Five DIY Holiday Project Ideas Using Wool Felt Balls

Felt balls are one of my go to crafting supplies during the holidays. I love mixing them with materials like wood, yarn and air dry clay and these are five ways that I will be using wool felt balls this holiday season. This is Lorrie Everitt from @makeandmerryco and I am so happy to share my holiDIY crafting projects with you.

Let’s gather some basic supplies and tools to craft with felt balls:

• 100% Wool Felt Balls in the colors of your choice
• Awl (to pierce a hole in the felt balls)
• Large darning needle
• Embroidery floss and/or fine jute twine
• Scissors
• Small crafting pliers

Note: These are my favourite felt ball for holiday crafting - Assorted Holiday 100% Wool Felt Balls.



One. Christmas Ornaments.
Whether you are planning to make some ornaments for yourself or to give as gifts, these are just a few ways to create felt ball ornaments.

Here’s some additional supplies that you may want to have on hand:

• Natural unfinished wood beads in a variety of different sizes and shapes
• Wood shapes
• Acrylic paints
• Air dry clay and cookie cutters
• Yarn and embroidery floss to make tassels

Let’s make the ornaments with the felt balls, wood beads, and wood shapes.
Paint some of the beads in colors to co-ordinate with the color of your felt balls.
You can paint a design or a name on the wood shapes if you’d like to personalize them.

Note: I used Cricut Iron On material to create the lettering for my wood shapes. I found that the iron on material was easier to use on the wood than vinyl and doesn’t require using transfer tape. Just remember to reverse your lettering before you cut the Cricut iron on material.



Tip: Use an awl to pre-punch a hole in the felt balls.



Use a large darning needle and thin jute twine or embroidery floss to string the felt balls and wood beads together.



Tip: If the darning needle gets stuck in the felt ball, use pliers to help pull the needle all the way through.



Here’s some more inspiration for creating felt ball ornament using tassels and air dry clay shapes.



Two. Gift Toppers.
Gift toppers make holiday gift wrapping extra special. I guarantee that using these felt acorns and a piece of greenery (real or artificial) will make your gift wrapping pin-worthy.



Let’s make a felt acorn topper.
Make two holes in large acorn caps using an awl.
Thread fine jute twine (or embroidery floss) through the acorn top as shown above.
Create a loop for hanging and tie a knot to finish.
Use a glue gun to attach the felt ball to the acorn cap.

Note: These acorns can also be used as tiny ornaments on mini trees.



The felt ball ornaments that you already created can also be used as gift toppers. Think of them as a decorative element for your gift wrapping. The ornaments are a “bonus gift” that can be hung on the tree after the gift has been opened.





Don’t these ornaments look great as gift toppers?!



Note: You can add gift toppers to both boxes and bags.



Three. Garland.
Garlands can be used on a mantle, along the staircase, on a table top or on the tree. One of the nice thing about making your own garlands is that you can create it so it’s the perfect size for wherever you are planning to display it.

As well as the felt balls, you’ll also need:

• Assortment of painted & natural wood beads
• Wood shapes (I used reindeer shapes in this garland)
• Fine jute twine or embroidery floss

Tip: Paint some of the beads in colors to compliment the felt balls and add simple details like polka dots or stripes to make them your own.



Let’s make the garland.
Plan out a repeat pattern for how you want the finished garland to look.
Lay all of the elements out to determine how long you want the garland to be before you start to string every together.

Tip: Make sure to add a loop in the twine on both ends of the garland if you want to hang it up.



Four. Holiday Décor.
These two simple home décor ideas are great projects if you like to host crafting afternoons with your creative friends. The wooly trees and festive holiday sign are easy to create and can be re-imagined in whatever colors you and your friends like.

In additional to the felt balls you also need the following supplies:

• Thick wool yarn
• Paper mache cones in a couple of sizes
• Tree branch slice (or a block of wood)
• Posecards
• Assorted beads and paint
• Wood skewers
• Knitting needle and a glue gun

Let’s make wooly trees.
Wrap the paper mache cones with thick wool yarn until the cones are completed covered. Use a glue gun every once in a while to keep the yarn in place.
Insert a wood skewer into the top of the cone and finish with a felt ball. Glue the felt ball to the skewer.

Display Tip: Use assorted sizes of gift boxes to display some of the trees at different heights.



Let’s make a festive holiday sign.
Add a felt ball and some wood beads to the wood stick on a locally made Posecards.
Leave a few inches of the Posecard stick exposed so you can place it into a predrilled wood base like the tree branch shown in the photo above.

Tip: After using an awl to create a small hole in the felt ball, I used a knitting needle to enlarge the hole so that it was large enough to push the Posecard wood stick through it.



Five. Tic-Tac-Toe Game.
Felt ball acorns make ideal game pieces for a DIY tic-tac-toe game.
This is a wonderful project to make in an afternoon with the kids and they can use it in the weeks leading up to the holidays and all year round.

You will need a total of eight felt balls in two colors (four of each color) so I recommend using one of the felt ball assorted packs for this project.

Additional supplies:

• 8 large acorn caps
• 8 x 8” wood canvas
• 4 unfinished 1.5” wood doll heads
• Paint and fine jute twine

Let’s make a tic-tac-toe game.
Use a glue gun to attach the felt balls to the acorn caps.
Paint the wood canvas and doll heads. I used a matte black on the canvas and metallic gold on the doll heads.
Once the paint has dried, glue the four doll heads to the bottom of the canvas to form the game board.



Wrap the jute twine around the game board as shown to create the nine squares. Want to play a game of tic-tac-toe with me?!

And that is it! I hope that one or all of these holiDIY projects inspire you to use wool felt balls this holiday season. I would love to see your finished projects so please tag @the_felt_store and myself at @makeandmerryco so we can look at what you are creating.