Felt is a fun and versatile craft material that pops up in many projects. With the abundance of felt in my craft area, comes an overwhelming abundance of scraps. There are some great projects you can do using larger felt scraps, but what about the little bits and pieces that are cut away? Here is a quick and easy tutorial showing you how to make a colorful garland using your itty bitty felt scraps.
What You’ll Need
- Scraps of felt in varying shapes, sizes and colors. Don’t worry about them being exact shapes or very large, this project utilizes all sorts of shapes and sizes.
- Junk mail advertisements. I find that the magazine type paper works the best, like the grocery store ads.
- Sewing machine that is threaded in white. You can really choose any color you like, and even try varying the top thread and bobbin thread to get an interesting stripe effect.
- Scissors
Next >> Tear and Begin
Begin by tearing strips of your junk mail into 1 inch wide pieces. You want to tear enough to equal to the length of your finished garland. Arrange your felt scraps on one piece of your junk mail. Sew onto your junk mail strips for a few inches before sewing into your first piece of felt to give yourself an end piece of thread to hang your garland with.
Next >> Use up those scraps!
Begin sewing through your pieces of felt and junk mail. You can space them out any distance that you would like and coordinate them in any sort of pattern. I like winging it and seeing what I pick out of my scrap pile first.
Next >> The end of the garland
When you’re about to reach the end of your junk mail strip, place another strip underneath so as you continue sewing you will catch the next piece of junk mail. Continue doing this until you have a garland as long as you would like, or until you run out of scraps.
Next >> Pull away the paper
Make sure to sew a few inches at the end without felt again to create a hanging thread. Now, turn your garland over and carefully pull away the junk mail. The paper should easily pull away from the stitches. If there are any little bits left over you can always remove them with some tweezers, but this paper generally pulls away without leaving any bits behind.
Next >> Adorn
Now, simply hang on your wall or adorn a window or doorway to add a fun, eco-friendly pop of color to any room. You could also use it as recycled ribbon for wrapping gifts like I have here.
What are some other projects that you can make using felt scraps? Do you use a lot of felt in your day to day crafting? I would love to hear some of your ideas and see some of your projects. Feel free to leave some comments or links.
Like the way the way you have used little bits and pieces of felt.