Saturday, September 8, 2012

Ombre+Fall=Love

If you aren't aware with my obsession for making garlands for my fireplace, please see here, here and here. If you are, read on. :)

I made this initial for my door, and realized I was absolutely in love with gray, yellow and black as fall colors. I do also love the traditional orange, reds and browns, too, but I was just ready for a change. Currently the trend right now is yellow and gray, and ombre everywhere! I decided that, since I usually follow all the trends anyway, to jump on that bandwagon!

This is such a great, simple project. From start to finish it took me about an hour. First I enlarged the leaf template I found here, to about 150%. Then I printed it off (I changed my print preview view to just the leaves, and chose to not print the turkey on the bottom of the page). When you are working with felt, you don't want details that are too intricate. I thought the larger maple leaf worked perfectly!

I did not end up using all the felt I bought. If you work carefully, you can use just one sheet of each color! I used two, just to be safe.

-heather gray felt, Hobby Lobby
-light gray felt, Hobby Lobby
-black felt, Hobby Lobby
-"goldenrod", from Michael's
-gold, from Michael's
-gray grosgrain from the Dollar Store (did  you know that gray ribbon is kind of hard to find?)

I toyed with the idea of using the exacto knife. I changed my mind-it was easier to do with scissors! I also opted against using the cream felt, I had enough pieces without it. However, I only figured that out *after* I cut out the cream leaves. Anyone need four cream felt leaves?

Cut out your pile of leaves. If you do not have fabric scissors (I love my Fiskars) I implore you: buy some now! Cutting felt is an absolutely dreadful task without nice, sharp scissors.  I cut out four leaves of each color. This is the most time consuming part, but once it is done, your garland practically puts itself together!

To make the slits to put the ribbon through, fold down the top part of your leaf. This doesn't have to be terribly precise, I did them in sets of two (if you have sharp scissors, you can cut your leaves out two at a time to make the process faster, too) and just eyeballed it.
 
See, how the leaf isn't folded quite in half? I then cut two slits, about an inch long and an inch and half apart. Each leaf needs two to thread the ribbon through.
 
I liked the way that it looked having the ribbon just peek through, so I threaded mine starting from the underside. I didn't secure the leaves in any way, they move freely on the ribbon. I overlapped them quite a bit, I preferred the way they looked like that.
 
I debated about putting them in pattern order, and decided instead to do them ombre style. I know it isn't a true ombre (my understanding is that is just one color gradient) and technically my brighter gold leaves should have come first, but I craft on the fly and I was just happy as a clam with the way it turned out. I love that it says fall without being blatant, and love, love, that it incorporates the gray and yellow combo that I am clearly obsessed with! 
 
I apologize for the bad photos, my living room does not have an overhead light on the fireplace side, and it was late. But you are welcome to come over and see how cute it is in person!;)
 
I'm linking up at: 




1 comment:

  1. Ooo how cute! I love it! And I really like the yellow and gray trend too! Hence my yellow skinnies. haha (although those are a paler yellow) You are so crafty!

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