I received a Fido Felts for my birthday from my boyfriend’s parents and I was very excited. I had never tried felting and it seemed like a really cool new craft to try.  I also love dogs, so I was excited to make the mini felted dogs the kit offered.  If you’re not familiar with felting, it’s pretty simple.  You take some wool and essentially stab and shape it with a needle until it’s in the shape you want.  The dogs from the kit are actually quite difficult to make, but I still had a good time making them.

Recently my grandfather has been in the hospital and a rehabilitation center, so I wanted to get him something.  He lives on the other side of the country, so it’s not easy for me to visit.  I figured flowers are very cliche, and I like making things.  I did a lot of googling on things I could make or get for him other than flowers and I came across a post on radmegan where she made a goldfish aquarium.  I thought this was a great idea!  My grandparents have a huge fish tank in their living room, so I thought this might give my grandfather a touch of home at the hospital.  I made some tweaks to what radmegan did, so here is my take on a felted fish tank.

Materials:

Felt for felting – specifically orange, yellow, black and white felt
Felting kit (needles, styrofoam, etc)
Large jar (I used an old pickle jar)
Blue ribbon
Aquarium gravel
Pipe cleaners – blue for fish stands, green for plants, purple for starfish
Silver & white small pom poms
Hot glue gun

Instructions:

1. Ensure your jar is clean.  If you’re using a repurposed jar, there might be lingering smells, so be sure to clean thoroughly.  If you want to keep the top, you can definitely do that, but I find it difficult to completely remove smells from the jar top.
2. Felt your fish.  I created a large goldfish and two smaller yellow fish. I used this tutorial on Youtube and thought it was very helpful.  The changes I made were that I added felt eyes by felting some white onto the body and then two small black dots inside.  I also added a smile.  For the yellow fish, I did not add a top dorsel fin and I made their tails slightly longer than the goldfish.
   

   
   

   
3. Once your fish are complete,  take the green pipe cleaners and mold them into a wavy pattern for the plants.  I used 4 pipe cleaners that were cut down a little, but depending on the size of your jar you may want more or less.  Fold the bottom of the pipe cleaner into an “L” shape and using the glue gun, glue the bottom part of the “L” onto the bottom of the jar.
4.  Use the hot glue gun to glue pipe cleaners onto the fish.  You’ll want to cut your pipe cleaners to the lengths you’d like your fish to be at.  Then, fold the pipe cleaners in a “]” shape, glue gunning the top part to the bottom of the fish, and (when that part is dry) the bottom to the bottom of the jar. I used the same pipe cleaner for the two small yellow fish.

5. Once the glue is dry, pour your aquarium gravel into the bottom of the jar until the glued bottoms of the fish and plants are no longer visible.

6. Create a starfish out of pipe cleaners and place into jar.

7. Take one or two silver and white pom poms and drop into jar (I imagined these as sea urchins).
8. Lastly, take your blue ribbon and tie it around the top of the jar.  I glue gunned it down in a few places so it would not slip around.

9. Enjoy!