 Felted Christmas Ornaments
While out shopping for holiday gifts I stumbled upon a sweetly decorated tree in a shop window. It was a small evergreen tree planted in a pot, and hung from the branches were apple sized balls. But these weren’t your ordinary shiny Christmas balls. They were fuzzy. They looked warm and cozy and festive, and they inspired me to do something similar.
Where to Begin?
My felting experience lies with crocheting yarn and then felting it. So wool has yet to be spun into yarn eludes me a bit. But that wasn’t going to stop me. Wool fibers that are brushed and then collected into small loose pom poms, or loosely made into a sheet is called wool roving. I acquired a bag of the pom pom style and got out my felting needles.
 Using an Armature
I realized that it would take a lot of wool roving to make one good sized holiday ball, so I opted for a bit of cheating. I purchased some small Styrofoam balls from my local craft store and then covered them with the roving in a nice, semi-deep layer. They were fairly easy to do, using my felting needle to tack it together. I rolled them in my hands under very hot water in my kitchen sink, using dish detergent to help the fibers mesh together. Soapy hot water… the key to felting! In the end, I had lovely little felted balls. I used a pin to hang them up to dry, and then began planning their embellishment. By the way, if you’d like to learn the in and outs of felting, visit my article called Move Over Beads...Here’s my Other Love in the archives section of the beading articles.
Sidetracked
Oh, while I was in felting mode I decided that I could perhaps make a small felted tree out of some wonderful olive green roving. So I picked up a cone shaped piece of Styrofoam and had at it. The results? An adorable little tree! Now it was time to decorate these little furry fun things. The tree was a fast idea since I had these pretty mother of pearl buttons laying around. I stacked them to make them layered and randomly placed them around the tree. Simple and festive.
 Let the Embellishment Begin
OMG! This is so fun. I got out what I could use to embellish the round balls, and found all sorts of stuff. Pearls, ribbon, beads, crystals and I guess just about anything is open season. I chose one ball in chocolate brown. Not a traditional holiday color, true, but it was such a delicious color that I knew it had potential. I picked some sequins that had textures on them: spiral, star and high shine. I stacked them randomly and sewed them on with Fireline to hold them in place. Fireline is great to use on these since you can pass the needle right through the Styrofoam ball to come out right where you wish to be. Next, adding a simple ribbon to the top, and voila! Done!
A Whirl of Pearls
There’s a yummy cranberry colored felted ball that I thought would look fab with some contrasting white pearls. I didn’t use any seed beads to assist in attaching the pearls. You know, usually I would do a size 15.0 seedbead, then the bead, then another seedbead. But I just decided it looked best with only pearls, and you can barely see the thread on there. A matching ivory ribbon and it was done.
 A Leafy Little Garnish
I had to get all fancy for the third ball and bead some leaves out of seedbeadss. They’re tiny little size 14.0 leaves made to look like some garden vines, and there’s a smattering of amber colored drops amongst them. Then I used an amber two holed bead to adorn the spaces in between the vines. I love the look of the shiny amber vintage glass against the fuzzy amber felt. This ball in particular took me a bit longer. There’s about 3 hours worth of leaf beading in there. For the last one I craved something easy.
Ribbons and Flowers
Olive green ribbon against olive green felt seemed like the right thing to do. I found some dark red vintage flowers that I’ve had forever, and they popped out against the green. Adding a little silver flower spacer to the front of the flower gave more detail and made me wish I had done one in sterling accents. Oh, well. I guess I can make another one!
 Giving Gifts
I love giving gifts of hand made ornament sets to friends and family. Even during the regular time of year its fun to give them to first time home buyers, newlyweds, or a hand made ornament for a child is a great idea. Felted ornaments are great for holiday time, because the felt has that cozy-weather-warm-fuzzy-sweater feeling about it. And these are easy to do.
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