DIY Felt Succulent Kit

Being an independent contractor, I have the opportunity to work with a variety of companies and projects from interior decorating, Good Things Utah, scrapbook projects for manufacturers and my association with Apostrophe S.

Apostrophe S is a fun company that I get to design for helping create home décor kits that allow everyone (those that think they are crafty and those that don’t think they are crafty) to create at home.

Today on Good Things Utah, I demonstrated one of my favorite kits I have worked on for Apostrophe S. It’s called Aloe & Friends – Radiants.

I was lucky enough to create the succulent forms from scratch. Can you believe it? First, I looked at my favorite succulents, mixing up form, height and leaf shapes. I found the most realistic way to make felt succulents was to create the forms using individual petals.

The dilemma is that even if you received a kit with the petals already cut, it would take hours to put them together. Something none of us wants to do and doesn’t make creating easy.

(Yes, all these petals were hand cut by me)

The easiest way to create felt flowers is if they are in spiral form, now the dilemma is that there are no dies on the market that make larger succulents.

Apostrophe S asked me to help design them using the petal forms I had already created.

Each petal was hand cut, laid out in spiral form, the pattern was them hand cut and cut again out of felt. Each pattern was created more than one time to make sure that the petal ratios were correct.

We then used out laser cutter to make sure we liked the final size, and petal ratio. Each form was cut from white felt to help us see the ratios. After a few more changes, we finalized the dies. You can imagine how excited we were when the dies came!

It was then time to narrow down colors… so many beautiful colors of felt!

Our final decision…

We also had a fun time deciding how to finish the box. We wanted a weathered wood look…

(check out the blog post on how to stain wood naturally on the Apostrophe S Blog)

When we had decided what colors and forms to use, we loved the project, but it was missing something. I think you can see it in these pictures… there was a great mix, but wouldn’t it be nice if there was a little more height in the middle?