Felt Flower Hanging Heart

I made a hanging heart for Christmas using simple hand embroidered decoration and large hand stitching last year that I have adapted ever so slightly for one of my favourite people in the world, my Mum.  This will be attached to the best bunch of flowers I can find and an embroidered picture of some of her favourite things, beach huts...but more about that another time.

This heart is, of course, perfect for one of the favourites in your life as it's so easy to adapt and customise with the stitching, decoration and fabric used.  

I used very similar methods to this post, however; adapted for a slightly different size and design.  For the decoration, I settled on a simple fabric flower design, using this technique and it's something that can be hanging all year round.

My chosen material for the heart was a simple pastel purple felt and raspberry for the flower.
Cutting a circle from an outline drawn around a roll of cellotape, I cut my felt into a swirl, and then began to wind the felt from the outside in:

...to form my flower.
I then fixed to the bottom some pastel green leaves cut free-hand from patterned cotton.

For the heart, I adapted the Christmas template slightly to produce a shorter heart and I still really like the effect of seeing the stitching, so I chose a pretty pastel pink thread and used small running stitches to fix my hearts together:

 ...leaving a gap before the joining to fill with padding [you could use fabric scraps, toy stuffing or add some lavender or scent]:

...and then securing closed.  I then trimmed any excess fabric where the two pieces didn't quit match up:

...and added a loop to the back with embroidery floss:

...I then used strong craft glue to secure the flower to the front of the heart:

Ta-da.  I also made some more fabric felt flowers to use as present embellishments and for a matching card:

Perfect for Sunday, but just as perfect for a birthday gift/tag, present for yourself or present for your favourite for absolutely no reason at all.
Have a great weekend, thanks so much for stopping by this week x