weekend craft project

I actually did one of the DIYs I bookmarked! Oh wait. That's not the most impressive thing about this. The most impressive thing about this is that it actually worked! It looks decent enough to wear and not like some grade fiver slapped it together!

I made this felt dahlia for mother's day. I know I know. Mother's day was ages ago. It's ancient history. But I'm so terrible at getting around to see my mom that she only just got it today. And not only that, but I wore the smaller one about three times before giving it to her. Happy belated mom's day, mom! Oh and here's a slightly used gift for ya! Classic.

So now that I no longer have it in my possession, I'd better make another one. I found the tutorial for this particular flower here, and if you follow everything as closely as possible, it's actually quite easy to do.

the smaller one was made with the leftover petals I couldn't fit into the larger one

Cutting the petals out was really the most annoying part (and that's mostly due to my nonpatient attitude). It took the most time and left me with a nice little scissor indent in my right thumb. The rest went really quickly on account that I skipped all the la dee dah methods and used a glue gun. The amount of time waiting for hot glue to set is quite a lot quicker than fabric glue and the process was even quicker overall than if I had hand stiched the whole thing. In case you're wondering, the hot glue doesn't make this look like crap up close like some hot glued things are wont to do. I know you're thinking it. I would be. And despite my clutzy nature, I didn't have any issues with burning my fingers -- well, there were only a couple of ouch moments towards the end when the gun had been on too long and was getting almost too hot, but that's about it.

it's not very big, only about the size of my hand

Also, this whole project used up only one piece of felt. I had no idea how much I would use, so I chose the colour based on how much of the felt I had -- just in case. I didn't want to start and then be left with half a flower and no felt in that colour. I ended up really loving the oatmeal, though. I like that it's such an unexpected flower colour. Besides, oatmeal is kind of classic and match-with-anything, so in this use it works really well (nevermind that I'm on an oatmeal colour kick right now).

botanical print!