Felt hearts

A while back I opened an account with Pinterest - be warned though, it can take over your life!  Somehow or other I saw some felt Christmas decorations and then after putting 'felt' into the search box - WOW! I was gobsmacked at the gorgeous things I was seeing.  Some of my favourites I've added to my 'Felt and Fabric Inspiration' board here.  When I was a little girl I was given a needle book made from felt and over the years it has sadly started to fall apart, so I will try to make a new one soon.  In the mean time I saw lots of pretty heart decorations and with my growing collection of dies thought it would be an excuse to start a new craft without too much expense .. .. after all, if I have the dies all I need is a scrap of felt, right? And those boxes of beads and buttons that are gathering dust really need to be used up .. .. ..

I made a couple of star and tree decorations last Christmas, my first attempt, and made the red heart too, but finished it off today with the decoration on the reverse.

My attempts at blanket stitching around the edges looked awful so I've just used a stab stitch with embroidery threads, made loops from ribbon, and a tiny button to tidy up the back of the pink heart.

It doesn't show up in the pictures, but the white felt on the reverse and the front of my red heart is actually glittered felt so catches the light.

The hearts are cut with Marianne Design die CR1225 and to decorate the red heart I've added a little fancy heart button and red ribbon bow. I found that a good thick 'tacky' pva glue will hold things in place, so it helps to add a little before you start stitching the layers together, and to stick on the embellishments.

And this is the heart I've made today. Cut with the same Marianne Design heart dies, then to embellish the front I've cut the flower and mistletoe leaves from LR0189 and added the little pearl beads.  I did have difficulty with the stems of the mistletoe as they tended to break - I think I need to get firmer felt, mine is quite thin.

Well what do you think?  I forgot to say they are both padded with wadding so are nice and squishy.  Any 'solid' die would work, I think, but any with too much detail might disintegrate.  I am going to try cutting and layering up some flowers next, ready for my new needle book.




I'm still not able to get at my stamping and Copics so you might see a few other craft items from me in the coming days/weeks.  In the mean time I am sure I can loose several more hours browsing Pinterest for more felt inspiration!