Using up scraps of felt to make simple felt heart bunting

Recently I wrote about my fabric stash and my plans for fabric based crafting to work my way through some of it. What I didn't mention is that I also have a huge stash of felt. In 2014 I collaborated with Viking and I received 100 sheets of felt in a variety of colours, and although I gave some away to friends and family I still have loads. I also have felt which I've purchased for various projects over the years, and a large amount was made up of small leftover scraps which I couldn't bear to throw away.

So I decided to use some of these gorgeous colourful pieces of felt to make some simple felt heart bunting. I found several different tutorials online, but my favourite was this Easy DIY Felt Heart Garland. That garland uses a Cricut to cut out the felt hearts which would make the project much easier! I cut out my hearts by hand using a paper template.

The hearts are sewn together using a sewing machine. It's best to work from the dip at the top of the heart rather than the pointy end, and my hearts are placed very close together. Before starting this project it's a good idea to make sure that your sewing machine is well loaded up with thread - it looks much neater if you don't run out of thread halfway through. It's a bit fiddly at first but I soon got into the swing of it, and it didn't take long at all to sew the bunting together. I used mainly larger hearts with a few smaller ones mixed in.

I love that I had so much felt in such a beautiful selection of colours, I think it looks gorgeous!

I've hung the bunting across my mantlepiece for a beautiful summer decoration. I made enough to loop it across twice, and it mixes in well with the fairy lights that I string there year round.

This project didn't make much of a dent in my overall felt stash, but it did feel good to use up some of the smaller pieces, and it inspired me to come up with some other felt crafts.