Paper flowers are all the rage, I know. And I get it; they look elegant and sometimes you can’t even tell they are paper. But I have a toddler who is almost always wet somewhere and a small, damp human doesn’t mix well with fragile paper accessories.
Felt, on the other hand, is a material that I’ve worked with forever and it has almost never disintegrated in the presence of small children (or unpredictable pets or drizzly days.) With Easter coming up, I wanted to make a trio of tiny felt flowers. Easter lilies seemed like the obvious choice for this crafty spring bouquet brooch.
The materials you will need to make your own faux flower cluster are:
– 1 sheet of wool felt in green and white (use yellow or pink felt to make Tiger lilies or Stargazer lilies)
– Embroidery scissors
– Bamboo skewers or tooth picks
– Craft or acrylic paint in yellow and green
– Small paint brush
– Tacky glue
– Green thread
– Clothespins
– Hot glue gun and glue
– Pin backs
– Decorative ribbon
Then you:
Paint the tip (about ½ inch) of your bamboo skewer yellow. Paint the rest of the skewer green. Let the paint dry completely.
Cut one inch by 1 ¼ inch piece of white felt with your scissors. Wrap the felt length-wise around the yellow portion of the wooden skewer. Use the tacky glue to hold the felt in place. Secure the felt with a clothespin or keep it pinched between your fingers while the glue dries. If you are into Peace lilies, stop now. They are way easy to make from felt, but tend to read “funeral” in my opinion.
With your embroidery scissors, snip small, uniform triangles out of the felt so that the flower looks like it has 5 petals.
From your green felt, snip elongated and uniform leaves. You will need about 10 per flower.
Glue 5-6 green leaves around the base of the white felt flower. Cut a 4-inch length of green thread, tie a slipknot in the thread and tighten it around the base of the felt leaves, then wrap the rest of the thread around the base of the leaves, and onto the painted skewer so that the felt tapers smoothly. Rub a dab of glue over the wound thread to hold it in place. Continue making as many or as few flowers as you like.
Use a pair of scissors or sharp kitchen knife to cut the ends of the skewers, then dab the cut ends with a touch of green paint. Allow the paint to dry.
Group the flowers together and tie a small length of decorative ribbon around them. Use glue to hold the ribbon in place if you wish. Attach the pin back with your hot glue gun.
To create the spray of anthers within an Easter lily, take that sharp knife you used earlier, and carefully pierce the painted skewer end twice, then gently pull the wood so that it splays out. This step may seem risky, but being married to a botanist and having a green thumb myself, I was really bothered that my Easter lily had what looked like a single spadix (like that of a Peace lily)!
Am I exposing my crazy too much? Oh well! Happy felt Easter lily crafting. All of your botanist friends will appreciate the care you took in making these!
