Halloween Essential Oil Diffuser – FREE Needle Felting Tutorial

Follow this free step by step needle felting tutorial to learn how to make your own Halloween essential oil diffuser.

A needle felted cauldron filled with a green swirling potion rests on a wool mat, surrounded by needle felting tools.

I don’t know what it is about this time of year, but I can’t help but making little needle felted figures that are perfect for Halloween. Last year I made some cute little pumpkins and realistic tarantula. This year, I’ve decided to go a bit more magical, with an extra little touch.

What Is Needle Felting?

Needle felting is a fun way to sculpt anything you want out of wool using special barbed needles.

This technique works because wool fibers have microscopic scales on them that lock together when you agitate them. That’s why your wool sweater will shrink if you put it in the dryer!

Needle felting is a great hobby to get into. You don’t need a ton of supplies to get started, and the possibilities are endless! Needle felting is especially great for gifts or decorations. Wool is also a great medium for diffusing essential oils, which we will be using our little cauldron for!

What You’ll Need For a Halloween Essential Oil Diffuser

A wool mat with a ball of white wool, needle for felting, and a pair of leather finger guards. Wool of different colors surrounds the mat.

Needle Felting Tools

Needle felting needles in a variety of sizes
Leather finger guards
Surface protecting mat
Optional: multi needle handle

Wool for felting a cauldron

Core wool
Black wool
Green wool

Let’s Make a Cauldron

Base

The first step to making a needle felting cauldron is to get the base shape made. For this, you can use any color of felting wool you have a lot of or was cheapest. This will be in the middle of your sculpture and won’t be seen in the end, so you can save your fancier wool for the outside.

How much wool you need to use depends on how big you want your final cauldron to be. As you felt your wool, the size of your wool will get smaller and smaller as it condenses together. For a rough estimate, your final shape will be about half the size of the amount of wool you started with.

A pair of hands uses a three needle needle felting handle to felt a white wool ball.

With a loose ball of wool, about twice the size you want your final cauldron to be, start stabbing it all over with your largest felting needle. If you have a handle to use multiple needles at once, this is a great time to use it. It isn’t a problem if you don’t have one, it will just take a bit longer using a single needle.

The goal here is to work the center of your cauldron into a dense ball. Since I used a white wool, this felt like making a snow ball.

Once your ball is about as small and dense as you want it, stab one side to flatten it out. This will be the top of your cauldron later.

Using a three needle felting needle to flatten the top of a white wool ball.

Color and Shaping

With the base shape of your cauldron complete, it’s time to add some color and refine the shaping details.

Using your black wool, lay a layer over your core wool, and stab it all over to cover the outside. You don’t need to cover the center of the top, that’s where our witch’s brew will go.

A pair of hands felts black wool over the white wool ball.

Once the outside of the cauldron is covered in black (or whatever color you want to use for your cauldron), stab all around the top of the cauldron, a quarter inch or so below the top edge. This will form a depression at the top to make the rim of the cauldron.

Witch’s Brew

Now that the outside of the cauldron is recognizable, we can fill our cauldron. Using green wool (or whatever color you want your potion to be) fill in the top of the cauldron, completely covering the center wool, and stab into place.

A pair of hands use a medium size felting needle to felt green wool to the center of a felted cauldron.

Once the cauldron is filled to your liking, you can use a small bit of a contrasting color and felt in a delicate spiral to show the swirling liquid. A fine felting needle helps get a clean spiral.

A pair of hands use a felting needle to felt a white spiral of wool into the middle of the green filling of a felted cauldron.

Cauldron Feet

Next, your cauldron needs some feet to stand on. The easiest number of feet to use is three, because they will balance, even if they aren’t placed perfectly.

Divide a bit of black wool into three even sections, one for each foot. The amount of wool should be about twice the size you want the feet to be.

A close up of felting a small piece of black wool to make a cauldron foot.

Before attaching each foot to the cauldron, work the wool with a felting needle to start to bring the shape together.

Once the feet are about halfway shaped, you can use a felting needle to attach them to the bottom of the cauldron, as evenly spaced as you can manage.

A pair of hands attaches three feet to the bottom of a felted cauldron with a felting needle.

Keep refining the shape of the feet until you are happy with your results.

Handles

The final step to making a needle felted cauldron is to add the handles.

Divide a small amount of black wool into two equal sections. Gently shape each piece of wool will your fingers into a long tube, then loop it around into a circle.

A pair of hands uses a felting needle to shape a donut shaped cauldron handle out of black wool.

Then, carefully start to felt each circle with a felting needle. This is a bit delicate and takes a bit of patience, but I know you can do it!

Once you have your two handles finished, all that is left to do is attach them. Take two equal pieces of black wool, even smaller than what you used for the handles, and gently felt them into a roughly rectangular shape.

A pair of hands felts a small piece of black wool to attach a handle onto the side of a felted cauldron.

Then, lay one of your handles on one side of the cauldron where you want it to be, and place one of the small rectangles over the top of the handle. With a small felting needle, felt the ends of the rectangle over the top of the handle and into the cauldron.

A pair of hands attaches a handle to the side of a felted cauldron, using a felting needle.

Repeat this process on the other side of your cauldron with the other handle, and your needle felted cauldron is complete!

A completed needled felted cauldron with a green, swirling potion rests on a hand.

Choose Your Scent

At this point, you have a super cute decoration, perfect for Halloween. But, you can add just a touch more magic.

Felted wool makes a great medium for diffusing essential oil. To turn your needle felted cauldron into a Halloween essential oil diffuser, simple sprinkle a few drops of your favorite oil into the cauldron to fill a room with a magical fragrance.

Drops of lavender essential oil being added to a needle felted wool cauldron.

If you want to see more needle felting tutorials, click here.

What are you most excited about this Halloween? Let me know in the comments below!