A lot of what I’m doing these days is experimenting – seeing something or having an idea and trying to make it work. This project was inspired by something I saw online – a car diffuser made out of felted balls and shapes. Conveniently, because I had been playing, I had both felted balls and needle-felted shapes to play with. It’s a great little gift idea, and also a fantastic project if you happen to want to reclaim the smell of your car that currently smells faintly but dominantly of your middle child’s cologne, because he uses your car more than you do. Or maybe that’s just me.
I made one version of this project using bits I already had made and when I tried it out in the car, I noticed a fatal flaw in the design. Well, okay, maybe not “fatal” — but certainly, “hmmm, with a bit of a tweak this will be better.” Can you see the not-quite-fatal flaw? When you clip the diffuser to the grill of the vent, the fat felted shape hangs below the air flow from the vent.
So I tried again with a new shape, and documented all the steps this time.
First, I made the felt balls. I love making felt balls – simple and mindless busy work for hands, but so cute and colourful. I used a felting needle to make the basic shape, then wet felted them to shrink them down and make them more solid. I ran them under tap water as hot as I could comfortably touch, then rubbed my hands with my lavender-scented olive oil soap. I started gently rubbing each one individually between my palms, the same way you’d roll putty into a ball. Once they started to firm up, I rolled all six together between my fancy pro felting boards (two ridiculously affordable mini cutting boards I got from Ikea a thousand years ago.) The texture of the cutting boards has just enough grip that they’re perfect for felting. You can see them in action if you watch the Instagram reel linked below.
I like using the cookie cutters for needle-felted shapes, too. Just cram enough fibre into the cookie cutter for it to be loosely packed and start stabbing. I find one you’ve flipped the shape a few times to fully felt both sides, you should remove the cookie cutter and firm up the edges.
Once I had all my shapes felted, it was time to assemble them. I’m a bit of a craft supply hoarder, so I had some nice beads and embroidery floss and even the tiny clothespins in my stash already. I started with the bottom bead and knotted the floss onto it, then used a sharp embroidery needle to draw the floss up through each felted ball, bead and shape in turn. I looped the floss through and around the clothespin a few times and looped back down through the main felted heart. I pulled the floss taut and snipped the end, so it disappeared back into the heart. You can see Percy the Cat was keeping a close eye on the process.
And yay! Since I put the larger felt shape at the top, nearest the clothespin, when I clipped it to the vent the air actually flowed through the spot where you would put the essential oil or other scent.
I’m happy with how they came out!
Since this post has been all about experimenting, I’ll share that I also experimented with creating an Instagram reel to showcase this project, which more or less worked (although there is considerable room for improvement) and I’ll further experiment by trying to see how it looks when I share a reel to the blog.
Hmmm. Clearly it’s possible, but not sure if I love it. I think I might start up a YouTube channel to share mini-videos and tutorials instead. Anyone have any experience or advice on that one?