal cuts:
Following the circle round to the center:
Once completed, start rolling the spiral from the middle to the outside – overlap the cut petals as you go 
round to create a layered effect – you can either glue this all in place at the end or as you go:
[I used hot glue in the interest of time, but fabric/strong glue or needle and thread would secure this too.]
Leave to dry – and these could be left as small flowers, however; I’m adding some larger petals to 
create a slightly fuller effect:
For detail and decoration, I created a simple tassel for the center of the flower.  
Taking a 2cm wide length of felt, I cut into the felt, just short of the bottom edge, securing a length 
of thread at one end before rolling the felt and then securing in place with a tight knot at the bottom:
To secure to the center of the flower, I added hot glue and left to dry.  
Once dried, the tassel could then be opened and made to look a little less structured:
To finish the flower [/poppy], I cut 6 petals freehand, only around 2cm taller than the base flower and approximately the length of half the circumference, creating wide, curved petals:
These can then be fixed at the base and curved round to create petals as closed or open as you want the finished look to be.  The benefit of felt is that it can be molded into shape and it will hold:
Detail can also be added by gluing the bottom center of the petals to create folds that will vary the
 shape of the flower and overall look:
….continue overlapping the petals around the outside of the base:
[You can build the outside petals up as much as you want – this DIY can be adapted to create small 
or large flowers – until you are happy with the finished look.]
…and there you have it, a simple flower, created in minutes [thanks to hot glue]:
This DIY can be adapted with any material – paper, cardboard, tissue paper, fabric and [a post coming soon] crepe paper – give it a try and see how different effects can be made using the same technique.

Have a brilliant weekend and see you next time x
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2 comments

  1. Love these poppies! Here in Australia poppies are associated with Anzac Day and last year I searched online heaps to find a good tutorial for making some. I'm pinning this one so I can find it next year!

    ReplyDelete

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