How to Make Fabric Poofs

I shared with you my Valentine's Day Mantel the other day, and mentioned that I would be giving a tutorial on how to make the fabric poofs that are in the buckets on my mantel.  I'm not really sure how to title these little guys, but poof is just gonna have to work right now.  If you think of something more creative, by all means, share!

Here's the step-by-step on how to make these:

Supplies:
-fabric

-scissors {or rotary circle cutter}

-circle shape to use as a stencil

-pins

-stryrofoam ball

1. Take your fabric and either trace out circles using a stencil of your choice.  OR, using a rotary circle cutter. For a short time while living in CA, I made and sold hairbows to a children's boutique.  In order to help with my little business, my husband found and purchased this tool for me and it saved me a TON of time!  Now, I'm glad to have it for projects like this when I need to cut out multiple circles.  This is what it looks like:

It's very similar to a compass, like used in math class, but this one has a blade on it.  You simply measure out the diameter of your circle, place the point on the fabric, and turn it around to cut out a perfect circle.

2. Once your circles are cut out, fold it in half, and then in half again, so that it looks like this:

3. At the bottom point of the circle {where all the folds meet} place a small straight pin and then insert it into the stryrofoam ball.

4. Continue inserting the fabric circles in this manner until you have enough of the ball covered for your liking.  For my purposes, I only needed half of it covered, because the bottom portion would be resting in a bucket, but you could continue all the way around the ball to make a complete sphere.

 At some point I had purchased this little bucket from the dollar bin at Target, and it was the perfect spot to rest my little poof of fabric.

This method is great for all kinds of crafts!  The original tutorial I saw using this method was for a heart wreath:

Felt Heart Tutorial

How To: Valentine Heart 'Tree'

This morning I shared with you my Valentine's Day Mantel and mentioned two tutorials that would be coming.  Here's the first tutorial on how to make those little heart 'trees' you saw.  Normally I don't post twice in one day, but I wanted to post this before the weekend, so that if you're heading out to shop for some crafting supplies, and would like to make one of these, you'll have the tutorial.  It's not difficult at all, and you may already have most of the supplies somewhere in your house.

Supplies:

- Felt squares {you can find these at most craft stores or fabric stores, usually for about $.39 a piece}

-Scissors

-Heart shaped stencil

-Hot glue gun and glue sticks

-Twigs

-Vase

-Epsom Salt {or other vase filler}

1. Use your heart stencil to trace hearts onto the felt.  You can use a pen or marker, whatever will write on the felt, because you won't see the inked side once finished.  Cut out the hearts.

Please ignore my awful looking thumb nail!  {now that I'm drawing extra attention to it!}

2. Gather your twigs {mine happened to be leftover greenery branches from Christmas that I had intended to make a wreath with and never did it!} and determine how many you want to use per tree.  Also determine how many hearts you want per twig.

3. Fill vase with epsom salt and place twigs inside.  The salt will keep the twigs from moving around.  Another great filler would be Valentine colored M&M's, but I knew I'd be too tempted to eat them {Plus, we're using candy as a potty training bribe right now, and I didn't want my 2 year old climbing up to grab candy from my mantel decor for her success on the potty}.

4. Place a thin line of glue down the middle of the backside of the felt heart.  

5. Stick onto the twig, pressing gently to adhere.

6.  Repeat with remaining hearts and twigs.

And, here is the entire mantel:

No one will see my 'trees' from the back, but if you wanted to make this for a centerpiece or other spot where the backs would be visible, simply make double the hearts and place another felt heart on the other side, sandwiching the twig between two hearts.

Linking to: