I grew up in Canada, so Christmas was associated with cool temperatures, bare branches, and as often as not, snow on the ground. Even my kids, who grew up in California, ask for snow at Christmas. So, I decided to create a snowy Christmas for us at home.

I pared down my decorations to focus on the white and silver. I also made several new projects in a white and woodsy theme.  So far, I’ve finished a sleek new gray and white Christmas tree skirt, and I also made some new pillow covers in white and gray with outdoorsy appliques of reindeer, polar bears, and trees.

Since I kept our colorful ornaments packed up for this year, I needed to add some more decorations to our tree.  The kids helped me make these sweet clay ornaments, and I am adding these white felt poinsettia ornaments to fill in the branches.

I looked at lots of pictures of real and felt flowers, and I read a lot of tutorials, trying to find felt poinsettias that would have a natural look.  My final project was a combination of the felt poinsettia pin by Cheryl at her Tidy Mom blog, Kate’s felt poinsettia’s at her Centsational Girl blog, and my own innovation, as I wanted to make the flowers a bit more natural-looking and just right for my tree!

The thing I liked best about Cheryl’s flowers was how she cut the petals.  It’s much faster and easier than using a template, and it allows you to make each petal a little bit unique.  I used different dimensions, which I’ll list below, and I also cut my petals with a bit of a wave on the edge, to give them more dimension.

I washed and dried my felt before using it, to make it a bit thicker.  To cut the petals, first cut rectangles of felt in the specified dimensions, and then trim them to look like petals.  It’s very quick to cut the rectangles, if you cut the felt into strips first (left side of the picture below) and then cut the strips into rectangles (middle of the picture below).  I was also able to trim the petals three at a time, so it was all much easier than I expected!

Each flower is constructed the same way, and I’ll give the exact measurements for my two sizes below.

The basic parts of the felt poinsettia are

• a round circle base (top left picture below)
• a layer of large petals (top right and bottom left pictures below)
• a layer of small petals (bottom right picture below)

Start with a round base, add a layer of large petals, and top with a layer of smaller petals.

To finish the flower, I sewed all the layers together while sewing on some pearl beads to decorate the center of the poinsettia.  I then used hot glue to attache the flower to a metal alligator clip.

Finish the flower by sewing the layers together while sewing on some beads for the center.

The pictures above are of the larger poinsettias.  The finished size is approximately 6.5″ in diameter.  The large flower uses:

• 2″ diameter base circle
• 8 large petals of 3.5″ x 2″
• 5 small petals of 2.5″ x 1.5″
• 7 beads
• metal alligator clip

I also made smaller poinsettias, with a finished size of approximately 4.75″.  The small flower uses:

• 1.5″ diameter base circle
• 6 large petals of 2.5″x1.5″
• 5 small petals of 1.75″ x 1″
• 5 beads
• metal alligator clip

Here are the large and small flowers side by side.

And here are the new poinsettias on our tree!

Hooray for a project that was even more easy and fun than I had expected!  If I get enough of these for the tree, they may start showing up elsewhere in our house!  Or that may be crazy-talk!

“Jewels”