Needle Felted Blossom, Buds & Twigs

Simple and effective, this tutorial for making blossom, buds and twigs is ideal for spring time decorations - we have featured these on our Blossom & Blue Tit Wreath Kit and you can adapt the techniques here to create other flowers or twigs for other seasons too!

To make, you will need:

- Paper Covered Wire
- Pink wool batts (such as our Fairy Mix)
- White/cream wool such as Standard Core/Stuffing Wool
- Water Soluble Paper
- Felting needle (#38 medium)
- Felting mat
- Pencil
- Scissors 

	Take the length of brown wire and fold in half.
	Lay a very fine wisp of pink wool over the brown wire, in line with the wire.
	Take a piece of white wool and tease it out into a thin length. Lay this against the wire, holding with one hand, and begin turning the wire with the other hand. (If the paper starts unravelling, turn the wire the other way). Leave the pink fibres poking out at the side.
	Keep the wool tight and build up a few more layers, until about 1cm thick. Wrap the poking out pink fibres over the top of the white and then wrap another layer of white to hold in place. Break off remaining white fibres and wrap to the ends. Needle felt into the sides of the bud, along the wire, to help hold in shape.
	Fold the wire down either side of the bud and twist the two parts tightly together. Keep building up your twig and bend the branches in different directions to create a lovely 3D effect.
	Repeat these steps 5cm along one of the ends of wire to create another bud, then twist the two ends together again to create the twig. Keep adding buds n this way.
	You can make a new bud 12-15cm away to begin a new branch of the twig, and then work your way down it with new buds.
	Twist the ends of the wire together to finish the twig and bend back on themselves so there are no sharp ends. If attaching to a background such as the wreath, felt a little brown wool over the branches here and there to hold in place.
	Draw or trace the outline above onto the water soluble paper. (Our blossoms are 2-3cm across)
	Lay the water soluble paper on your mat. Take a wisp of white wool and bend it in half— lay the bent half so it becomes the edge of the petal and the ends overlap the middle of the flower.
	Using your medium felting needle, stab around the edges of the petal to help define them, and then stab all over the middle of the petal to felt.
	Repeat for the other petals, working your way around the blossom and joining the petals together in the middle.
	Roll a few pink fibres gently between thumb and finger and position in the middle of the flower, felting in place to attach.
	Cut out around your blossom, close to the edge. Dip the blossom into the water, or hold under the tap for 1-2 seconds to dissolve the paper.  Press out excess water with a towel, shape and then leave to dry.
	When dry you can attach to a blossom twig by either gluing into place or by laying a wisp of pink over the middle of the flower and felting through the flower into the background.