felt bon bon ring tutorial

yesterday i went up to salt lake to the ABC channel 4 studios and filmed a live segment for the Good Things Utah show. first time ever on tv and let me tell you it was totally cool! (but it still stressed me out...)
i went into the green room to wait until it was time for me to set up. there on the wall was the 10 foot poster with the Lost cast. i set up a table with beautiful wool beads and little dishes of supplies with all the steps ready to show the felt bead rings from my book. i had only just got a mike on and stepped behind the table when the camera man said '10 seconds and you're live' i thought ok, here it goes.

i decided to post a tutorial here so you can make one of the felt bon bon rings from the show for yourself.

i love working with wool felt. it seems i always have a stack of felt scraps stacked on my desk next to a pretty tin filled with wool beads. i guess it isn't much of a surprise then that one day while playing around i made one of these bon bon rings. my first one looked so much like a little jello mold i had to laugh.


it was so satisfying to cut apart the wool balls i started adding felt, beads, ric rac, trim and vintage millinery flowers to my collection of little candy rings and they all ended up in my book pretty little felts.
the first step is to cut the wool bead in half with a pair of sharp scissors. i love the colors and selection of wool beads from Ornamentea. the ones i have used here are the 2 cm size.


lay your circle template over the wool bead to choose the size then trace the circle onto the back of a piece of felt with a pencil or a water soluable marker. (mark be gone is a good one)


cut around the circle with a pair of scalloped or zig zag scissors lining up the points with the edge of the circle. glue the half bead on the right side of the scallop circle using tacky glue and let dry.



gather together some ric rac, tiny beads, sequins, embroidery floss, and any other pretty embellishments you would like to use and sew or glue them onto your wool bead.
after decorating you felt bon bon use E600 to adhere the felt to a ring blank and let it dry.



here are some variations i have made. those fancy sew on gems were on an old hat i bought.


here is my little bon bon ring ready to be mailed to a friend tucked in tiny paper mache box and surrounded by a nest of crepe paper.

with a couple of flowers tied to the top it makes a lovely gift. enjoy, julie