Embellished Felt Stocking

Amanda and I were able to exchange ornaments in person this year. We moved again this year, and she visited the area twice this year for work.

Penguin Cocoa Mug Ornament

 

I have wanted to make a cocoa mug ornament before, but didn't necessarily want to go through the effort of working out the dimensions. I started with a toilet paper tube cut in half, then I rolled up some quilt batting scraps to fill it out and glued a pieces of brown felt to the top. Next I cut the felt to size, whip-stitched it and folded it over, then whip-stitched it to a circle to create the mug and inserted the cocoa. I rolled some felt to create the handle and glued it in place, then stitched in on. I wanted to decorate the mug, but didn't settle on a design until after I'd stitched it. (The penguin brads were previously used for stockings.)  I considered using pompoms for marshmallows, but ended up rolling felt strips and gluing them in place. The cocoa insert is only glued in where I inserted the baker's twine for the hanger.

 

 

Finished size: 2.5" high by 2" wide, plus handle

Weihnachtswichtelchen

"Weihnachtswichtelchen" is my new favorite word. I made a set of these little elves for Amanda and knew I would have to make a set for myself as well, so I used different beard shapes. I did not bother blanket stitching the faces, thought I did blanket stitch the edges of the bodies on the machine. I cut a couple layers of quilt batting to fit to use as stuffing. Conveniently I had matching felt, star buttons, and twine on hand.

Finished size: 2" wide at base x 5.5" tall

Christmas Ornament Exchange 2016

Amanda made me an armadillo ornament too! It's way better than the one I made her!

Claire's Kites

These kites are quite possibly the cutest thing I have ever made. Julie is working on decorating Claire's "big girl" bedroom, and the theme is kites. She originally wanted me to make some larger kites, but then she saw a kite bunting on Etsy and we went with this instead.
 

Each kite is about 4" x 6" with a 9" tail. The whole strand is about 8' long. There are buttons on the back of each kite through which the ribbon is threaded.

Christmas Ornament Exchange 2014

Do you recognize this unicorn from Despicable Me? After I made the minion ornaments last year, Amanda decided to make a Despicable Me themed ornament as well. It's remarkable how accurate it looks! She actually made the cone herself out of Sculpey, because she couldn't find one the right size. It just cracks me up, it is so cute!

Christmas Fish

Amanda and Chris have fish, so I decided to make a Christmas fish ornament. As soon as I finished it, I wondered why I had only made the face white. I should have added white elsewhere.

Dimensions: 5" x 4"

Felt Snowflake Ornament

It's the start of the Christmas ornament season! This year we're starting off with the last ornament I made for the Ornament Exchange. I love it so much, I was tempted to make one for myself! It is 4" in diameter from tip to tip.

Christmas Ornament Exchange 2013

This year Amanda sent me two adorable embroidered felt trees! She loves hand-sewing a lot more than I do! She is also a whiz at French knots, which always give me trouble.

The second tree she designed to look like a candy corn, since we eat a lot of them.

Each tree is about 3.5" tall.

Christmas Minions

Amanda has developed a bit of an obsession with the movie Despicable Me, so I'm surprised it took me as long as it did to come up with the idea of making a Despicable Me-themed ornament. Minions are adorable, and I'm really pleased with the way these turned out, though I'm partial to the one with two eyes. Despite not having any arms or legs, I think they are easily identifiable as minions, though their heads could probably be a bit rounder and less rectangular. I particularly like the hair. The yellow felt is machine stitched together with quilt batting inside. Everything else is hot glued on, because I wasn't feeling like hand stitching. The minions are supposed to be tangled up in the Christmas lights, because that seemed like a miniony thing to do. Merry Christmas!

Finished size: 3" x 4" body + Santa hat

Googly Snowmen

What were you doing on the third day of spring this year? I was making Christmas ornaments. It was snowing and I was inspired, though not because of the snow. But hey, I make Christmas ornaments in the summer too, so March is just a particularly early start.

I was inspired to use up the wooden discs I had left over from my yo-yo pumpkins, and I also had a lot of googly eyes. At first I wasn't sure about the googly eyes, but I really like them! The wood discs are only 1" in diameter, so they are very tiny snowmen.

Merry and Bright Felt Tree Garland

I bought these tiny star buttons (only 3/8" tall) on clearance a while ago and when I saw this garland, I knew it would be the perfect project. However, the Noodlehead pattern uses equilateral triangles, and I wanted my trees to be taller and skinner, so I used an isosceles triangle. My fabric triangles have 2" bases and are 2.5" tall. The felt triangles have 3" bases and are 3.5" tall (plus 1/2" for the trunk). Instead of sewing down the fabric all at once, I first sewed down the trunks with brown thread, then sewed down the trees with matching colored thread. I also simply layered in two triangular pieces of quilt batting before sewing. It was very tempting to make them into individual ornaments, but I think part of their appeal is how nice the colors look together. I strung them on some metallic ribbon and added two silver star buttons to the end, with tiny clothes pins glued to the back for hanging.

Santa Gnome Pattern

Make your own Santa gnome!

Download the pattern.

Supplies:

Felt: red, white, black, yellow, tan  

Embroidery floss: red, black

Other supplies: needle, hot glue gun, stuffing, scissors, ribbon, pins

Santa Gnome

This is my original ornament for the year. I tried to make a gnome ornament for last year's Ornament Exchange using little wooden doll shapes, but it did not work out. I decided to do a felt gnome this year. I was trying to decide on a color scheme when it occurred to me to turn it into a Santa gnome! Unfortunately, it came out a bit crooked, but we'll just say he has a jaunty hat. Santa gnome is about 3" tall.

Use this pattern to make your own Santa gnome!

More Mice

I made a second set of mice as toys for Tyco and Cleo, using a pattern with some adjustments. They are not quite as cute as the first pair.

Here are the kitties enjoying their new toys:

Cleo                                        Tyco

Christmas Ornament Exchange 2010

In addition to ribbon, Amanda really likes buttons. (Hmm, perhaps inspiration for next year's ornaments?) This little felt tree reminded me of the sequin tree ornaments I made last year, so I really should have thought of it myself and made one for her, but I'm sure I don't have quite the collection of buttons Amanda does.

Owl Key Chain Holder

I saw this project on Craft Passion (where I also found the turtle). Since Amanda enjoyed making the owl so much when she was here, I wanted to make one of these for her birthday. It's as close to Carolina blue as I could get.

Felt Star

I saw a variation of these on Flickr, with a link to this tutorial. I immediately wanted to make some as Christmas ornaments, but I decided to try it first with felt. It's just a pentagon within a pentagon. I was debating just gluing down the orange, but I decided to embellish it a bit with stitches instead. Now, I think I might just make some more with felt!

Amanda's Owl

My friend Amanda came to visit this weekend and we had lots of fun crafting together. She wanted to make an owl similar to mine. I used up all the paisley fabric so she had to choose another one, but I love the radial design and color scheme. She is a speedy stitcher!

Sequin Trees

These little trees are about 3" tall. They are decorated with sequins and seed beads and stuffed with a little quilt batting. The edges are finished with a slightly off-kilter blanket stitch. I realized it was wrong after the first one, but I decided it looked better that way.