With a few high quality felt scraps and iron-on vinyl, you can create your own personalized wedding patch with your initials, wedding date, or special short words, stick the patch where you want it, and then remove after the wedding to add to your memory box for safe keeping. And if you want more felt DIY inspiration, check out our felt coffee cozies from a few years ago!
DIY Wedding Patch Made of Wool Felt
Difficulty Level: Easy
PROJECT MATERIALS
• Our Cricut Design Space project that you can click and make right away!
• Felt sheets or bolt end scraps (we used Benzie's Acorn and White colors)
• Fabric scissors
• Hot glue gun with glue sticks
• Black safety pins
• Iron-on heat transfer vinyl
• Electronic cutting machine (e.g., Cricut)
• StandardGrip cutting mat
• Household electronic iron or Cricut EasyPress Mini
• Metallic gold embroidery floss (optional)
• Hand sewing needles (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Measure the size and shape of your ideal patch and then cut out the appropriate template from cardstock paper. If you have an electronic cutting machine, you can use it to cut your felt as well, but for simple shapes, it may just be easier to cut by hand. Our patch was 3" for the smaller square and 3.5" for the larger square. Whatever shape you make, you will want two layers to your patch to prevent any safety pin poke-throughs as your safety pin will go through the bottom layer.
2. Using a few of your hand-stitch needles, pin your template to your felt to avoid your felt getting wiggly as you cut. Cut around your cardstock templates and trim as needed with your fabric scissors. If your felt is wrinkled, just do a quick iron before cutting.
3. Depending on your electronic cutting machine, use its Design Space and our ready-to-use Cricut Design Space project to create your text for your patch. Keep it short and simple like your initials or wedding date. Measure how wide you want your words and how they will fit on your patch. Choose a font that is easy for your machine to cut since you’re working on a smaller scale. For this tutorial, our words no wider than 2.75 inches.
4. Since you are using iron-on vinyl, be sure to click "Mirror" before cutting and make sure shiny down is down against your cutting mat. Your machine will need to cut "in reverse" so it'll show up correctly after ironing on! After it has cut, use a weeding tool to take away the iron-on material that doesn’t belong in your design.
5. Always use the guidelines given for your iron-on material and the fabric you're ironing onto to ensure best results. In this project’s case, turn your iron on the highest heat. Once properly heated, pre-heat the felt fabric itself for 5 seconds and then place your text shiny side up onto the felt patch where you want it. Place your hot iron onto your iron-on and give light pressure for 30 seconds. Set aside iron and allow your fabric to cool down. Once your plastic backing is cool to touch, remove the backing slowly. This is called a cold peel, and it's a must for this kind of iron-on!
6. If you haven't worked a lot with felt before, you'll soon learn the hot glue gun is your best friend as it's one of the best glues to use with felt. You'll need to use your hot glue gun to attach both of your felt squares. Once your glue gun is heated and ready, place a small dot of hot glue in each corner of your felt. Lightly press and allow to harden.
Optional: If you want to add a fancy touch to your patch, consider stitching some easy stars on your corners using some metallic embroidery floss. Make sure your hot glue has been fully hardened before stitching anything! We used Benzie’s Light Silver thread for this. If you’re not fussed with a metallic detail, then carry on to the next step!
7. Using a large safety pin on the backside of your patch, attach to your jacket, tie, dress, or wardrobe. You may need a few pins depending on how secure you’d like it. We used a large 50mm pin for the middle and also stabilized the patch with a medium 38mm pin for the top.
8. Should your new felt patch have any edge fuzzies from being handled, take your fabric scissors and gently trim. Enjoy and then store your personalized patch in your keepsake box after the wedding!
TUTORIAL CREDITS
Photography and DIY Tutorial: Chelsea Barton (originally created for Jen of Something Turquoise) | Wool Craft Felt Sheets and Embroidery Floss: Benzie Design via Etsy
Looking for Wedding Style Ideas? Shop These Inspiring Looks!
Editor's Note: Specially curated by us, the above product links are partner-connected and purchasing through these links means we get a small commission from those brands that helps support this website. You can find our full affiliate disclosure policy here on Tidewater and Tulle.
