Home Crochet baby clothesBasic course: wet felting - instructions and ideas for children

Basic course: wet felting - instructions and ideas for children

  • Material and preparation
    • This applies to all felt works
  • Felt a ball
  • Colorful hair tie made of felt cords
  • Felt
  • Felt a bracelet on the wrist
  • glove puppet
  • Felt magic ball

Wet felting with children is more than just a nice pastime. Felting with children can be a meditative experience that is great fun for both young and old. The little ones learn a lot about the sheep wool and they experience what happens when the wool is well caressed, smoothed and pressed. And, by the way, you also promote the fine motor skills, the concentration and the sensory perceptions of the children.

Sometimes think about how best to organize a children's birthday ">

Tip: Children should never be felted unattended, as too hot water could quickly burn the tender skin of the child.

Material and preparation

Look for good quality when buying felt wool. From chemically cleaned wool is not recommended, it is difficult to process.

For children, a colorful fleece wool is suitable for entry. This cross-laid fleece wool can be quickly felted, behaves uncomplicated, perfect for children's hands.

Important when felting is a skin-friendly and moisturizing soap. Highly recommended is therefore a good olive soap or a sheep's milk soap. It is not recommended to use conventional liquid soaps or even dishwashing detergents. A non-chemical soap has worked best for felting.

Hot water is the third important ingredient in felting. The warm water in combination with the soap and the rubbing of the wool between the soap hands is the secret of the felting. The individual hairs of the wool are intertwined, the wool shrinks and a solid textile structure is created.

You need this:

  • Colorful fleece wool
  • Olivenseife
  • towel
  • Coarse felt pad, possibly a bubble wrap
  • Bowl of warm water
  • vinegar

Tip: Before you start with the children, you should lay out your table with a waterproof pad. Then each child can put on his towel and on this towel his bubble wrap.

For our basic course we have some good ideas, with which even the smallest ones can achieve good felt results.

We will fel this:

  • Balls for a chain
  • a bracelet that is always worn
  • a hair tie
  • a finger puppet
  • a magic head
  • a felt chain

Tip: To ensure that you always have enough hot water available, you can fill a thermo-pumping jug with warm water before you start to feel it, so that it is always ready to hand.

This applies to all felt works

Rub the soap into the warm water with an old cheese grater. The children will like to felt with this soapy water.

The water must always be kept warm, but in children please take care that it is not too hot. The heat is needed for the felting process, so always top up with hot water and maybe add a little bit of soap again.

After the felt wool has taken on the desired shape, so has matted well, the felt object at the end of the work with good water must be washed out well. Then the artwork may take a short vinegar bath, so that the last soap residues are neutralized. Now rinse again briefly, squeeze out the water, again bring everything in shape and put to dry on a clean cloth.

Thick felt objects need their time to dry. Therefore, a further meeting should be arranged for the further processing of the art form with the children. You will surely come with joy.

Felt a ball

List of materials:

  • Colorful fleece wool
  • Perlon cord or embroidery thread for threading the felt balls
  • wood Beads
  • Possibly. a magnetic closure

If you are fooling a ball or a small ball with the children, the children learn very playfully how the felt technique works in general.

1. Lay out a correspondingly large wool plate.
2. Dab the edges of the wool well apart, so that the wool then matted and no wrinkles form.
3. Now place the wool in the palm of your hand and moisten it in the middle with soapy water.
4. Make a loose ball out of it.
5. Roll this ball of wool into a ball with circular movements in your hand.
6. Always dip the work lightly in the soapy water and continue to sculpt the ball in the palms of your hands.
7. If the pressure in the hand is lighter in the beginning, it should become steadier over time.

8. If the ball appears too small, place another thin layer of wool around the ball and continue to form the ball with soapy water and light pressure.
9. Now the little ball can be pressed and worked harder and harder. You feel how the ball is getting steadier.
10. When the ball has reached the desired size and hardness, wash as described and lay out to dry.

For a necklace, the children should form many colorful balls. It does not matter if one ball is larger and the next one is a little smaller. The more colorful, the more beautiful.

The balls can now be threaded onto a nylon cord with a fine needle.
Larger children can attach a simple magnetic lock.

For smaller children, it is usually enough to pull a fine embroidery thread through the balls and tie a simple bow. Between the individual felt balls look colorful wooden balls always beautiful.

Colorful hair tie made of felt cords

You need this:

  • fleece wool
  • scrunchy
  • Wooden or plastic beads with a big hole

1. In this felt work, the children are allowed to felt louder little thin sausages, which are then tied to a hair tie.
2. Take off a strand of wool and pull it apart a little bit.
3. Dipping lightly in the soapy water so that you can roll out the mold.
4. After the wool has been rolled forward a little and then pressed in, lightly dip into the water again.
5. When submerging in the water, never soak everything but moisten the felt roll. If the small roll gets too wet, it will not roll well and wrinkles will appear.
6. Repeat this process until the roll gets a nice firmness.
7. When rolling on the air cushion, children should always roll the little snake from the center to the outside, like a dough.
8. It is sufficient if the air cushion or the dimpled mat and the hands are always moist and soapy.
9. Rinse the felt rolls well and allow to dry.

If you do not want to attach the small colored cords to the hair tie with a pearl, then you should knot the cords around the hair tie while still wet. Simply place the hair tie in the middle of the string and knot the two ends around the rubber. Let it dry well.

Felt

You need this:

  • Colorful fleece wool
  • Wooden beads or colorful buttons
  • Nylon thread

If the kids liked the rolling of the wool, you can still tackle a roll project with them. For this purpose, several colors are felted on top of each other to form a thick sausage, which is then sliced.

