Felted hearts and stars

Cookie cutters with colourful roving in the background

Wet roving pressed into the cookie cutter- use a disposable chopstick if you do not have a felting needle

My first shapes drying out

I decided to do something homemade for Ellie's first Teacher's Day. Been doing a bit of reading on felting for my design class (I've started teaching preschoolers one afternoon a week) and after seeing some of these on a craft blog, I decided to try these out at home. What you do is get a whole lot of roving (raw wool) and then stuff them into the cookie cutters, then soak them in water until they felt. Nothing a three year old can't manage. Ellie helped me make two shapes before leaving me to finish the other six. Two days later (today) when the wool is all dry I realise that I didn't soak many of them long enough. The wool has dried and exploded into a bouncy mass. Good thing I had the sense to make a lot more and had enough for the teachers!