December FSJ Creative Team Blog Hop

YAY! It's time for another FSJ Creative Team Blog Hop!  

December's Blog Hop is all about Christmas finishings, tags, cards, ornaments, etc.

I had to make some woodland critter ornaments. My daughter got a felt animal kit for her birthday and we had a lot of fun making the animals in the kit. After that I stumbled upon some woodland animal dies from Spellbinders.  Hannah and I decided we needed them to make some more felt animals.

And they arrived just in time to turn create Christmas ornaments with them. 

Let me share some tips and tricks for making these cute felt ornaments with you that I learned along the way. 

First of all you will want to buy some higher quality felt. I got my felt at Hobby Lobby and it is 2mm thick, much thicker than the felt I normally get for kids craft projects. This felt was 78 cents a sheet, but 50% off!  I got two sheets (8-1/2" x 11") each of the colors I thought I might need.  Second, buy some coordinating embroidery floss.  The felt die cuts very easily with the dies I used because they are steel rule dies.  But because this is thick felt it may be hard to cut more than one layer of felt at a time. 

This owl was die cut with the Who's There Steel Rule Die. I cut two of each piece on the die except the heart. And the holly is from another die set, Reindeer. 

First step for the owl was to stitch the elements to the top piece; the eyes, wings and heart. I did this with a running stitch, going around each element twice to fill in the spaces between the stitches. The feet, holly and beak are hot glued on. I did double up the beak, hot gluing one beak on top of the other. It just seemed like it needed to be thicker. NOTE: I did all the hot gluing once the owl was all done. 

Then I laid the two owl piece back to back and did a blanket stitch around the outside, I like to do this stitch when my die cut pieces do not have already pierced holes in them as a guide for stitching. 

I left and opening in the two pieces and filled the owl with polyester fiberfill and then continued to stitch the owl closed. I added a bit of Candy Apple twine to the top for a hanger. 

The bunny is done much the same way as the owl, using the It's a Bunny Thing Die, but I do have a couple pointers. For the ears, die cut two pieces and then overlap them slightly and secure with a dot of hot glue. Do a running stitch around the ears as if they were one piece. Once you gone all the way around stitch back through your holes, filling in the open spaces. So there are no spaces between the thread. Set the ears aside. 

Add the eye to the bunny with a tiny dot of hot glue and then add a french knot to the black eye, giving it some life. 

Lay the two bunny pieces together. Blanket stitch them together, but when you get to the spot where the ears will go, only blanket stitch the top layer of the bunny. This leaves an opening for you to hot glue in the stitched ears, but the top of the bunny will have that continuous blanket stitch. Before gluing in the ears, add some stuffing and then hot glue the ears to the front and back of the bunny, closing him up. 

Hot glue on the pink nose and holly. 

For the tail, blanket stitch around two tail pieces. When you have a small gap left stuff the tail, finish stitching the tail closed and hot glue it to the bunny. 

Add a piece of twine to the back for a hanger. 

I had some fun with the fox!  He might be my favorite. I did use two elements from the Owl die, the feet to make paws for the fox and the heart. I love that I can use elements from the other dies for more options. 

The fox die, Hey Foxy, cuts one piece for the head and another for body. So, here's how I handled that. I hot glued the body to the head and used that as a guide to do the same for the back of the fox, so the front and the back are exactly the same. This way when stitching I can treat these pieces as a single piece. Before stitching up the fox, add the face piece with hot glue. And the heart to the belly with a running stitch, going around the object twice. Then add a french knot to each eye. 

Now blanket stitch the front of the fox to the back of the fox. Leaving an opening to add a bit of PolyFill. Then hot glue the tail accent piece to the tip of one tail piece, taking care to only use a dot. Then stitch the two tail pieces together, all the way around with a blanket stitch. Then hot glue the tail to the back of the fox. 

Lastly add the paws, die cut from the Owl die, and the holly with hot glue. Stitch on a pice of twin, but running a piece of twine with a needle through a couple of stitches in the critters head. 

The raccoon is die cut using the Bandit die, exactly as I did the fox. I love these dies so much that I plan to make some other critter ornaments using other materials to share with you soon. 

Below are the dies I use to make these ornaments, including the Reindeer die set that I used to make the holly. It is a thin metal die set, so my tip there is to run it through the die cutting machine a couple times to get a nice clean cut with it from felt. Click any of the dies to shop for them, NOTE that all the main critter dies I used are currently on CLEARANCE!  

 

Now you will want to hop along to the next blog on the hop, Love of Sparkles with Christine Chan. If you missed a link on the hop the others are listed below for you as well. We love it when you leave us comments, so don't be shy.

 Got lost hopping?  Don't miss out on these other stops on the blog hop: 

Jill Hillard

Marty McGee

Alissa Hall

Thanks for stopping by! 

Comments

[Lezlye Lauterbach]

Carrie these are Stinkin Cute! I loved doing this with the gingerbread die too!

[Teri Ives]

Adorable. Very cute.

[Karen Schroeder]

They’re adorable!

[Christine Chan]

Aww they are so cute! What a lovely set!
Love love love ❤️❤️❤️❤️ And Merry xmas

[Alissa Hall]

These are so cute! The fox is my favorite. I considered buying that die this week myself. Now I have another excuse to go back and get it!

[Jill Hilliard]

These are so stinking CUTE. Love them all!

[Marty McGee]

These are soooo adorable! Love them.