Tropical Felt Leaves Wall Hanging DIY

9 Materials
$60
6 Hours
Medium

Make this tropical leaves wall hanging to liven up your wall and to make you dream of that warm and sunny beach in the tropics! It's a great project for a diy home decor.


The first thing to do is to prepare tropical leaves templates or patterns and then trace them on felt. If you want to save time and get on the project right away, I have tropical leaves felt patterns here.

I find that using a ball point pen is easier when tracing on felt fabric. And because the pen can still be evident even after cutting, just be aware which side would be your front side. Ideally your trace marks should appear on the back side of your felt cut out.


Cut out the felt leaves. You can have your leaves without the stem, they look so gorgeous even without it. But if you want the stems on, you can use Aleene’s Foam and Felt glue to stick it on. Another option is to stitch them on.

I recommend that you use a fabric stiffener on the felt and for this you can use Aleene’s Stiffen QuiK fabric stiffening spray. I applied about 4 coats, drying them an hour in between coats.


Let me show you how the felt leaves will look without a stiffener.

And with 4 coats of stiffener...

These were the products I used.

While you're felt leaves are drying, you can work on the string part. Get the stick you’re going to use. I used a bamboo stick for this wall hanging but you can also use a dowel, twig or even a tension rod. That’s totally up to you. You can use any kind of string for this diy. I opted for cotton twine and I used 4 balls of twine.


The length of the wall hanging depends on how long you want it and where you intend to hang it. You may want to plan that out first before you cut the string.


And because you have to loop the string on the stick, you’ll need to cut the string double the length of how long you want it. Say, you want it 40 inches long then you’d have to cut your string 80 inches long. You need a number of that set size of string. So you can decide how wide you want the wall hanging to be and approximate how many cut strings you may need.


I suggest you hang your cut string instead of laying it down because it will tend to get tangled if you don’t.

Now, you will loop each piece of string on the stick. Fold the string into half and and loop the edge under the stick.

Then, place the other end into that loop and pull.

This is how it will look like when all the string is looped. But the other side looks better actually. So carefully flip to the other side.

You want this side.

When you’ve strung all the pieces, tie a knot at the edge close to the stick. You actually will end up having to arrange and space out the string several times. As you’re tying the knots, you may want the strings a bit apart. And when you’re all done with that step, you’ll place them closer together again.

After that, tie the ends of the string and yes a lot of them have to be tied in a knot to avoid fraying.

Next, hang the whole thing on the wall and use your fingers to kind of brush in between the strings to loosen them up. And then space them out neatly from the top where they’re looped on the stick.

Next, cut up strips and rectangular shapes of felt.

Now, arrange your felt leaves on the string and temporarily attach them with painter's tape.This way, you can easily change the arrangement as you see fit.


Be careful as you tape down the felt, make sure your strings are not too far apart. You want them to hang with only a little space in between.

After taping down the leaves, carefully flip the wall hanging so that the backside is facing you. You will be gluing the leaves from this side.


Use hot glue to attach the felt strips or patch to the back side of the felt leaf.


Place the strips where it cannot be seen from the front. So before you even put hot glue on it, make sure you know where the actual spot is. Be super careful on this step of the project because you know how ouchy that hot glue is when it hits your skin.

You don’t need to glue strips on every part of the leaf. Find spots that will support the leaf enough for it to lay flat on the string. After the hot glue process, gently remove the painter’s tape.


Now, you have this gorgeous wall hanging!

If you don't want to bother making the leaf patterns yourself, you can get those tropical leaves pattern here. So you can get right on and make this wall hanging for your home.

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Queti @ Fancy Momma
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3 of 38 comments
  • Jenny Jenny on Jul 28, 2021

    Thanks for the idea. I have made a pile of Autumn leaves by quilling and I could not decide how to display them. This method will be great.

  • Marlene Marlene on Dec 29, 2022

    Love the look of this. You could also glue the leaves to a long piece of tapestry fabric.

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