1. Start with the children to form a first role, as you have done with the hair elastic straps.
2. Only that this first role should not be completely matted. It may be firm, but not too hard.
3. About this role, the children now lay the next layer of wool.
4. Matt again until a certain strength is achieved.

5. So that the individual wool layers get matted together, you should always roll the small cords in the dense soap foam. It may be quietly worked with some pressure. Therefore, test the children's felt roll from time to time to let them tell you if they should press harder.

6. Felt the felt roll with new wool colors until the desired thickness is achieved.
7. Wash out the felt work well and let it dry.

Now you can use the scissors to cut off slices.

You decide the thickness of the slices yourself, depending on what the children want to do with the slices.

Maybe they want to thread it on a string with pearls and make a small mobile out of it.

Tip: If the wool layers do not combine nicely or if wrinkles should appear, simply put a thin layer of wool on top and felt through again.

Felt a bracelet on the wrist

Material:

  • Märchenwolle

The kids have learned to roll well, so you can easily get started on a roll project.

This bracelet is felted directly on the wrist. For the children a really great thing, as they can then constantly carry their artwork with them.

The bracelet can accompany the child for weeks and months, it loosely holds out the bath and the swimming pool. If it gets too tight or does not like it anymore, it has to be cut off.

For this bracelet, we did not use fleece wool, but a fine fairy-tale wool. The fairy-tale wool is a plant-dyed wool and therefore very skin-friendly. It differs from nonwoven wool in that it is offered in the combed draw. That is, from this wool, the short parts were all combed out. The fairy-tale wool appears in long wool fibers.

1. Lay out the fairy-tale wool as shown in the picture. The length should be very generous around the whole wrist.
2. At the beginning of felting the bracelet should sit very loose. Due to the constant rolling and felting, the ribbon shrinks strongly together.

Tip: The wool should be well frayed so that it does not wrinkle during felting.

3. Then moisten the middle of the wool with the soapy water and start rolling.
4. When the middle has felt slightly matted, place the felted wool band around the wrist. You have to help the child safely.
5. Now place the woolen ones over each other, form the wristband lightly on the wrist and slightly felt on the band with your free hand.
6. Rub over the bracelet again and again with wet soap hands so that the wool connects well with each other.
7. Now you can start rolling on the pad.
8. The pad and wrist should be moistened well with soapy water.
9. From time to time, vigorously roll up and down the wrist with the strap on all sides. This creates a beautiful colorful role as a bracelet. In between, even with the other hand, edit the ribbon from all sides. Always nice turns.

Tip: To keep the wool from sticking to the wrist, moisten the skin with soapy water. Also drip some soapy water between the wool layers before the two wool ends are rolled over.

glove puppet

You need this:

  • fleece wool
  • Waste from a yellow felt plate
  • felting needle

Felting a finger puppet is a special experience for girls and boys. We have a jester felt as a finger puppet. But your child can also make something different from the basic design. Children often have a lively imagination.

1. Place the desired fleece color around the child's finger. First lengthwise, then across and then again along the whole finger. So are three layers of wool around the finger.
2. Moisten the wool thoroughly with the soapy water and felt in with a light rubbing motion.
3. If the finger is initially treated gently, the finger must be massaged more and more.
4. Make sure that your finger is treated evenly with enough soapy water.

After the felting process, wash the finger puppet again and let it dry. If it is completely dry, it can be further processed. Now it is in the child's imagination to create his own artwork. You can certainly offer suggestions to him, but should decide the child himself, with whom he would like to talk in the future.

We cut out a beak out of a felt plate with our joker and felted it dry. The eyes and the hair have been felted with the felting needle.

Felt magic ball

You need this:

  • Colorful fleece wool
  • Flummiball
  • Thin hair tie
  • A little gem or a treat

This magic ball is very popular with children. It serves as a hiding place for little secrets, in some nursery rooms, the tooth fairy puts her surprises in it or she is home to the most beautiful gemstone. Children know many ways to fill the big mouth of this magic ball.

For the magic ball to get its cave, this cave must be replaced during the felt by a bullet or a marble. We used a rubber for that.

This bungee is exchanged for the little secret after felting.

1. Lay a first layer of wool around the bomber. This first layer should be pulled apart well beforehand.
2. The entire felting process is based on felting a ball.
3. The only difference is that the children now put different wool colors on top of each other. The ball should always be shaped and rolled with moistened hands.
4. Use a little more moisture when shaping with each wool layer and press the ball a bit more and roll it in your hand.
5. The lower color of the ball should not be too tightly felted, so that the following layer connects well with the previous layer.
6. The actually perfect felting should begin only with the last color layer. This means that now the children are allowed to firmly matt the ball in constant circular motions and a lot of foam on their hands.

After the last wool layer, wash the ball well and let it dry. When the magic ball is dried, it is transformed into a little Ernie. For this purpose, the children should felt a small red ball for the nose. This is then felted with the felting needle in a dry felting process to the large ball. The eyes are pimped out of black wool, as well as the hair growth.

Before you open your mouth, paint it with a pencil first in the right place. So you see if he is sitting in the right place.

Now you can cut open the mouth with scissors. Here you will have to help the children. If the scissors are too dull, use a cutter knife. Please do not give this into the hands of the children.

If the mouth is cut wide enough, you can remove the bungee. A cave has arisen.

To keep the mouth tight, sew a thin hair tie to Ernie's chin.

If this is put over the nose, the mouth is guaranteed to remain closed.

Make wooden stars yourself - wooden stars for crafts
Sew and fill the doorstop - DIY instructions