How to Make Felt Carnations for A Doll

Above is a charming display of felt, pink and lavender carnations with an Easter lamb, bunny, chic and egg.

Our doll Elula loves to smell flowers.

       For this felt floral craft you will need felt, wire, hot glue and a hot glue gun and a sharp pair of scissors. 

       Cut the felt into long narrow strips approximately 1/2" to 3/4" wide. 

       Then snip along one length on one side only, a fringe with your sharp scissors. (see photo below)

       Slowly roll the felt around the wire, smearing small sections of the inner felt with hot glue as you go.

       Repeat the same steps with a shorter width of green felt in order to roll outside leaves around the carnation petals.

       Glue on a few snippets of green felt leaves to the stems.

       Gather a large bunch of the felt carnations into a doll sized vase to arrange a sweet Easter display if you like.

• How to make life size felt flowers from S. Nuraeni
• Jenny Chan makes a felt carnation flower bouquet for Mother's Day
• The felt flora design blog by Deidre Kindall
• How to make felt roses for a doll

Left, the felt strips are fringed on one side only for faux carnations. Center, now
we will wrap the felt with fringe side up onto the wire using hot glue. Right, the floral
carnation heads are done. Next we will repeat the same step using green felt for leaves.

Elula loves to see her Grandmother's decorations. She is too small to reach
them on her own without a chair. A smaller lavender carnation sits on the
vanity table a long side a vintage metal egg and ceramic Easter animals.

DIY American Girl Doll Potting Bench

Above is my finished version of an American Girl doll potting bench.

       We're setting up a play garden area on our back patio this summer, that is, as soon as the rain stops pouring and the sunshine shows it's face!

Left, craft supplies, Center, wooden drying rack, 
Right I'm testing to see if the rack will fit inside the lid of my shoebox.

The potting bench is glued
 together but not yet painted.

       A doll sized, faux wooden work bench for the little girl who loves to play at gardening, can be any size. However, I will include the exact measurements of the one pictured with this post for those of you who would like to build it with similar proportions.

Supply List:

• decorative paper with rustic wooden motif
• cardboard + a shoe box
• masking tape
• hot glue and hot glue gun
• large wooden craft sticks (tongue depressors)
• white school glue 
• Mod Podge
• slatted wooden tray insert (optional)
• small plastic hooks
• Sculpey or oven bake clay
• plastic molds of garden tools, doll size

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. I believe that I used the lid of a shoebox to make the upper counter of this potting bench, but I may have cut it down a bit. It measures 16" x 6 1/2". Turning the lid of a cardboard shoebox over makes for an easier method, however I wanted to include the wooden drying rack on the table top, so I fit the cardboard counter for this.
2. Cut the bottom cardboard piece the same length and width. The center shelf measures 13 1/2" x 5". The backsplash wall at the top measures 16" x 6". All three shelves and back splash were cut from of heavy cardboard.
3. I covered the cardboard pieces with decorative paper having a rustic wooden motif using Mod Podge.
4. Then I cut large wooden craft sticks to make the legs. I cut 12 of these to 9" in length.
5. Next, tape the legs into triangular shapes, using three tongue depressors for each leg. 
6. Then hot glue the legs in place supporting the top, resting on the bottom cardboard sheet. 
7. Carefully hot glued the inner shelf in place.
8. The backsplash was glued in place last along with two additional supports cut from tongue depressors. 
9. After the assembly of the potting bench, you may wish to paint the wooden parts of the potting bench in a similar fashion.  
10. Use acrylic paints that will dry fast in the sunshine, otherwise your structure could warp a bit.
11. Add a few hooks for garden tools onto the backsplash.
12. I also found a plastic mold for garden tools at my local hobby shop. From this mold I sculpted a pair of grass sheers, a hand shovel and a hand rake to paint and hang from those hooks.
13. I purchased a small wooden bird house, crate, and wheelbarrow from a resale shop down the street. 
14. The lowest shelf is perfect for our dolls to store their garden boots too! 
15. Now our American Girl dolls can garden whenever they please on our back patio this summer!

Here you can see the triangular legs for our bench made from wooden tongue depressors.

The potting bench pictured both with and without the wooden drying rack. I purchased this for two dollars at resale.

The front and backside of our glued, faux wooden planting bench.

Plastic mold for sculpting garden tools.

How to Make Felt Roses for A Doll

Our "Cheyenne Rose" Magic Attic Doll
models with the roses.

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

       Every little doll loves to receive roses for Valentine's Day, especially if these flowers are made from felt! Felt roses are not only soft, but they also have a very long shelf life! 

       Here you can see that I chose to craft roses from white, red and hot pink felt for our Doll's Valentine Party. But you could choose to make your own pretend roses from any color of felt you like such as: peach, coral, buff pink, ivory, yellow or maybe even lavender.

       You will also need a selection of green felts for the petals of your roses. I chose to use three variations of green.

       Clip chenille stems in advance to three or four inches in length. I used both fuzzy chenille stems and sparkly metallic green stems because this is what I already had on hand. 

       You may need to purchase a new, sharper pair of scissors in order to the complete the craft. Felt has a tendency to quickly dull scissor blades. Duller scissors could make this craft seem somewhat tedious.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Cut petal shapes from your felt. You can see that my petals are arched at one end and flat on the opposite end. Cut many of these shapes in advance prior to the gluing process for whatever color of flower you prefer. For an 18inch doll you will need to make the petals approximately 3/4 to 1inch in diameter. Center the tip of your chenille stem on the felt petal with a small amount of hot glue beneath it.
2. Press together the sides of the petal around the chenille tip and hold it in place until the glue dries. This is a quicker process with hot glue but not a safe one for very young children. If you are too young to use a hot glue gun, you may use tacky white glue and hold the petals a little longer as you go. 
3. Next you will need to squeeze a bit of glue on either side of the first petal in order to stick the next petal around the edges of the first. Hold the two in place until the glue dries.
4. Now proceed to add more petals around the circumference of the growing blossom. 
5. You can add as many petals as you like, depending on the size you would like your rose to become. Rosebuds are obviously smaller with fewer petals.
6. When you have finished making your felt rose, you can then decide if you would like to glue on a few green felt leaves as seen in the photos below. If you are using tacky white glue to make the rose, wrap a tiny rubber band around the thickest part of the flower to hold all of the drying petals in place until they are dry.

More About Crafting Candy Roses:

• Assemble Hershey Kiss Bouquets for Valentine's Day
• Craft a Paper Candy Posy for Your Valentine

More About Crafting Flowers for Dolls:

• Make recycled doll sized flowers from egg cartons by American Girl Doll Fan
• Create your own doll sized planter from recycled materials by Karen Mom of Three's Craft Blog

More About Fabric Rose Crafts:

• How to make felt roses by The Flower Art
• Ribbon Roses by HandiWorks
• How to make burlap roses
• Craft fabric rose buds by Djanilda Ferreira

Roses Handcrafted From Other Materials:

• How to make tissue paper roses by CraftCorner
• Origami Pentagon Rose Process by Tadashi Mori
• D.I.Y. Zero Waste - Corn Husk Flowers Including Roses by MyInDulzens

Left, cut rose petals from hot pink and red felt. Center, Clipping the fuzzy edges of the felt rose stem and adding the
 leaves of the rose. Right, the white felt roses as seen from the top.

Above are the felt roses from a variety of angles. 

Left, a green vase of felt roses. Center and Right, Our lovely Magic Attic, Rosa doll holds a bouquet of felt roses.