needle felting projects

Needlefelt your Christmas Ornaments

December 15, 2018

If you’ve already had a go at needlefelting, you might like to try producing some needlefelted ornaments for Christmas. With this type of project, you can enjoy making the items in the run up to Christmas, or perhaps tackle them over the festive holiday when you are really feeling Christmassy. Either way, you will end up with some lovely things to go in your box of Christmas decorations to be brought out year after year. If you haven’t tried needle felting before, our Needlefelting Projects for Beginners will give you an introduction to this fascinating and increasingly popular craft.

It’s all very well making yummy cakes or biscuits but, strange to say, these tend to get eaten and aren’t around for the long term. There’s a great deal of satisfaction to be gained from making your own festive decorations and trimming the tree with personal, rather than commercial ornaments.

If you would like to make a bauble for your tree (or anywhere around the house) that’s really easy to do and, in my view, extremely effective, then I recommend you take a look at this tutorial below. To be honest, there’s not a huge amount of needlefelting needed so it’s ideal for anyone starting out in this craft. You will need a polystyrene ball as your base, then some wool roving of whichever colour takes your fancy or fits your decorative theme (we like this Christmas assortment). A good needlefelting tool is also required along with standard items such as scissors, glue and pins. And some sequin trim to add the sparkle!

This video takes fewer than 3 minutes to watch so isn’t going to eat into your day. And once you’ve got the basic idea, it would be pretty simple to add extra bling with more sequins, glitter or whatever takes your fancy.

This next video runs to just under 5 minutes and shows you how to make simple, needlefelted Christmas trees. These are pretty straightforward to make so are very suitable for the complete novice. Or, being pretty quick to make, you can produce several of these to hang on your tree or even add to a garland or wreath for extra texture. And, of course, you don’t have to use “traditional” Christmas tree colours: you could jazz them up to match your decorative scheme.

I hope you take inspiration from these ideas for needlefelting your own Christmas decorations. There’s a lot of scope here, to choose your own colours (so can match a decorative scheme), or to add embellishments at a level anywhere from subtle to extreme bling! And then you can use them on Christmas trees, add to wreaths, garlands or just put on the mantelpiece or the dinner Christmas table. These would also make great gifts with that personal touch: Christmas stocking fillers, presents for colleagues and even ideal for school Christmas fairs.

Do share with us here at Crafty Bug pictures of your own creations. We would also love to hear how you have used them in your preparation and decorations for Christmas.

A Spooky Needle Felting Project for Halloween

October 13, 2017

Now that you’ve started using your newly acquired needle felting skills, you could try putting them to use to make a creation for Halloween! I spotted this “How to Make a Halloween Felted Skull” project recently and wanted to share it with you as it’s needle felting with a difference. This project is ideal for beginners but does give you a rather specialist outcome at the end. A great way to get kids crafting and interested in learning needle felting all in one fell swoop!

You Will Need

Polystyrene skull
Clover pen style needle felting tool for three needles
Pack of fine clover felting needles
Needle felting pad
2 x white roving
1 black roving
1 bright pink roving
1 turquoise roving
Ball of black wool yarn (not acrylic, tapestry wool would work fine)
Ball of bright green wool yarn (not acrylic, tapestry wool would work fine)
Project Templates (pdf)
– right click on the link and choose “Save Link As” to download the template to your computer – it downloads direct from the Hobbycraft website.

How to Make

Pull off tufts of the white wool roving and lay them over the polystyrene skull. Use the pink Clover tool to stab the wool so that it adheres to the polystyrene base. You’ll need to use enough wool to cover the whole skull hiding the polystyrene underneath. Ensure there are no loose bits of wool as this will create a solid base for the rest of your wonderful creation.

Needle Felting the Eyes and Nose

Lay a small amount of bright pink roving over the eye socket, use your finger to push the centre of the wool to the back of the socket and fold in the edges and use the pink tool to stab into position.

Work all the way round the inside of the socket. Add some semi-circles (from sheet of templates) to add the petal shapes to the outside of the sockets.

