Hi everyone!
Today’s project covers two things I’ve been wanting to do for a while and just never seemed to find the time: (1) framing my black and white photo of Riley and (2) using dies to make flowers out of felt.
I am so, so, happy with how this project turned out – and it was so easy, too!
I used the new Susan Tierney-Cockburn Garden Roses dies from Spellbinders to cut the flowers and the leaves out of felt. There’s absolutely nothing special about this felt – it is regular felt you can find in pretty much any craft store. I have a link to some from Amazon in the Supplies list below if you are interested.
It took me a few tries to get my die cutting sandwich right to get a clean cut on the felt. I ended up needing to use my metal shim and one cardstock shim. Adding the shims gave me a clean cut without any of the fuzzy edges that felt is known for.
I used a pale blue felt for the flowers, but I did add a bit of darker blue dye ink to toward the middle and on the smaller petals using sponge daubers. When adding color to the felt, you’ll want to dab the ink and not swipe it or the daubers will pull on the felt fibers and you’ll get fuzziness on your petals.
My leaves were cut using a soft cream and dark green felt.
I formed the flowers with my fingers by folding the petals and making creases toward the bottom of each petal. I was a bit surprised that the felt maintained the form!
To get the overall shape of the full flower, I glued each layer with hot glue while pushing them down into an egg carton and holding them there for a few seconds until the glue had a chance to set. Once all the petals were glued and the glue was dry, I took each flower out of the carton, adjusted the petals, and added more glue if needed.
I added a dark gray felt to the inside of the shadow box and centered my picture of Riley in the middle.
I arranged and adhered the flowers and leaves to each other and then tucked in tiny shadow box pins to hold the flowers and the photo in place.
I love making projects like this because they have a deeply personal meaning. It just melts my heart whenever I look at it.
I hope you enjoyed this project and that it inspires you to create something special for yourself.
Have a wonderfully creative day!
Riley is such a sweet pup. I love the idea of felt flowers. They are so soft. Thanks for putting link in the supplies so I can purchase some on Amazon.com