How To Make A Felt Pie Slice Garland For Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving because it is a day set aside to practice gratitude for all of the wonderful people and things in our lives. It is a day to reflect on what matters most and to be present with appreciation. I know that in the United States a lot of people allow the holiday of Christmas to overshadow Thanksgiving so this year I wanted to put more emphasis on celebrating the holiday. I do not put up my Christmas tree before Thanksgiving. Instead, I decorate a cornucopia centerpiece and try to focus more on the holiday that is actually here. A felt pie garland is just the craft to help bring yourself back into the present moment and the present holiday. I will show you step by step how I made my felt pie garland.

This entire project will cost you about $10 if you already own a hot glue gun and scissors. The entire project itself, supplies and all, will cost you under $25 to make. It is a great craft for all ages, but small children will need help with the tracing, cutting, and handling of the hot glue gun. It is a slightly time consuming project so it may be better suited for older children and families to work on together.

For Thanksgiving, I decided to go with the two classics; pumpkin pie and apple pie. I’m always torn between which one so I usually do a slice of both. There are many types of pies that could be your favorite, so you do not have to stick with my chosen flavors, but for aesthetics the two work very well for autumnal colors. You can easily substitute the orange felt for the pumpkin pie to a lime green to make a key lime pie instead. Or instead of the caramel colored felt for the apple pie, you can exchange it for blue, purple, red, or pink to make a berry, cherry, or even a rhubarb pie. There are also numerous other pie styles you can make using your own imagination. Love pecan pie? Make little pecans out of brown felt. Love a pie with a curst top with heart shapes? Make a unique top instead. Use your imagination. For the purposes of this tutorial, I am going to show you how I made my own pumpkin and apple pie slices out of felt.

Have fun creating!

The supplies you will need:

One. Felt:

Four long sheets of light beige felt for the pie crust
Two sheets of off-white-cream colored felt for the whipped cream toppings
Two long sheets of orange felt (or green of you wish make a key lime pie instead of pumpkin)
Two long sheets of caramel colored felt for the apple pie (or blue, red, pink, or purple for berry or rhubarb pie)

Two. Scissors

Three. Hot glue gun with glue (or fabric glue, but that will be messier and take longer)

Four. Twine

Five. A ruler or yard stick

Six. Fabric pencil or regular pencil

Seven. A piece of cardboard or paper that you can make into a stencil.

How to make your garland:

The first step is to make a stencil out of a piece of paper or a piece of cardboard. For the pie shape you will want it to be four inches wide and six inches long. To make sure your triangle is centered you can also fold your piece of paper in half to find the center point when drawing out your stencil.

Once your stencil is made you will trace it onto the beige felt to make the pie crust base. Alternate the stencil to save as much of the felt as possible. For one garland you will need twelve slices and for two garlands you will need 24.

Gently cut out your slices.

Next you will do the same for your pie slices. For one garland you will need six orange slices for the pumpkin pies and six caramel colored slices for the apple pies (or any color for whichever pie you are making). For two garlands you will double this amount.

Now that we have our pie crust base and our pie slices, you will need to find something round to trace (approximately 1.5″ in diameter). I used a cork candle lid. the base of a champagne glass, a candle, or a small jar could also work. You will need three circles to make a single whipped cream topping. For one garland with six pumpkin pie slices you will need 18 circles. Double it if you are making two garlands.

Gently cut out the circles so that you do not see the pencil outline.

To make the topping:

Fold your circle in half….

…fold it in half again….

…now glue the middle of that last fold and pinch it until it dries.

Take three of these and glue them back to back so that they form a circle that looks like this:

Now you can glue the whipped cream topping to your pie slices.

To make the apple pie (or berry pies) you will need to cut out one centimeter wide strips to make the lattice for the pie crust on top. Weave them together and then glue them down.

Once the topping is secure, trim the edges.

Once your apple and pumpkin pie slices are decorated, you will glue them down to the beige triangle bases, leaving about a half inch of room at the top to glue the twine when we are done making the pie slices.

To finish the slices, glue a centimeter and a half wide strip of felt at the top of the pie, making waves with the fabric to emulate a pie crust like this:

Now it is time to string them all together. Line your slices so that they alternate between the two flavors. Use your hot glue gun to glue twine between the two pieces of felt to secure them to the garland, leaving about two-three feet of twine at the edges so that you can hang it.

And voila!

I made two garlands. One that that I have on my corner hutch at home and the other that I strung up on my front desk at work to bring some Thanksgiving cheer to the office.