Do It Yourself, GRL! DIY IDEAS.

Hanging Felt Heads

This craft is perfect for rear-view mirrors, door knobs, holidays trees & anywhere else you can hang them. Make felt head of all of your loved ones to keep around you, or make yourself as a gift.

supplies:
felt squares in various colors
thread in various colors
glue or pins
marker or chalk pencil
cotton
embroidery thread

With your future Felt Head in mind, go to a local craft stop & pick out three to five squares of felt. A felt square matching their eyes & hair. (You can just buy one if they are the same color!) Red for their mouth, another square for the skin & a favorite color for the back of the plush. A lot of craft stores have large selections of colors to choose from, so you can have an almost perfect shade of skin. If you go to a place with a more limited selection, however, pink, brown, yellow, or orange can always be cute, & slightly cartoonish substitutes.

First draw a roughly 6 inch circle on your skin-colored felt square & your hair-colored square. Then on your hair-colored square, draw the hair of felt look-alike, using the circle as your face shape. Cut both shapes out. Do not cut out the original circle you drew on the hair-colored felt square. Glue or pin the two pieces together with the hair on top of the head. I prefer glue when using this thick fabric because it will not move when you are sewing & the glue is undetectable. Now thread your needle with thread matching the color of the hair & sew small stitches along where the two fabrics meet. Draw two 3/4 inch circles on your eye-colored felt square & cut them out. First, glue or pin them on, then stitch with matching thread. Cut a red 1 in semi-circle out for the mouth & glue or pin, then sew.

Now that you've got your face finished, take your square of out colored fabric & trace the entire shape of the face onto it & cut it out. sew the two pieces of felt together, leaving a two inch hole. Stuff your cotton in the hole & sew the rest of the head up. For details like freckles or piercing use, a marker to decorate. Use a embroidery thread do stitch in details like glasses or highlights in the hair. You can also stitch your felt head look-a-like's name into the back of the creation. Lastly, get two pieces of embroidery thread & and spin them together, then stitch them to the top of your head about three inches apart. Shorter for things like doorknobs, longer for things like rear view mirrors.

Of course, any variation to this project is not only possible, but encouraged. The more you you put into your craft projects, the better they are. Also, have fun with your felt scraps: cut them into fun shapes & glue them onto paper, sew them on to t-shirt. Nothing looks better when you do it yourself!

-Lauren McGough