the joys of felt

i've never worked with felt but it is EVERYWHERE on pinterest. everyone is creating quiet books, busy bags, and other projects with felt. the concept that it can be a "no-sew" project because felt won't fray made me think that felt and i could be friends. i saw this project on pinterest and thought it would be fun for ben. i went to the fabric store and bought 0.8m of green felt for a horribly expensive price. this tree better last us at least 10 years. haha. then i went to michaels and bought a few 8x10 sheets of felt for .49 each.

last night, tim was out, the kids were in bed (!), and there was nothing on tv. i spent some time pinning potential projects to my pinterest boards and then thought, "i should be MAKING something instead of just reading about making something." i dug out my very dull scissors, my felt pieces, and started brainstorming some ideas for ornaments. the blog on which i found this project just uses a few coloured balls and a oblong shaped ornament that i tried to replicate but it just looked silly. i got out my cookie cutters and used them to trace some shapes - this was more of a trial and error process because they were small cutters and i wanted bigger shapes. i would paper clip the paper shape onto the felt and cut around it. once it was done, i pulled the clip and paper off and trimmed any edges that didn't look right.

two and a half HOURS later (eep!), i had two candy canes, two gingerbread men, and 3 balls with a star, tree, and the letter B on them. i got so sick of tracing shapes onto paper, cutting those, then putting them onto felt so i just freehanded the letter B - much faster! tonight, i plan to make a few more ornaments and cut out the tree.

i bought one sheet of white felt that had a sticky back on it so i could see how that would work - that's how i made the candy canes. i'd buy it again, though i don't know how well it will stay stuck if a kiddo wanted to pull it apart. for the other two-piece ornaments, i have Heat-N-Bond which apparently sticks to the back and then you iron it to make it fuse. will let you know how it goes.

dull scissors are not the best tool for working with felt. neither are small cookie cutters. i feel these two things directly affected my finish time. i'm apprehensive about cutting my big tree so i'll be borrowing my m-i-l's fabric scissors. however, FELT rocks. it's the greatest! i've found all these other projects on pinterest and thought of some of my own that i can make with felt and can't wait to do so! i may need to invest in good scissors though!