Black-Eyed Susan Pom Flowers

Today, I’m bringing home a tutorial I shared over at Welcome to the Mouse House last month. It’s another pom pom  project, in case you haven’t had enough. 😉
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One of the best things I love about crafting is making useful stuff. I like to maximize my time and efforts by making things that will be worn or used for a long time. But sometimes…I just want to make something for kicks. It’s been waaay too long since I made something just for fun. So, today I’m remedying that and I’m showing you how to make some cute…

You are likely already familiar with pom flowers. Right? Who can resist those?

For as long as I’ve been admiring pom flowers on pinterest, I had never made any! I quick fixed that, and then switched them up a bit to turn them into one of my favorite flowers, Black-eyed Susans. They are more of a summer flower, but any flower feels like Spring to me right now. 🙂

You need:

yellow 80/20 wool felt (it’s the only felt at Jo-Ann that comes in mustard yellow)
fabric marker or a marker/pencil that matches felt
black yarn
scissors
hot glue and glue gun
green paint
bamboo skewers (pack of 100 sold for $2 at Wal-Mart)

First, prepare your stems.

Using craft paint, I applied a fast coat to the bamboo skewers. It dries fairly fast.

Second, make your pom flower center. You start out the same as with any yarn pom.

– Use three fingers to make your pom the right size.
– Wrap the yarn around until you get a nice dense, thick bunch.
– Cut a piece to tie around it. Wiggle it in between your fingers and tie it tight around the wad of yarn.
– After your first knot, slide it off your fingers. Double knot on both sides.
– Cut the loops.
– Now trim it down (except for the tails or the yarn string you used to tie the pom together). You normally want to trim it down to a ball, but for our Black-eyed Susans we need more of a dome shape. Simply trim to get the shape you desire. Shake it out (more stray yarn will fray out) and trim again until it looks even.
– Keep the tails of the pom. We need them for just a bit longer.

*Tip: As you can see, this makes a big mess. I trim my poms over a trash can (except for pictures ha!). This saves a step.

Next, create your flower petals. I made up a pdf flower pattern you can use if you like.
Click HERE to print it off.

– Trace the pattern with a washable fabric marker or an almost matching colored pencil. I chose the colored pencil so I wouldn’t have to rub the marker out later.
– Cut out two flowers per Black-eyed Susan (you can also just use one flower, an example of how it looks with one is shown at the end). ** After you cut it out, you can trim a little further toward the middle if you like. I  did.
– Snip a tiny hole in the center. String the tails of your pom through the holes of each flower.

It’s time to add your stem and bring it all together.

– Tie a fat knot with the pom tails. Snip off excess.
– Snap some of your bamboo skewers off. You don’t have to, but I did to create variations in height between my flowers. For the round poms I snapped off the pointed ends because they were going into a vase. For the Black-eyed Susans, I snapped off the blunt end because I was sticking them into a bed of wheat grass.
– Add a generous amount of hot glue to the back of the flower and put the splintered end of your skewer in it. Hold it in place until it dries.
– Cut a small-ish circle of felt to slide up underneath it. This hides the glue and helps push the flower petals up and out so it looks like a…

Black-Eyed Susan!

You can see that I used one set of petals, instead of two, in one of these flowers. I can’t decide which look I like better…. I guess they both work. 🙂

I put mine in a little bed of wheat grass. You could also put them into a vase, on a present in lieu of a bow, in a larger arrangement with other felt flowers, or whatever your heart desires!

Want to know how to grow wheat grass? It takes less than two weeks! Go HERE for the soil-less method or HERE for a link to the easier soil bed method.

Hope you’re having a beautiful day!