How to Make a Felt Flower Garland

Supplies:

• About 2 or 3  8″ x 10″ pieces of felt for each color.
• Ribbon (Zig Zag ribbon makes it fun!)
• Hot Glue
• Paper

Directions:

Draw a flower of 5 petals on paper to make a template for cutting the felt. Pin your template to a piece of felt so you can cut around it. Double the felt so you can cut 2 at the same time.

You will need 4 flat felt flowers to start with.

Next, fold the flower petal in half and put some hot glue in the middle so you can fold again and glue the 2 halves together.

Now cut small circles (a little smaller than the felt flower you cut before) to serve as a base and glue the petal to the circle.

Repeat this with the 4 petals. Make sure to press on the center when you glue them instead of the borders. When you are done with the 4 petals, lift up the borders a little bit to spruce up the flower.

Once you are done with all the flowers (You can do about 4/5 of each color), glue them to the ribbon and then glue another flower on the other side to make a complete flower.

Repeat with all the other flowers and you are done!

The beauty about this garland is that you can hang it wherever you want: on the doorway, on a mantel or you can even do several strings and hang them together, have fun!

What fun DIY projects are you working on this Spring?

Dariela is a Venezuelan mom and graphic designer currently living in San Diego, CA. She blogs at Mami Talks, a bilingual blog where she shares the day-to-day as a mom of her 5 year-old son Adrian and 2 year-old daughter Maya. In her blog you can always find fresh ideas, crafts and inspirations filled with lots of photography. She is passionate about family, culture and anything art related. Connect with Dariela on twitter: @darielacruz or Facebook.

Mixed Media for kids? Does it sound a little too artsy? Trust me, it’s not. When it comes to little boys, I don’t do “artsy.” After raising three stepsons full-time and now relishing “craft time” with my four year-old grandson, I want crafts that are simple, fast, and fun.

Plaid Crafts sent me a fabulous gift pack of paints, pouncers, Mod Podge, and glitter paint. I snagged some wood photo frames from Michael’s (the dollar tree has them too) and couldn’t wait for my next craft date with my Grandson.

How To Make Mixed Media Photo Frames

Ingredients:

Here’s our supply list for our not-so-artsy Mixed Media Photo Frames:

• Foam plates (for paint palette)
• Foam brushes
• Wood frames
• Acrylic paint – two shades of pink, two shades of turquoise
• Glitter paint
• Mod Podge
• Tissue paper
• Newspaper or any other table and chair protectors

Even though my grandson wanted to mix the turquoises and pinks, I kept them on separate plates with separate brushes. I learned with his daddy about 20 years ago.

Here’s the awesome thing about Plaid paints — they not only dry quickly since they’re nontoxic acrylic, they also have great coverage. This means you don’t need two or three coats. It also means you can stand half a chance of keeping a four year-old’s attention for longer than five minutes.

Since the paint dries so quickly, he was able to add glitter paint. Have you tried glitter paint yet? I am in complete and utter love with glitter paint. The great part is that it spreads like paint. Plaid has different types of glitter paint too.

We started with Extreme Glitter which had a turquoise base. Personally, I liked the effect. But I was overruled by the Craft King who wanted to try Chunky Glitter. I knew we had a winner when he proclaimed that the turquoise frame with Chunky Glitter was going to his mommy. He liked it so much he wasn’t really sold on covering it up with glue and tissue paper.

The only way I convinced him was to pull out Sparkle Mod Podge. After he tore the tissue paper into pieces, we brushed on the Sparkle Mod Podge and pressed down the pieces.

I usually let my first coat of Mod Podge dry before applying a topcoat but this frame had a few edges popping up here and there. While my grandson got busy with the turquoise frame, I just dabbed a little more mod podge on any unruly edges.

Tissue paper is the perfect medium for younger children because it’s so thin. You don’t need scissors and any wrinkles are easily sealed with Mod Podge.

Once the topcoat and sealer coats were dry, it was time for even more glitter paint!

We also added pouncers. Pouncer are a great way to add another layer of dimension.

There you have it — a fun and easy ‘mixed media’ photo frames. A perfect gift for someone special on Valentine’s Day, or to brighten any other day.

What painting projects do you enjoy doing with your kids?

Products used in this project were supplied by Plaid Crafts. All opinions are my own. 

Colleen Jorgensen lives with her husband in Northern California, close to her three stepsons and grandson. She’s a self-taught artist and has been painting murals and wall hangings for 17 years. She loves encouraging others to use paint for crafts and decorating and posts no-fail painting tutorials on Mural Maker & More. Drop by and say hi at her blog, Mural Maker & More. Or Twitter ,Facebook and Pinterest.

Colleen is also on Google+ and is writing a series Google+ For Creative Bloggers. 

One lucky winner will watch their child(ren)’s imagination ignite with Crayola’s Color Explosion gift pack ($200 retail value). (See gift pack products and giveaway entry requirements below.)

Whether you win the grand prize or not, everyone’s a winner in this week’s giveaway! Enjoy a discount toward Crayola products by downloading a Crayola coupon here (good through August 31).

Giveaway Product Details

• Color Explosion Glow Board
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Entry Requirements

To enter for a chance to win, you are required to do four things (make sure you leave a separate comment for each of your entries).

Note: Entries that do not follow all of these requirements will not be considered.

1. Brighten someone’s day during this back-to-school season by performing one of the random acts of kindness listed here and commenting here to tell us what you did.
2. Become a fan of the Crayola Facebook Page.
3. Follow @crayola on Twitter.
4. Post these messages on Facebook and/or on Twitter and leave comments here, linking to your messages:

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Extra Entries

You can earn up to two extra entries for this week’s giveaway. Leave an additional comment for each.

• Share one of your favorite back-to-school memories on the Mom It Forward Facebook Page.
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The Fine Print

No purchase necessary to enter. Winners will be selected randomly through http://random.org. Crayola and Mom It Forward employees are ineligible to participate. All entries received after Sunday, August 23 at midnight PDT will not be considered. Entries that do not follow all of the entry requirements will not be considered.