Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Tutorial how to make felted wool acorns

Have you ever thought about hanging acorns on either a Christmas tree or next to your computer in your cubicle? I have!

A sunny Fall day is ideal for a stroll in a park. That's what we frequently do on weekends when our family goes to one of many wonderful parks in Richmond, VA. Every such stroll normally ends up with a whole collection of stones, acorns and sticks picked up by my kids. With plenty of acorns in every corner of my house I suddenly realized that I can actually turn them into something bright and vivid. Felted wool acorns are beautiful, durable and could be used in many ways. They add color and style to one's house and make it look cozy and friendly.

So where do we start?
First of all we need a few good acorns. They can be picked up in pretty much any park these days. It's acorns' season!
acorn head
Next we will need a bit of wool suitable for wet felting, soap and hot water. I usually try to use wool of as many colors as I can find as it helps to create a whole array of multicolored, bright and vivid acorns. For wet felting I normally take a small piece of wool make it into a soft ball, wet it with hot water and add some soap to it. After squeezing and later rolling this ball between my palms for good 10 to 15 minutes wetting it and adding soap from time to time I get a felted firm ball that could be gently squeezed into an oval to look like an acorn.
multicolored felted wool
The last step is to connect our acorn heads to felted wool ovals. I use a mercerized cotton thread to sew them together. This type of thread is very strong. Chances are slim it will ever tear apart. The thread enables us to hang acorns anywhere we like.
felted acorn
I personally like acorns to be of different shapes and sizes. They look genuine as they pretty much are. Bright wool colors make them look festive and jolly. They are a perfect gift for anyone you love or care about!

9 Comments:

Arctida said...

Great tutorial and your finished acorns look sooo cute :)

Katrinshine said...

Pretty) Great idea!

blueberrycream said...

Great tutorial! Thank you for sharing!
Those acorns are really cute!

GalaFilc said...

Interesting idea!

Unknown said...

Great tutorial, the acorns are adorable, but I am lost when it comes to a needle and thread. I am following you, please come visit my blog:
http://charmeddesign1012.blogspot.com/

Vikulya said...

Как настоящие получились!Умничка!

IrinaN said...

Interesting tutorial! Thank you for sharing. :)

Sasha Tsyupka said...

So easy and beautiful! Very inspiring! I need to borrow some time to make these! :)

Unknown said...

Beautiful Acorns! Please explain what to do with the thread and how to make the little bump at the bottom of the acorn. Thank you,Linda