For the Autumnal Equinox over the weekend, I made these wool felted acorns and Fall Gnomes. The gnomes were just so easy to make, I really think my four year old could make one - and don't they look sweet?! I found the directions for these over here at the Carrie Logic website - check them out :-)
The acorns were another sweet and easy project. I collected little acorn caps while we were out on our walks (honestly, I think I collected dozens and dozens of them ... and now I'm dreaming up all of the fun things we can do with the ones I have left over after this project!)
To make the little hanging acorns, I started out with a little tuft of wool roving. (This is carded wool; I get mine from Sage Dream Design). I measured out my tuft to be about as long as my pinky finger!
Wrap it around your pinky finger.
Then carefully slide it off, and begin to gentle prick it with your felting needle. (A felting needle is a super-duper sharp needle, with little barbed hooks. These tangle the wool when it is pricked, and make the wool more dense, and matted. Felting needles are SHARP ... please use carefully!)
Start gently pricking all over with your needle, while keeping your little ball in a somewhat spherical shape.
Keep pricking, as it becomes denser and tighter. See the difference between the picture above and the picture below?
I made five little wool roving balls. (There are five of us in the family, so I made five acorns!)
Then I matched up wool balls to acorn caps.
I used my (new) hot glue gun to glue the wool roving ball into the acorn cap (no action shots ... I'm still learning how to use a hot glue gun, and am not feeling comfortable enough to mutli task with it).
Finally, I glued a little ribbon loop onto the top of each acorn.
