Cute Felt Anniversary Card!

Here is an easy tutorial on how to make physical felt cards for your loved ones, for any occasion! 

You can hang it on a wall, and it would make an adorable addition to any room. 

December 7th was Dave and I's 7th anniversary!  I was 15 when we got together, and he was 16.  He's the best thing that has ever happened to me! 

Our mutual favorite animal [or one of our favorites] is the manatee.  They have no natural enemies and our quite fast.  They also are very intelligent.  

You will need:

• A lot of different kinds of felt, mostly bits and pieces, with one to two solid pieces for a background
• Glue, hot glue or fabric/tacky glue
• Paint or puff paint for details

All in all this card will end up being $3 to $4

I looked up some different cartoon manatees to get a basic shape.

I needed pieces of gray for the manatees themselves.

I chose to use a pretty blue for the background color. I glued two sheets together to make them more sturdy.

I chose to use felt in the color "Silver Grey" for my manatees.

I traced a basic shape onto the felt.

Here it is with my hand for sizing purposes.  I realized that it looks quite small on its own, but they are actually larger.

I then cut out the manatee from the sheet of felt with some fabric scissors.  

I decided to make the marked side of the manatee the back side.  I needed two manatees cut.

I then traced it right side up, to make two different facing manatees.

I cut out little fins similar to the shape and size of my tracing.  I think they are just adorable.

Here is a close up of the manatees.  I made them hold hands! Then I cut out a little mouth for the manatees.

I made the girl manatee, the one on the right side, have a smaller mouth than the male manatee.

This is what they look like with both their mouths, a little zoomed out.  

I decided to make the girl manatee look a little girlier and cut out two hearts and a circle out of pink felt.  I put the points of the heart together, and put the circle on top of the points.  I often fuss over the shape of bows, but thought this was simple and cute, and fitting, as well.

Oh, I just think they are so cute! I used hot glue to affix all these pieces, but you could use fabric or tacky glue as well.

You can see that they are hearts and a circle in this picture.  

Then I decided to add pennant flags to the top.  I cut out 16 triangles and glued them to the top.  Five for happy and eleven for anniversary.  

I overlapped them a bit, as shown in this picture.  I wrote "happy anniversary" in puff paint on them, but I do not have a picture of it yet.  

Then I started making food items for the side, to make it a true manatee party.  I cut a tan circle out, as well as a smaller yellow circle, and five little red circles.  This, is a half pepperoni, half cheese pizza.  I made this because I am vegetarian and Dave and I always make our pizzas like this.

Then I decided to make a cheese quesadilla.  I cut a cream circle and a yellow half circle.  

I folded the cream circle over the yellow circle and glued it all down.

After cutting out the red circles, I noticed that a perfect little bow tie had been made.  I decided it was perfect for DaveO manatee. :]

Here is a little cupcake I made, with a cherry on top.

These are the broken down parts of the cupcake.

I then decided to make a burrito, after our love of Chipotle. 

Here is what my card looked like at this point. 

I folded in two sides of the circle, and rolled it up, then glued it down.

This is what it looked like finished. 

I then glued that down.  

This picture may be more clear.

I then added little puff paint eyes for the manatees, where they were shown in my tracing.  I don't have a picture of them after I put them on, but I will put one up soon!

There are all kinds of details and options in making felt cards like this.

Thanks so much for reading!

♥Riley

P.S.  I'd love to see your interpretations! :]

Simplest Tutorial Ever! Felt Snowman!

Here is the felt snowman I made and put on my ugly Christmas vest!

This will be the easiest and shortest tutorial I ever make!

For this craft I used:

• One piece white felt, 25-33 cents depending on your local craft store
• Tiny bit of black felt, 25-33 cents
• Little piece of orange felt, 25-33 cents
• Glue
• Scissors

You could also use black and orange paint, instead of felt.

The total for this craft is 75 cents to $1, or 25 to 33 cents if you use paint.

 You need three circle or oval shapes for the body, two large black circles for eyes, and a carrot nose.  I then used four tiny black circles for a mouth and three different sized black circles for his buttons.  

I considered making a hat for him, but loved him too much without it.  

Glue them all together! I used tacky glue and put the white circles together first.  Then I put him under a couple of books overnight to let him stick together right.  

