How to Make Mini Felt Pennants

Let’s be real. Love is hard. Love needs to persevere. Life gets nuts and we don’t always spend time just loving on the people we care for. Valentine’s Day gives us the perfect opportunity to wave a little “I love you” in the faces of others. But maybe this year, instead of those flashy roses, consider gifting a succulent. Unlike those finicky bouquets, succulents and cacti actually weather life’s droughts pretty easily. They have staying power and continue to grow even when we don’t always love on them the way we should (i.e. water them). To dress up these drought-resistant beauties, I will show you how to make mini felt pennants as a way to wave a little “I love you” around with them.

Supplies and Materials

Red and White Felt (you can purchase individual sheets at a craft store or use the link provided)
Embroidery Floss, Red with a needle separated into two sections or half thickness (optional – you can just use glue if you’d like easy)
Rotary Cutter
Cutting Mat
Cutting Ruler
Scissors
Dowel Rod, 1/8-Inch
No-Sew Fabric Glue or Tacky Glue (optional – you can just use the floss if you’d rather)
Wood Heart Stickers (or in Hobby Lobby sticker section)
Heavy Duty Cutter or Small Saw
Succulents 2″ (I bought these live succulent plugs off Amazon in a 20 pack but you can purchase mini artificial plants at Michael’s right now.)
Optional: Cupcake liner and twine to decorate

Directions

Step One: Cut the felt into a triangle.

Using a rotary cutter, cutting mat, and cutting ruler, cut small pennant shapes from the red felt. You can cut standard triangles or fold over the felt and then cut the triangle (making a diamond shape as seen in pic). You can use scissors for this step, but for the cleanest cut edges on felt, cutting with a rotary cutter works much better.

Step Two: Decorate the pennant.

Using either the embroidery floss or the glue, add little white hearts cut from white felt. OR you can just add a little wood sticker like I did on the smallest pennant. So easy!

Step Three: Cut a dowel for the pennant handle.

Using the ratchet pruners or any heavy duty cutter or small saw, cut the 1/8″ diameter dowel to length desired.

Step Four: Assemble the pennant.

If you are using the diamond shape, then you just add glue to one side and fold it in half around the dowel. If you are using the larger triangle shape, then wrap it around the dowel, add a line of glue, roll a little more, and hold tightly for a minute or so until the glue holds.

Step Five: Decorate with the pennant.

To decorate the succulent as in the pic, I just used a large natural cupcake liner and some twine. The liner didn’t want to stay in place while I wrapped the twine around it so I did add some little strips of tape just until I had the twine in place. Then I placed it on the lid of a mason jar and screwed the jar on over the top of it.

Just a caution: Not even succulents survive the below freezing temps, so if you live somewhere cold make sure before you gift it that you protect it somehow!

For more inspiration…

How are you celebrating this year? Maybe make it about all the people you love in your life. Friends, kids, mentors, AND spouses. For MORE ideas check out my Valentine’s Day Pinterest Board or my Fabric Crafts Board! If you enjoyed this project, you may also enjoy my sewn canvas bunting project.

Share the love…

If you found this tutorial helpful I would LOVE to have you take a moment and share the pin below or a link to this post or the project you create with it. It really helps me – thank you!!! And if you have questions please feel free to contact me.