Note: Felting needles are extremely sharp; follow manufacturer's instructions.Repeated felting produces a more dense shape.
- 1. Cover first foam egg with blue roving. Followingmanufacturer's instructions, needle felt roving to foam; addmore roving as needed. Repeat to cover second egg with rose roving.Place eggs on work surface with narrow ends (tails) to bottom left side.
- 2. Place small amount of green roving on breast area of blue bird;felt to body in oval shape. Repeat to create burgundy breast on rose bird.
- 3. Place a 5"-6" strip of blue roving on scrap foam and rollinto fairly loose ball shape. Felt ball into dense, round headusing needle felting tool, adding more roving as needed. Felthead to body above breast area. Wrap small strip of rovingaround joint between head and body; needle felt to createneck. Repeat to create head on rose bird.
- 4. Tear off a second 5"-6" strip of blue roving and wraparound two fingers to make a tube shape. Place narrow end ofegg inside center of tube and needle felt tube to body.Continue needle felting tube to create tapered shape for tail.Repeat to create tail on rose bird.
- 5. To create wings, place two strips of blue roving side byside on scrap foam. Place two or three additional pieces sideby side on top of first layer, in opposite direction. Placetwo final strips on top of second layer in same direction asfirst strips. Use multi-needle felting tool to felt all layerstogether. Flip wool frequently to prevent it from attaching tofoam; stop felting when layers are well bonded. Repeat tocreate fabric for rose bird.
- 6. Use pattern to cut two wings for each bird from appropriatefelted fabric. Embellish wings with small twists of feltedroving in same color as breast. If desired, sew beads toembellished areas of wings. Felt wings to birds as shown.
- 7. Repeat Step 5 to create small sheet of orange feltedfabric. Cut two small diamond shapes from fabric and fold inhalf for beaks. Insert a pin through each fold and add a dropof glue to end of pins; push pins into heads.
- 8. Insert pins in each black bead and add drop of glue to pinends; push pins into heads.
- 9. Cut small opening in center of each tapered tail. Bundlefeathers, apply glue to ends and stick bundles into openings.Clip tail closed while glue dries.
- 10. Cut two 4" wire lengths. Use pliers to wrap each lengthinto a tight spiral, leaving 1" straight wire tails. Usepliers to bend tails at 90 angle away from spiral. Positionbird as it will be on branch and glue wire end into bottom ofbird at that point; let dry.If you enjoyed this project, look here for more inspiring ideas:Jeweled Ribbon SpheresFelted Holiday OrnamentsNeedlefelted Chick