Tutorial: Felt Roses

Hi y'all!  As a continuation of our MayFlowers event, today I'm going to teach you how to make a felt rose.

Roses can be classic and sophisticated when made in natural colors, or fun and spunky if made with unnatural ones, making them perfect accents for everyone's lives.  Try an unusual color like purple and put it on a hair clip or brooch to make a fashion statement.   Or use them as decorations.  Make enough of them to cover a heart-shaped wreath, or stick a few of them tightly into a box like this:

Borrowed from Google to convey my idea.

Borrowed from Google to convey my idea.

I think a bouquet of them would make a really nice addition to a little girl's dress up set to go with a play wedding dress.  With so many options, you'll want to make hundreds.  And I've got good news for you.  They're super simple to make and it only takes a few minutes.  So let's get started.  Read on after the jump for the tutorial.


Here's what you'll need:

• Scrap of green felt for leaves
• Felt in your choice of color for rose petals
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun & glue sticks

 Step 1:


First, take your green felt and cut 2-3 leaf shapes per rose you want to make.  Next, cut three different sizes of half circles in your rose-colored felt.  The number of half circles you need will vary by how big or small you want your rose to be, but you'll want more of the small and medium size than the large size.  As a guide, I usually use only one of my big half-circles, about 3 or 4 medium half-circles, and 5 or 6 little half-circles.

Step 2:

Start assembling your rose by rolling one of your small half-circles into a cone.  You can either roll it very tightly so that your rose looks packed with petals, or more loosely so that it's more open in the middle.  I like a tighter look.  Once you decide on how tightly to roll your cone shape, hot glue it in place.  Be careful not to burn your fingers.  (I burn mine every time.  Ouch!)

Step 3:

Take another small half-circle and wrap it around the little cone shape you made with the arched part facing upward.  Hot glue it in place.  Continue wrapping  half-circles around the rose and hot gluing them in place, switching locations between each half-circle so that the rose has a more natural look.  Switch sizes of half-circles as needed to complete your rose.

Step 4:

When your rose is as large as you want it to be, take your leaf shapes and glue them onto your rose.  I usually glue mine so that it covers where the two ends of the last half-circle meet.  Feel free to embellish with as many or as few leaves as you like.

And fin!  Enjoy or make some more. :)

--CC