See? Quickest and easiest craft ever!

♥ Riley

P.S.  I'd love to see your interpretation of this craft if you made one! Please send me them to look at :]

Felt Christmas Tree Decorations!

I recently passed the 1,000 pageview mark! :]  This is extremely exciting!
Thank you all for your support and interest, and remember to subscribe! :) 

For today's craft, I'm feeling Christmassy!  I've decided that I want to make some ugly Christmas sweaters/vests this year and thought I'd get started! Btw, when I say "ugly" I mean "tacky".  I love the overdecorated! 

Anyways, I thought I'd start the holidays off with a felt Christmas tree! It would be perfect for an addition to a sweater or a vest, or even on it's own, hanging on a wall! 

You will need:

• A sheet of a light colored felt, 25-33 cents at local craft stores
• A sheet of a dark colored felt, 25-33 cents at local craft stores
• Hot glue, tacky glue, or fabric glue
• Scissors
• Pen, or something to mark with

All in all, this craft will probably cost less than $1 if you have some craft supplies in your home.

You can make your tree parts any shape, but I chose to do this sort of wonky shape.  I think it's really cute.

Then I just placed my first wonky shape on to another piece of felt and outlined what I wanted it to look like.

Leave enough space on the top to glue it to the next piece.  I chose to use alternating colors, but you could use the same color or all different colors!  I thought it might be cute to use some white felt, to look like snow!

Keep repeating these steps until you have the desired size of your Christmas tree!

This is what mine looked like after I had all the parts together.  Ignore my dog in the background...

I also contemplated making it look even more wonky by making the levels look more topsy-turvy.

This is what the back looked like after I had started gluing.  I made little arrows to show where they would come together, but that's totally optional.  I tried using fabric glue but found it to be utterly useless with the felt.  I ended up using tacky glue and put heavy books on top of them.  If I were to do this craft again I would choose to use hot glue.  It seems to be very effective with felt.

This is all I had used of the two pieces of felt when I was done.

This was what my finished tree looks like! On my leg to show size.  I love my little tree.  You can decorate them any way you want to! I chose to leave it like this and glue it to my vest.

Let me know if you ended up doing this craft! I'd love to see your interpretation.

♥ Riley

P.S. Sorry for how late this post is, I have been very sick.

Felt Christmas Present Envelopes! $1 Gift!

Recently I was thinking of ways to give people presents. 

Envelopes are a great way to give someone a special gift, and what better envelope than one you hand-made that will last forever?

For this project I used:

• One half sheet of red felt - Michael's - 33¢
• One strip of green felt - Michael's - 33¢
• Fabric glue or Tacky glue
• Scissors
• *Optional*: Craft Iron or Regular Iron

 The first thing I did was decide how big of a box/envelope I wanted.  I practiced folding over my felt until I decided on a size and cut it out.

 Then I cut out a straight green strip of felt.  This needs to be as straight as possible, but can be any thickness you see fit.  Take your fabric/tacky glue and run it down the entire strip.  I wanted mine in the middle so I set the strip down in as close to the middle as I could get.  

 I flattened it out with my hands for some time, just because I wasn't sure this glue would work and I wanted it to have good contact.

 Then I folded the bottom up to see how long I wanted the top and sides to be.

 I ran glue along one half of what was going to fold up.  This way I knew how far to fold it as well.

 I pressed it down to make sure the glue was contacting well.

 I decided to use my miniature craft iron my Grandma got me to make the lines crisp.  I folded the top over too and ironed all of the creases.

 I don't know how to describe this shape but it makes an excellent bow.

 Fold in one side to the middle.

 Fold in the other side.

 Better view.

 Place a dab of glue on all of the pieces. But don't use as much as I did or it will show through. Oops!

 Then take a strip of felt and glue it in the back of the bow where you cannot see it.

 I tried the bow a couple places before I decided on a location.

 I liked it right above the opening, and glued it down there. 

 This is what it looks like open.

I cut a piece of paper to fit in it, as that was what described the Christmas present to the recipient! 

Please let me know if you try this craft and if you made any changes to it! :] I'd love to see yours!  

♥ Riley

P.S. What did you put in yours/what would you want to receive in one of these cute and festive envelopes? :)