How To Make an Easy Felt Christmas Ornament - Sew Your Own Tutorial

Hello lovelies!

Hope you're all feeling nice and Christmassy? In my last post I recounted our Christmas Crafternoon and I've got Carols playing on the radio so I'm feeling really festive!

I've got a Christmas Ornament tutorial for you today:

You Will Need:

A scrap of felt 2" x 2" for the smaller circle

2 pieces of felt 3" x 3" for the larger circle and the backing circle

Embroidery thread in a range of colours

A sequin and bead per ornament

Small length of ribbon

Scissors, needle, pins

Circle templates - you can either use the ones at the end of the tutorial or draw around whatever comes to hand. Mine are 2" for the smaller circle and 2.5" for the larger circle.

Instructions:

1. Cut out 1 small circle & 2 larger circles. On the smaller circle lightly mark out a circle about 1" in diameter with a pencil (you won't see this once you are finished) and using the template, the points where the white embroidery thread comes together.

2. Stitch on the white pattern, using 2 strands of embroidery thread.

3. Draw another slightly smaller circle with your pencil and then add the grey stitches, in between the white pattern.

4. Using 2 strands of maroon embroidery thread add a french knot between each grey stitch.

5. Add your sequin and bead. To hide the thread, bring your needle up through the centre of the sequin and then thread on the bead, then take the needle back down through the hole in the sequin.

6. Add a circle of running stitch, going in and out of the white pattern with 2 strands of bright red embroidery thread. Then sandwich your ribbon between the two red felt circles and using 4 strands of pale green embroidery thread, blanket stitch around the outside of the ornament.

Et Voila! You have an ornament all ready for your tree!

Here's the Circles template:

I have used colours in my ornaments that compliment the Christmas Trees I've just created using my new pattern (available in my Etsy Shop) which I had great fun putting together and will be used to make all the Teacher and T.A. gifts for my kids this year.

Happy Sewing!

A Crafty Afternoon with JacDo

A couple of months ago I saw a tweet from Mrs Crafty B (aka Annie) looking for crafters/bloggers with children who lived near Cardiff if they'd like to attend an event held by JacDo. I'd not heard of the company before so went to have a look at their website which caught my interest immediately.

JacDo is a company which created craft kits for kids, tailored towards the children's ages, linking in with the national curriculum (in Wales, where they are based) and comes in both English and Welsh, making the bilingual... something that is promoted heavily in Wales.

So I eagerly signed up and on Saturday off we set. The event was held at the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, which is worth going to for the tea and cookies alone (we weren't early enough to sample any of the meals, but they looked scrummy!)

There were 3 making stations, so of course, we had to try them all! First off, we made Sock Snowmen... these are just TOO cute!

The kids loved that they could do almost all of this by themselves and were very proud of their snowmen (Freddie and Snowy!)

Next up were paper plate wreaths - these were made by dipping a bath scrunchie into green paint and covering the plate and then using cotton wool balls, dipped into red paint for the berries:

And finally some sewing (which my two were delighted about cause it made them just like Mummy!) to make a Penguin and a Santa hand puppet:

Seren sneaking in a cake before her work was done!

Patrick sharing his cake with Santa!

Seren videoed me sewing!

I brought home two very happy children after their "crafternoon" and both are keen to get started on sewing up their treats from the goody bag they got to bring home. Although Patrick had to do some sweet talking to get persuade the ladies in charge that he should be allowed his own bag and not to have to share one with Seren (which actually I agree with - I don't think you should run an event like this, especially one for kids and not hand out a goody bag to everyone... if you are doing them, then it should be one per person)

So I guess the question now is will we subscribe to the JacDo monthly craft box?

There are 3 sizes of box - Petite, Medium and Large:

According to Bethan & Megan (the ladies who run JacDo) for two kids of a similar age, a large box would be ideal as there would be mixed activities, tailored to their ages for them to do together. While I do like the idea, £14.99 per month is quite a commitment but it's not a horrendous amount of money. I like the idea that they tie in with the national curriculum and I think for parents who aren't especially crafty themselves, its a great idea as you don't have to plan out the crafts, that's all done for you.

The answer is I don't know for definite, but I suspect we might give it a try!

One thing that has occurred to me, whilst writing this post is that it might have been more persuasive for the afternoon to be spend going through one of the boxes and doing the crafts inside the box... that way the parents would have got a better feel for exactly what they would be paying for. But of course that would only have been possible if the children attending were all the same age.

NB: This is not a sponsored post and I was not paid to promote JacDo, it is my honest opinion of the afternoon and the company.

Christmas Craft Tutorials Round Up

I'm struggling to find time for everything at the moment, like all crafters, this is a rather manic time of year!

So, I've put together a little Christmas Craft Tutorial Round Up of some of my favourites this year, while I try and get it together to make up the Christmas tutorials I've got in mind for you in the next couple of weeks!

First up is something we've got really into this year - pearler beads (or Hama beads as they're also known) and this pattern could be used as a hanging ornament, a brooch or a magnet. I love this blog as it is dedicated to all things Christmas and Crafty... Just Christmas Crafts

Next a post from a couple of years ago, but still gorgeous is this super cute Glittery Santa Ornament from Parent Pretty... I love anything glittery and cannot wait to put my tree up with some of these on.

Now the next one is perfect if you have small children or animals who are a danger with glass objects... I wish I'd thought of getting these when my son was little... he was a terrorist when it came to Christmas decorations! Crochet Christmas Lights from the late Wink of A Creative Being - Wink's story is really sad and I know a lot of crafters will have come across it before, but I wanted to share one of her projects in this round up as I hope she's up there somewhere seeing how much joy people are still getting out of her amazing mind.

This one is really pretty and looks really straight forward (which is always a bonus when you're short on time as we all are in the run up to Christmas!) Pine Cone Christmas Trees from Scissors and Spoons

My favourite Christmas tutorial from this blog is the Christmas Candle which I created and shared last year.

And finally something edible! Yummy! There are some amazingly looking cookie tutorials out there, but I chose one that doesn't look 'perfect' as I didn't want to put anyone off (including me, when I try and make them!) so I've gone for these cute Melted Snowmen from Milk Bubble Tea

I hope you enjoy trying some of these crafts and keep your eyes peeled for a new Christmas Tutorial from me very soon... I promise!