Thursday, January 19, 2012

3D felt hearts

For years I have made the same paper craft around Valentine's Day. It involves cutting heart shapes out of paper and then gluing them together to make 3 dimensional hearts. When I thought about making this particular craft earlier this week I realized I only had red cardstock. I also have made a comittment to myself to buy absolutely nothing I do not need to and knew I would have to find another craft or another method. The alternative became felt. I had felt in pink, white, and red just waiting for me in the craft room so I set out to translate the paper craft in to a felted craft, it was fairly easy.

Here is the finished product:


Start by cutting out 3 felt hearts. They should all be the same color felt- my first prototype had 3 different colors and it did not look good.Next take two of the hearts and se them together along one side.
Notice my stitching isn't even. If you are really concerned about having perfectly even stitching I suggest practicing. Where I am hanging these no one will ever notice.
Now, open up the joined hearts along the middle, take your third heart and attach it to the unsewn edge on only one of the other felt hearts.
You can see how I have pinned it here, I actually pinned each edge before sewing. I did not want to get down to the point and find they were off but if you are experienced with felt it might not be necessary.
There is only one remaining side to sew but first you will need to insert some ribbon. The length of the ribbon is not important, mine was about 22 inches and it was that length because that is what I had sitting in my ribbon supply. :)Place the ribbon down through the top of all three hearts. You want to make sure that when you start to sew your last side, you catch the ribbon with your needle and thread as many times as you need to so it will be securely fastened to the felt hearts. My ribbon was tiny so I went through it twice before using the same thread to sew the final remaining side.
This is a nifty little trick I learned from a sewing class. It is called burying your thread. You push your needle through just one of the sides, pull tightly, and then cut. Then it looks like this:And you are done with one felt three dimensional heart.


The second heart was added on the fly and while I was on the phone so there are no pictures. The only thing that is different is the ribbon comes all the way up through the bottom before being secured at the top of the second heart.

Happy crafting!!!

2 comments:

  1. Love those! I did the paper ones a few years ago and save them to hang every year. I just hung them earlier today from our light fixture in the front room:)

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  2. They are really fun to make. I have been really wanting to create these past few weeks and have been looking at any opportunity to create things out of what I have around here.

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