Felt Christmas Decorations

I made some felt birthday decorations for boyfriend’s birthday and did the same thing again for Christmas.  I made a garland/banner with felt letters that spelt out Happy Christmas, and stuffed the letters with toy stuffing.  I made the letters smaller than the ones I did for the birthday banner but this made them fiddlier, especially for the stuffing.  So next time I’ll make them bigger, and they’ll have more impact that way too. Also I might use a template for the ‘S’ because they came out a bit wiggly!

Below are some from a few years ago which I’m pretty proud of. I think they look pretty cute, I did a gingerbread house, a present, a Christmas tree, and a gingerbread man.  Then I strung them onto sparkly ribbon.

Birthday Decorations

Boyfriend was having a BIG birthday because he’s very old now so I decided to decorate his house with some decorations, if only to distract from the general messiness.

DIY Vinyl Record Bowls

Here’s something I’ve been thinking about making for ages and since I am moving house once again I thought I would take advantage of having some space and freedom before being re-incarcerated into a house share again 😦

So DIY Record Bowls made with old vinyl records and they are easy to make, all you need is some old vinyl records, an oven, and something ovenproof for the record to stand on. 

1. Preheat your oven to about 150 C.
2. Place an ovenproof bowl or mug on a baking tray and place the record on top. Remember that the label facing down when you put the record in the oven is the label you will see at the bottom of the bowl when it’s done.
3. Leave it in the oven for a few minutes until the record has gone all floppy.  Remove from the oven (careful as the record will be quite warm) and quickly shape with fingers.  You only have a few seconds before it cools down too much, but you can always put it back in the oven again.  As well as shaping it with your fingers you can take the floppy record and squish it into a glass or ceramic bowl to shape it and then leave to cool.

Christmas Wreath

This is the felt Christmas Wreath I made for my mum.  I gave it to her for her birthday because if I waited until Christmas it would be too late to put it up!

First I made a paper template of a holly leaf and then I cut out the leaves in green felt, in total I cut out 48.  I then paired them up and sewed the pairs together, I filled them with toy stuffing and made 24 of the 3d leaves.

 

 

 

 

I then sewed 11 of them together in a rough circle, and another 11 inside as an inner circle.  I added the last two at the bottom because wreaths always seem to have a couple sticking out of the bottom like that.

I then added the bow.  I cut three strips of red felt and folded two into loops and attached them to the bottom of the wreath.  I folded the third red strip into an upside v shape and sewed this all in place on the wreath.

I’m pleased with it, even though it did come out kinda lopsided.

So anyone else been making Christmas decs?

Halloween Decorations

Oh I had so many plans and ideas but then I just couldn’t really be bothered…but I did make some Halloween decorations…

This is a pumpkin lantern (in the Americas they are called Jack-O-Lanterns, but in the Englands they are called pumpkins…I think because we don’t really do pumpkins for anything other than making them into lanterns we don’t actually need another name for them).

So you get a pumpkin and cut around the stem to make it’s little hat.  Then scoop out the seeds and flesh.  The cut out the face, I have seen some really creative carving but mine was a little simpler!  It’s not even that scary!

And all you need is a tealight inside, and it’s usually a good idea to light it and leave the top of the lantern off to allow the flame to grow or you’ll cut off the oxygen supply and kill it!

And I also made this!  It’s a felt pumpkin.  I like felt…

I cut out 8 leave shapes (rounded diamonds, do they have another name?) and sewed them together to make a misshapen sphere, with the top and bottom slightly open.  The I added a square of green felt to the bottom and sewed it closed. I filled the pumpkin with toy stuffing and sewed the top closed, as I did I inserted some green felt for the stem.

 

Fabric Christmas Tree

We always have a real Christmas Tree at home but they are large and expensive so I made myself a cute little fabric one last that I’ve brought out again this year.

It was quite simple to make- I cut out 6 large triangles (four in one fabric and two in another), and sewed them into pairs (leaving the bottom side open).

I lay the three triangles on top of each other and sewed them all together vertically up the middle.  The I stuffed all the pockets with toy stuffing and sewed up the bottom seams.

I wrapped a piece of brown fabric around the bottom as the trunk but that is mostly hidden because I put the tree in a small metal plant pot I bought.  I already had the fabric and the toy stuffing so the only thing I had to buy was the plant pot which only cost a few pounds (toy stuffing is very cheap and fabric can be cheap if you buy remnants).  

And that was that!  I have to pin my tree decorations on to as there’s nothing to hang them on which looks silly but I like it!

Boyfriend thinks it ‘looks nice, sort of like a cucumber’ which is exactly what I was going for so that’s good.