Felt Flower Garland Tutorial

I have been looking for some neat items to make for the dress up box, because my children have really been into playing with it lately.  They are really interested in putting on clothes and hats, and always love to hide under the playsilks.  Though I have found some really adorable crowns and garlands on Etsy and elsewhere, I didn't see exactly what I had in mind, so I came up with these cute flower crowns that would be great for any little or not-so-little girl.  They don't require advanced sewing skills to make (I am no expert seamstress), but it does take some time to cut out all the little pieces.  So...here's my first tutorial, the Felt Flower Hair Garland. You could make yours as interesting, wild, abstract, or simple as you want. 

You'll need:

Felt, in flowery and leafy colors, plus an exra piece of green for the headband
1/2 inch elastic, about 6-10 inches
small piece of fabric 2 x 10-14 inches

First, cut out and sew together various felt flowers and leaves.  I just experimented to find a few shapes I liked. 

Next, cut out two pieces of green felt, about 16 inches in length and 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide for the headband.  My daughters are toddlers, so if yo have an older daughter, you might want to measure how long you would like your flowers to be and lengthen as necessary.  I also had to sew two pieces of felt together to get the necessary length.

Sew the flowers and leaves onto one of the green strips.  I placed the flowers along one of the strips the way I wanted them to be on the finished piece and used that as my "pattern" while I sewed them to the other strip.

Here are my finished flower strips.  I'm making one for each of my girls, so I have two pictured.

After sewing on the flowers, pin the other strip of green felt along the back of the strip of flowers.

Sew into place along the long edges with a blanket stitch, leaving the ends open to insert the elastic.

To make the casing for the elastic, cut a 10x2 inch strip of fabric.  You could use any lightweight fabric, I dyed an extra piece of silk I had on hand.  Fold this in half lengthwise, wrong side out and sew along the long edge. 

Turn right side out to make a tube.  Insert a 6 inch piece of elasticin the tube and sew ends closed, scrunching up the fabric and making sure the elasic is encased in the end, making a stretchy worm.  Again, you might need to adjust the casing and elastic length for size.

Insert the ends of the elastic into the open ends of the headband and blanket stitch to secure.

To finish it off, add some pretty cascading ribbons.

Lovely!