Alright, first, get online or check out clip art and find some bird silhouettes that you like. Print them off and cut them out. Trace the silhouettes onto 1 side of your fusible webbing (I used Steam-a-Seam 2).
Cut out your shapes and peel off one side of the paper from the webbing. Press it against the felt. I ran a warm iron quickly across the back of the felt (non-paper side) just to hold the webbing on a little more snugly.
Cut out the felt.
Pick a fabric that you want to be the main pattern for the bird. Large patterns don't work as well. Peel the second piece of paper off and press it against the back of your fabric. Iron the fabric to the webbing. Felt should be down and fabric on top as you iron. Follow directions, mine said to press for 10-15 seconds.
Once ironed and cooled, cut out your bird.
Alright, grab your paper silhouettes again and cut out any pieces that you want to highlight: wings, beaks, etc.
Trace the parts onto some webbing and cut out the pattern. Now find some fabric to contrast and accent each of your bird bodies. Peel off one side of the paper from the webbing and press it to the back of this fabric. Briefly run a warm iron across the front (non-paper side) of the fabric.
Cut out your pieces and test them against your bird body.
Peel off the last piece of paper and iron in place, following manufacturer's instructions.
All done! Aren't they cute? And pretty simple, too.
On to the tree... I tested my outline by placing full pieces of craft felt against the wall to get an idea for size. Then I cut tree (more like cloud) shapes from the green and a trunk from the brown. I added a few branches and played around with the placement of the greens. Laying it out helped a lot. Using scraps, I also made a bird's nest.
Use fabric glue to attach the felt pieces together where they overlap. Then flip the whole thing over and place pieces of poster tape. I just randomly had this tape on hand, but it rocks! It is wider than my regular double-sided, and it was nice to have a liner on it so that I wasn't constantly fighting the other sticky side. I was able to wait to remove the liner until I was ready. I think this tape is also stronger. If all you have on hand is regular 2-sided, I bet that works too. Use plenty of tape!
Use more tape than shown. :)
Time to hang it up. Firmly push the taped tree against the wall. Next peel the felt off of the tape leaving the tape on the wall and set aside the tree for a moment. To get the tree to truly stay up well, use hot glue! I left the 2-sided tape on the wall, applied hot glue on top of the tape and then quickly pressed the felt back against the tape/glue. This is the key to getting the tree to stay on the wall. Gluing the tape (instead of the wall itself) also allows you to remove the tape later with no damage to your wall!
Add your new cute birds.
Time to play!
Sorry about the diaper baby! This was post-nap in hot July, so clothes were optional, LOL. Little Man loves to tear the birds down really fast, slowly put them up and then tear them down really fast again. Boys!
Craft Time: 3-4 hrs
Play time: 10 min at a time, throughout the day
Cost: I had all supplies, but the craft felt would total $1-2, wool felt maybe $3 and fusible webbing about $4 at Joann Fabric. Use your fabric scraps or look for remnants at your favorite store. If you had to buy every supply (glue, fabric, tape) you might spend $15.
Age: 16 months
No comments:
Post a Comment