Felt Mushrooms

It’s spring, and April showers will not only bring May flowers, they may bring a new crop of mushrooms.  If you’re lucky, they might be made of old corks, wooden spools, and felt, and perfect for attracting fairies.

Materials:

To make your own Felt Mushrooms you’ll need

• red and white felt
• needle and thread
• stuffing
• old corks, or wooden spools
• hot glue

Instructions:

Start my cutting out a rough circle, it can be a little wonky, as a real mushroom would be.  Then, go around the edge and cut out several small V’s, this will help create the mushrooms domed top.  To also help with the dome effect, use your thumbs to slightly stretch the middle of the mushroom cap circle, taking care not to pull too hard, or create a hole.

Cut out some small white dots for your mushroom, and sew them onto the red piece using the blanket stitch.

Cut a bottom for your mushroom out of white felt, making it slightly smaller than the top.  I just eye-balled it, and adjusted it to fit perfectly by trimming it near the end if it was too big, or adding another V snip in the edge of the red top, if was too small.  You could make a pattern, but this way every mushroom top is different, which is more fun.

Now you’re ready to stitch your mushroom top and bottom together.  Use the blanket stitch, drawing the V gaps together as you go, to create the mushroom dome.  Near the end, before you’re completely finished going around, add in a little stuffing, and then finishing sewing it all the way around.

Next, attach your mushroom top to a stem using hot glue.  I made two with corks, and one with a wooden spool.

I made three mushrooms for my little display, which I hot glued to some pretty green moss.

I also added in a pretty little nest.  My sister, Heather, made the nest for Easter.  She used an old felted sweater for the nest part.  Just cut out a large spiral circle and then roll it up to create the nest.  Hot glue, or stitch it together, and add a solid circle to the back.  The eggs are made from felted wool, which she dyed with a little food colouring and vinegar, and then rolled into felted eggs.  They’re the perfect addition to this little scene.

I set my little display up under a pretty cloche, although hard to photograph, it looks so sweet on the table for spring.

I wonder if I’ll see any little spring fairies looking for a spring toad stool?

With sweet little felt and wine cork or wooden spool mushrooms, life really is a party!