Needle Felted Mushroom Ornaments
Make some easy mushroom ornaments for cozy fall decor. They also look great on a Christmas tree!
Supplies:
How to make the stalk:
1. Grab a bit of roving around 6” long and 3/4 inch to an inch thick. I used a natural white color with some beige and green mixed in. You can mix colors by laying strips of felt on top of each other and either pulling apart and rejoining multiple times for a blended look or simply layering and lightly twisting together for a more striated look.
2. Roll the roving layers in your palms to start loosely felting the wool into a stalk shape.
3. Put the stalk on the foam and stab the roving with your needle. You can use a pen style felting tool with one needle inserted, or just a single needle. Felting needles are barbed and very sharp (you'll probably poke yourself at least once). As you stab the roving the tiny barbs grab and tangle the wool fibers so it felts together. Stab up and down the stalk, then turn the stalk and stab some more. You can twist and bend your stalk into any shape you want as you are felting. Keep doing this until the stalk becomes solid. Felting needles are also very thin and rather fragile. Be careful not to bend the needle while using or it will snap.
4. Leave the ends raw and frayed.
To make the cap:
1. Grab roving in the color of your choice that is about 12” long and 1.5" thick
2. Roll the roving loosely into a coil. Put the roving on the foam. Starting on the outside of your coil, stab the needle into the roving and continue all the way around the roving joining the edges of your coil together into one big circular shape
3. Pick the roving up off foam (it will stick to the foam a bit), turn the roving over and keep felting.
4. Once the roving is felted and feels solid, gently manipulate it with your fingers to create the bowl shape you would like. You can continue to shape it with your needle if desired. I curled the edges of my mushroom cap in a bit used the edge of my foam square to help with shaping and further felting of areas I thought needed to be more solid and less fuzzy.
5. Add more details if you'd like by felting contrasting thin strips or tiny dots to your mushroom cap.
Attach the stalk to the cap:
1. Fray the end of the stalk and position inside the mushroom cap. Place both pieces on the foam and stab the loose roving of the stalk into the cap.
2. Once the frayed bits are attached, stab into the base of the stalk and through to the cap. Keep stabbing until they are well attached, being careful not to make the top of the stock thin and floppy.
3. If you would like to cover the ends of your stalk for a more uniform color, while also reinforcing the stem to cap bond, take a small piece of roving, coil it around the stalk and felt it in place. Be careful not to add too much (like I did!) or your mushroom will be top heavy and droopy. I fixed my droopiness by carefully inserting some floral wire. This has an added bonus of making your mushroom poseable!
4. If the felt from your stalk poked through to the top of your mushroom take a small piece of roving, coil it up to make a circle and felt it to your cap.
5. Trim any excess fuzziness from the bottom of the stalk, or felt it into a little nub.
Finishing:
To complete your ornament, use an embroidery needle and some floss to make a loop for hanging.
You can use your sharp scissors or a sweater lint shaver to carefully trim off any excess fuzz if you'd like.
That's a wrap!
Don't forget to show off your felt crafts on Instagram for a chance to win a $50 collage gift card.
