I never get tired of designing flowers, each new design brings me so much joy! So I’m back with another DIY flower, these gorgeous felt sweet pea stems!
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I’ll be honest, this felt sweet pea design feels like a bit of a triumph! It went through a number of iterations to get to the final look, and I’m just so delighted with it. I hope you are too!
Sweet peas are very difficult to recreate with accuracy because no two flowers look identical in real life. So rather than attempt a perfect duplication I tried to capture the essence of the flower instead. And I think it comes across!
These sweet peas are totally stunning on their own, paired with dusty miller stems or used as a filler flower for a larger bouquet.
They’d also be perfect to twist into a wreath or a vine garland. And the tiny coiled vines add so much dimension to the final look!
Ok, enough talk, let’s get crafting!
Gather Materials
Here’s what you’ll need for 1 sweet pea stem consisting of 1 flower, 2 flower buds, 2 leaves and 2 vines:
Coloured Felt – 8.5″ x 4″
Green Felt – 2.5″ x 4″
Printed Pattern (Find it at the bottom of the post.)
Hot Glue Gun
22 Gauge Floral Wire – 6 Lengths
16 Gauge Floral Wire (or another very slim implement like a sturdy toothpick)
Floral Tape
Small, sharp scissors
The colours I used here are Apricot, Baby Pink, Fern and Linen.
As it turns out, I didn’t snap any pictures of the materials required or of all the petals and leaves cut out. Lol, I must have been sleeping on the job! So we’re just going to dive right in with the assembly process. The instructions on the PDF pattern should clear up any questions about petal requirements.
The SVG pattern file has no text on it because that causes problems with the Cricut. So please refer to the PDF for cutting instructions.
Here’s a video tutorial for the sweet pea stem. A photo tutorial follows if you keep on scrolling. 🙂
Cut & Prep Petals
You can either use a Cricut with the SVG files or simply print the PDF pattern at 100% and cut the pieces out by hand.
There’s not that many pieces, and they aren’t complex like the Dusty Miller leaves, so cutting them out by hand is not at all difficult.
Once all the petals are cut out, you’ll want to give them a little shaping to make the finished flowers more realistic.
Do this by pinching a petal between your fingers using both hands and gently twist the right side towards you and the left side away from you. Repeat 2-3 more times per petal to make the whole petal look wavy.
Repeat with all the bud petals and the large flower petal.
Make a Felt Sweet Pea Bud
Step 1: Take the small bud petal and add a line of glue down the center of the petal about ½” long and up one side. Lay a length of wire in the center glue line and fold the petal closed. Hold it closed until the glue sets.
Step 2: Add a W of glue to the large bud petal, lay the small folded petal in the center line of glue and pinch the large petal around it. Hold until the glue sets.
Step 3: Snip a tiny hole in the center of an x leaf, slide it up the stem and glue it around the base of the flower bud.
Repeat to make a second bud.
DIY Felt Sweet Pea Flower
Step 1: Put a generous amount of glue on a teardrop petal and lay the wire in it. Layer the second teardrop on top and very gently press the layers together. You don’t want the glue to ooze out the sides but rather to add a little thickness to the inside of the teardrop.
Step 2: Add a small line of glue to the straighter edge of a medium sized petal and lay the teardrop on top, positioning the petals as pictured below. Repeat with the second medium petal on the other side of the teardrop. So the teardrop is now sandwiched between the medium petals.
Step 3: Now take the larger petal, add glue to the bottom and a little up the sides and wrap it around the straighter edge of the medium petals. Hold it in place until the glue sets.
Step 4: Snip a tiny hole in an x leaf, slide it up the wire and glue it around the flower’s base.
Step 5: Add a small line of glue to a leaf piece and pinch it around the top of a wire. Repeat with a second leaf.
Make Wire Flower Vines
Use a thicker wire or other slim implement and tightly wrap about 3” of the end of a 22 gauge wire around it to form a coil. Slide the coil off the wire and use pliers to snip off the tip if it could not be coiled.
Assemble the Sweet Pea Stem
If you’ve never used floral tape before, this step may take some practice. Be patient, you’ll get the hang of it!
The main thing to know about floral tape is that you need to stretch it before you wrap it around the stems. Stretching the tape is what makes it stick to itself.
The second thing to know is that it will leave a sticky residue on your fingers. So if you’re making multiple stems, save the tape wrapping until the end and do them all at once.
Step 1: Start with a bud and a vine and wrap the tape around a few times to secure the wires together.
Step 2: Add the flower piece and wrap a few more times.
Step 3: Follow with a leaf, then a vine, then the second bud and finally the last leaf. Wrap the tape around all the wire a few time before adding the next element.
Step 4: Trim the ends of the wires to your desired length and continue wrapping the tape to the bottom of the wires.
You may need a dot of hot glue to secure the very end of the tape in place.
Now you can gently bend the wires to position all the flowers and leaves in a pleasing manner.
You’re done! Isn’t it gorgeous?!
This delightful DIY sweet pea felt flower was specifically designed to accompany these charming dusty miller stems!
And of course, both the sweet pea and dusty miller are part of a larger bouquet including a Zinnia, Peony and Daisy patterns which you can find in the shop by clicking here.
Aren’t they stunning together?!
So the sweet pea and dusty miller patterns come as a set, you only need to sign up once with this box to get both patterns emailed to you!
Happy crafting! Make sure you find me somewhere on social to share pics of what you’ve made. @yellow_birdhouse on IG.
xo
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