This time of the year in Pennsylvania is pretty dreary. By this point, we are getting tired of snow, sleet, and cold weather. At this point I am ready to start bringing some color back into my life. My problem is I don’t have much of a green thumb. Plants and I don’t mix well. In order to bring some color into my life I decided to make some of my own color — just in time for Valentine’s Day!
I love topiaries. I have always loved the way that they look. I also love roses, especially this time of the year. This is why I decided to make a rose topiary out of red felt. It not only looks festive for Valentine’s Day, but it also isn’t something that will die. In fact, I can keep it up all year if I want!
You will need some supplies before starting, including:
- 8 to 10 sheets of red felt
- marking pen
- inside piece of mason jar lid
- tacky glue
- large styrofoam ball
- small styrofoam
- straight stick
- red glitter
- terra cotta pot
- red paint
- red ribbon or baker’s twine
You will start by tracing the inside part of a mason jar lid with a fabric marking pen. You will want to trace as many circles onto the piece of felt as you can. Ideally, you should get 12 or so circles. You will need to do this on eight to ten sheets of the red felt.
After you trace all of the circles, cut the circles out. Once you have cut out the circles, you will want to cut them into a spiral design. Start at the one edge and cut into a spiral until just a small circle is left.
You will then begin rolling up the spiral so that it will eventually be in a rose shape. Tuck the small circle underneath the cylinder and glue it with some hot glue or tacky glue. Wait until the glue dries.
Once you have made all of the felt circles into small roses you will want to use a hot glue gun to begin attaching the roses to the styrofoam ball. Make sure the roses are close enough together to make sure that there isn’t a gap in the roses, but that they aren’t so close together that they are too cramped. Cover the entire ball.
Leave a small space at the bottom of the styrofoam ball. Thankfully, since it is winter there are a lot of sticks around my yard. I was able to find a straight piece of stick that I would use for the trunk of the topiary. I pushed one end of the stick into the bottom of the styrofoam ball.
I covered half of the small styrofoam ball with glue and sprinkled it with red glitter. I then pushed the other end of the stick into the small styrofoam ball.
Of course I need something to put the topiary in, so I bought a small terra cotta pot which I spray painted red and tied some red and white baker’s twine around the pot. I put the small ball into the terra cotta pot so that the only the red glitter is showing.
Now all that is left is to display your hard work. As I said, it will be a beautiful topiary that you don’t have to worry about watering or worrying that it will die!