Take one end of the black yarn and one single felting needle. Outline the flower eyes. Only cut the yarn when you have outlined the eyes and got back to your start point. Use the pink Clover tool to stab over the whole surface of the eyes to ensure it’s well and truly secured.

Use the black yarn to outline the shape of the nose, so that it looks like an elongated upside down heart.

Pull off a small tuft of black roving, lay it over the outline of the nose and stab it into place, folding it back on itself where necessary.

I decided at this stage to create some black centres to my pink flower eyes with the black wool roving, in order to give them a bit more depth.

Needle Felting the Teeth

Draw a line with your yarn through the centre of the teeth, using the single felting needle to tack it into place.

Starting from the corner of the mouth use the yarn to draw ten semi-circles, keeping them approximately the same width but getting slightly longer as you reach the two front teeth. The bottom teeth are easier because you’ll already have the shape and width of the top row to use as a guide.

Making a Sheet of Pre-Felt

Make a sheet of pre-felt for cutting out shapes to add as decoration to your skull. Lay out some wool roving across your needle-felting pad (in one direction and not too thick), layer more roving across the top at 90 degrees. Ensure there are no visible gaps and stab it all over with the Clover tool. Every now and then carefully peel the pre-felt from the pad, turn it over and continue stabbing from the other side. Hold it up to the light and if you see any thin patches just add more roving. Eventually you will have created a sheet that is strong and which you can cut shapes from.

Make a sheet of pink and a sheet of turquoise for the following steps.

Decorative Flowers and Petals

Use the pink pre-felt to cut out the large flower shape and four teardrop shapes (see templates) Use the turquoise pre-felt to cut six tear-drop shapes.

Place the large flower over the centre-top of the skull and use the Clover tool to stab it in place securely. Outline it with the green yarn and bundle up a little of the turquoise roving and stab into the centre of the flower.

Arrange and stab the tear-drops into a symmetrical pattern. Outline them with the green yarn and add a few spirals! Be as creative as you like – the brighter and more colourful the better!

Original article can be found here.

Needle Felting Projects for Beginners

October 9, 2017

Having got the idea of how to do needle felting, it’s time to make a start on some easy, straightforward projects. Actually get to grips with the craft and make your first felted item. Once you’ve started producing your own items, you’ll soon get inspired to make your own designs but meanwhile to help you gain confidence and experience, we’ve put together some easy projects to help get you going.

Here’s a short tutorial showing you how to make a needle felted mushroom. It guides you through every step, demonstrating how to work the wool. As the tutorial is in video format, you can easily press the “pause” button if you want to work your own mushroom at the same time and not get left behind. I can just picture a group of these little fellas mixed into a bowl of decorative dried seed heads for an attractive autumn feel.

Needle Felting Kits

One really easy way to get started on a project is to buy a needle felting kit. This not only gives you everything you need to complete the task: the wool, felting needle, felting mat, embroidery needle and thread but easy to follow, step by step instructions.

We’ve spotted a needle felting kit for making this rather cute hedgehog and think this would be a great way to get going with your new craft. If you are interested in having a go at this yourself, you can buy the kit here.

The completed hedgehog measures 6.5 x 6.5 cms and will take around 4 hours to make.

This next video shows you how to make some really pretty little needle felted flowers. It’s just under 7 minutes’ long so doesn’t take up too much time to watch. The trick here is to use mini cookie cutters to create the basic flower shape. If you don’t already have any suitable cutters in your baking drawer, then try these star shaped cutters from Amazon which should do the trick nicely.

Once you’ve got the basics of felting these mini flowers, I’m sure you can find a myriad of uses for them! They would make a really great addition to a beautifully wrapped gift – I can just see them as embellishments, perhaps in bright spring colours, for an Easter gift, for example. Or how about using them on your homemade birthday cards? A glass bowl filled with these flowers in a mixture of shapes would really liven up a coffee table or sideboard. If you have a go at making these little flowers, do get in touch and share your photos of how you’ve used them in your finished projects.