needle felted tree complete, as is our first nature table

I have been playing with adding layers to my tree and have decided it's time to stop. Not the most amazing thing in the world but it will serve it's purpose on our nature table.


I cheated a bit in it's creation. I was inspired by this one (here). I have yet to decide if I should add it to a base or not.

To make my tree I folded 5 pipecleaners in half and stuck them in the top of a cone shaped Styrofoam piece I got from a Thrift Store. (Sorry no pictures of the process, I hadn't planned on explaining it as I was unsure how it would turn out.)

I then covered the whole thing in white wool roving and randomly needle felted it in place. I then covered it with a dark brown wool roving, and randomly needle felted it in place. Both times just needle felting it enough to stay somewhat secure when you wet felt it.

I then placed it directly under a low flowing, hot water tap with soap hands and squeezed and squished and prodded it until it felted into place. This didn't take too much time but it was trying at times as it was really hard to keep the felt in place. I was determined to make it work though, and carried on.This was my base layer.

I wanted the tree to have some dimension so I tried to wet felt on a few stripes of colour as seen in this picture I posted before.

The stripes didn't look natural and I wanted the tree to have more texture so I began to take long strips of the roving and needle felt them onto the tree from the base, to the branches. I tried to keep them raised, to add texture and depth to the tree. I also added in some other shades of brown to make it more interesting. I could have continued on forever but eventually said enough was enough!

For now we have just added some different shades of green roving to be the first green buds of spring emerging from the branches. (I plan on adding more green leaves and some flowers to be the spring blooms.) In the fall the leaves will change colours and then in the winter, all the leaves can be removed for a barren tree.

It is not the most beautiful thing in the world but it will serve it's purpose nicely on our nature table.

Here is what our whole table looks like:
It's sort of divided into sections since we had such a big area to work with. Here in the first set is our forest area. It has my tree, my needle felted mushrooms, a book called the Animals Playground, and of course some mamakopp animals and mushrooms.

Next is our frog study area. The wooden frog life cycle set came from mamakopp, the book from a thrift store. I would love to take a trip to the pond this weekend and see if we can find some tad poles.

Third comes the easter area. It has a book (I'm big on books), two little fuzzy bunnies, a real nest to investigate an a wet felted egg.This next photo is of mamakopps son's Lucas's rainbow owls and Tobins rainbow fish. I love these coloured items on the mirror. Sierra has so much fun playing and talking with each owls reflection! This is also where our plantings are kept. So far the plants have all bounced back, and I think shall survive!