Handmade Gifts 2011: Flower Crown for Audrey
As sported by my two stunt models on a rainy, gloomy day. I’ve seen some really, really beautiful felt flower crowns around the web (like here and esssspecially here), so I’ve been itching to try my hand at one. I didn’t get it exactly right. The red flower is a bit too large, but I didn’t realize this until after I started looking at the photos. I had flower blindness. Too many late nights. Robyn, maybe you could take some judicious trims here and there. But. Overall, I love the colors and variety and I hope a certain purple-loving wood fairy will enjoy it.
There’re about a million online felt flower tutorials at your fingertips if you would like to try something like this. I started with the red flower that is actually from an excellent paper flower tutorial over at A Little Hut. I stiffened the felt with Stiffen Quick. I also used this one for the large purple flower, and then just messed around with what tools I had on hand for the other flower shapes, creating cones with poms in the middle and rosettes like these. It’s really fun to see what kinds of shapes you can come up with. Wool felt is pretty versatile. I love it so.
The base of the crown is two layers of purple grosgrain ribbon that I used to sandwich the smaller maroon grosgrain ties on either end. I attached the flowers and leaves to the ribbon first with fabric glue, then hand stitched them to reinforce.
I hope you all had as wonderful a Christmas as we did. It was lovely. This year we were at home, so that’s always magical when you don’t have to travel and you can sit around your very own sparkly tree on your very own comfy couch and watch your sleepy-eyed kids have a ball. Since it fell on a Sunday this year, we let the girls see what Santa brought when they woke up. (Santa Claus brings one gift for each and it is not wrapped and ready to play with under the tree.) The rest waited until after worship, when we had a tasty brunch and took our time opening each other’s gifts and just enjoying being together. Sigh. It’s always such a letdown when it’s over.
gorgeous !!!
I always hate it when Christmas is over too! I used to cry every year when I was a kid and then I read a (often disputed) Dr. Suess quote that said, "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." Have a wonderful new year.
That flower crown is most awesome, big red flower and all! Those colors are gorgeous.
So, so pretty! I pinned this!
Lovely, lovely, lovely! Not a bit of that "too big" silliness.
What kind of felt did you use???
Hey, y'all. Thanks so much!
Victoria, disputed or no, a very good saying to live by.
Eve, wool blend and wool felt. You can read more about what I use on my FAQ page.
This is beautiful and I can't wait to make one for a special little girl I know!
such an inspiration. have you ever heard of the english series of dryad pamphlets? #128 is felt flowers and it changed my life. if you google it all the images are of my humble efforts in that direction. do everything you can to get yourself a copy of this vintage book. or we could swap, a xerox of mine for your six geese a laying christmas ornament (which i breathlessly await).
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Felt-Flowers-Dryad-Leaflet-No-128-/251525413744
FYI, the story of dryad:
http://gimson.leicester.gov.uk/leicesterdesigners/harry-peach-dryad/dryad-handicrafts/
Hey, Jeannette, thanks for letting me know about Dryad. That's really cool. I hadn't heard of them. I do love making felt flowers and hope to get back to it at some point. Thanks re: six geese a laying. I still need to release #2, 3, 4, and 5 before I tackle that one. 🙂 Have a lovely day!
you too, miss larissa. your work gives me such pleasure.
Why on earth do you send me follow ups when I don't want?!
Mignonnie, sorry you are getting unwanted notifications. I don't send them! Blogger does, automatically. You need to turn off your comment notifications in blogger/google. Have a lovely day.