It's the holiday season, which means its time for decorating and bringing some cheer to your house! To start our decorating for the holidays, we decided to make some mistletoe out of felt. If you're looking for a non traditional look, or are worried about allergies, you can make this mistletoe to bring some cheer to your holiday party or decorations! Since this mistletoe is made out of felt, you can keep it to use for years to come.
The traditions around displaying greenery and evergreens indoors around the winter solstice goes back millenia. In the 1st century A.D., the Celtic Druids saw this plant that bloomed and remained green in the cold as a symbol of vivacity and fertility. Overtime, mistletoe evolved into a holiday decoration, with a berry plucked from it every time there was a kiss beneath it. Today we hang mistletoe in our houses as a holiday decoration and to brighten up Christmas parties.
This DIY is really easy to do, and if you have all of the materials on hand, it will probably take you less than 20 minutes from start to finish. If you don't have all of the materials on hand, you can probably find them all for less than $5 at your local crafts store, so it is an inexpensive activity, too. If you're looking for an activity to do with children, this could probably be done by tiny hands, with only minimal help with the hot glue.
Step One: Gather your supplies
To make this felt mistletoe, you'll need:
- Green and white felt. We used 100% wool felt (also called fancy felt). You might not be able to find this at your local craft store, but you can find it in a large assortment of colors on Etsy.
- Cotton twine or cord
- scissors
- 4"-6" long sticks or branches. We cut ones left over from a flower arrangement.
- hot glue and glue gun or tacky glue
- Red or green ribbon to tie the mistletoe together. We used red and white baker's twine since it's what we had on hand, but you can use any ribbon that you'd like.
Step Two: Make your branches
We started by making the branches for our mistletoe. First we glued the branches together to create forking branches and to keep them secure. We finished them off by wrapping the tops of them with the cotton cord. This hides the glue and makes them look more finished.
Step Three: Cut out your leaves
Cut out the leaves from your felt. We cut out leaves in two shapes, an oval shaped one, and one shaped like cat's meow glasses. Don't worry about making the shape of each one perfect. We've included a template for you to see the shape of the leaves that you can print out if you need a guide. We cut out six smaller leaves and one longer leaf per branch, but you can cut out and use as many per branch as you see fit.
Step Four: Glue leaves onto branches
Next, we glued the eyeglass shaped leaves to the end of the branch. Place a drop of glue at the end of the branch, and wrap the felt around the tip of the branch. Pinch the felt and the branch together for a few seconds to secure the bond with the glue.
From there, glue the smaller petals, pointing slightly downward, up the branch. Alternate sides with every other petal. Repeat for each branch.
While working on this DIY, we found some white felt. To make the mistletoe look more realistic, we cut out some small circles from the white felt, and glued them in a few places on each branch to mimic the berries found on some types of mistletoe.
Step Five: Glue Branches Together
Once you've added the leaves to each branch, decide how you want your branches to sit together. We glued them together to secure them in place.
Step Six: Tie ribbon around the mistletoe
You're almost done! Tie your red ribbon around where your branches meet. Et Voilà! You've just made your own mistletoe! Hang it from your doorway, and you're now ready for your holiday party!
If you liked this tutorial, we have more tutorials here on our blog and Instructables page for you to enjoy. We learned about the history of the mistletoe from the Smithsonian magazine and the History Channel.