Autumn Felt Flower Pin

Today I have a fun project that is quick, easy and takes only a minimal amount of supplies...

Autumn Felt Flower Pin

I only had one color of felt in my stash (the light brown behind the colored swatches) so rather than go out and buy more I decided to see if I could dye it to the colors I wanted!

I tried a few different methods and the two that worked best are shown...

The maroon and yellow swatches on the bottom were spritzed with Glimmer Mist.  The glimmer part doesn't show up but the color does beautifully.  I think if you mixed up some Distress Re-Inker and water in a little spritz bottle it would work just as well.

The second method that worked well was to rub Distress Inks directly on to the felt.  The brown and orange swatches were created using this technique.

Both worked very well and didn't fade much as it dried.  I tried a few other types of ink and most faded or didn't dry well on the felt.

Supplies:

Felt
Die-Cut or Scissors
Ink (optional)
Hot Glue or Fav. Adhesive
Poker Chip or other Pin Base
Pin Back
Embellishments (for flower center)

Instructions:

1. Die-cut or hand cut several different flower shapes in a variety of sizes.  I used a couple different Sizzix dies.  I also cut a few branches from the bare tree and some leaves from the sunflower die.

2. If necessary, dye your felt to the desired colors.

3. Begin hot gluing your layers to your pin base.  I have a bunch of vintage poker chips I am using for these pins.  Other ideas might be ~ flat game pieces, chipboard, cardboard, bottle caps, TH Fragments, etc... basically anything that is sturdy and has a flat surface to work on.

4. Continue layering on each flower building it up as you go...

I like to use the flower die I have because of the hole in the center...it allows me to push some of the flowers in the hole giving the upper layers a bit of fullness and dimension instead of just plain flat flowers.

5. Add desired embellishment to the center of each flower.  This could be any number of things....faux gemstones or pearls, game pieces, brads, buttons, bingo chips, TH Fragments, etc.  

6. Glue a pin back to the base of your flower pin.

And here is how they turned out....

(NOTE: the glue wasn't quite dry on the pearls so one is out of place...I moved it back into place to dry as you can see from the individual photo.)

What do you think?

Pretty cool for something so quick and easy huh?

How would you like to grab one of these little Autumn beauties for yourself?

To be entered to be one of three winners all you need to do is post a comment telling me what your favorite fall flower is!

You have until 10-3-10 to post your comment!

Good Luck Friends!!!