Felt Christmas Trees

My last sewing project for myself was the Truffle dress from the Colette Handbook. I had high hopes for it, had somewhere to wear it and everything, and just could not get it finished in time. My husband's birthday is less than a week after mine, so we had a quick overnight trip planned down to Berkeley to see the Delfeayo Marsalis Octect playing Such Sweet Thunder. I wanted to wear my dress that night, and was up late (WAY too late) trying to get it done but realized near the end that a) I was too tired to do things nicely and in the morning that b) I still needed to wash out the stabilizer I'd used all over the fabric. So it has yet to be completed - I needed a break from it, but there's really hardly anything left to do.

I HAVE completed this project, though! A friend of ours asked me to make this felt tree for their kids, and I made a few extra to hopefully sell online or at a craft fair I'm taking part in on December 1st.

They were fun and easy to make. I considered adding decorations (stripes, polka-dots, two-tone sections) to the ornaments but I didn't want to have any issues with them separating if they get chewed on or pulled at too much. The tree is about 45" tall, perfect to pin or stick up on a wall for the kids to play with. There are a few versions of these floating around online; this is just my take on it.

For anyone in the Santa Rosa area, here's the flyer for the craft show I mentioned:

If you're out shopping that Saturday, stop by!

How to Make a Felt Heart Garland

Over the weekend, I got several items made or started for my Etsy shop. One of them was a felt heart garland. Now that it's officially February, I thought I'd share a tutorial for making one - a quick and fun way to decorate for Valentine's Day!

You can freehand cut each heart if you really want to, but I started by making a little template from thick scrapbooking paper (like cardstock) that I got from someone who doesn't scrapbook any more (I don't either, but it's great to have a nice stock of paper around!) You can see that the line I drew wasn't the line I cut... I decided that I wanted my hearts a little bigger than what I'd drawn. These ended up being about 2-3/4" at the widest point and about 2-1/4" high. You could make tall, skinny hearts, little bitty hearts, or giant fat hearts - whatever you want.

Next, you need your felt. I used a thrifted 100% wool scarf that I washed and felted (wash in hot water, dry with high heat). I like using this method for getting my felt because you can get patterned felt this way. It also tends to come out thicker than premade felt. You could also felt a wool sweater, buy wool felt, or use a synthetic felt. Again, it's up to you - this is a very customizable project. If you want a multi-colored garland, go with the felt sheets you get at a craft store, for example. They're cheap, easy to find, and come in lots of colors.

The next step is to cut out your hearts, as many as you want. I only cut from the ends of my scarf, because that's where the bands of plaid were. I ended up cutting out 25 hearts. To get a consistent shape, I just placed the template on top of the scarf, held it with my left hand, and cut with my right. Being right-handed, I found that the right side was a lot easier to cut, so on some of them, I cut out the right side first, then flipped the felt over, repositioned the template, and cut the right side again (which was the left when viewed from the other side).

After you have a nice little stack of hearts, it's time to sew them together. Just stick the first one under your needle (leave longish thread tails at the beginning), sew sew sew, and slip the next one in there to sit as close to the previous one as you can. The tricky part is keeping them lined up and not getting too much of a gap between them. Since the sides aren't straight, it takes a little extra attention and effort to place one heart next to another while getting them to feed through the machine. It's really not difficult though - go ahead, you can do it!

Once they're all sewn together, tie the ends off leaving little loops and hang above your bed, over your couch, around the door... the possibilities are endless (well, sort of). Let me know if you try this!

 And if you'd rather buy than make, my garland is for sale here. :) Handmade with love, of course! [UPDATE: The garland has been sold - but contact me if you'd like a similar one!]

Wreath 2010

I finally made my wreath this weekend. I actually bought the wreath form back in October, and I was going to use it for an autumn wreath bedecked with felt and whatever other embellishments I could find around here.

Instead, it sat around until Christmas. I kept it pretty simple; I would like to make the hanger fit in a little better but don't have any good ideas for it right now. I used a grapevine wreath form ($1), wrapped it in strips of grey wool felt leftover from trying to trim down some wonky squares (that's another story), and added felt leaves and berries.

I used masking tape to attach the felt on the back. The green and cream felt is just acrylic craft felt that I freehand cut into the shapes I wanted, and then I glued them to the grey felt with craft glue.

At first, the "D" in the center was hanging from the wreath by monofilament, but it's so light that it kept flipping around. I put some blue tacky stuff on the back and stuck it straight to the door. It's just a little wooden letter I found at a craft store and painted grey. Simple and easy!

*Also check out Rachel's wreath - it's super cute! *

Finally, some decorations are up

I did a little Christmas decorating last night. I finally took down my pumpkins and little Thanksgiving pilgrims and pulled out my boxes...

At that point, I realized that I don't really have very many Christmas decorations. Also, we live in a 1-bedroom apartment, so there's not a ton of extra space. Luckily, those two things work out well enough. We're going to go get our tree this weekend - since the majority of my Christmas boxes really just have ornaments in them, at least it will be well-covered in decorations.

There was one thing I made last year that I was looking for, and I finally found it at the bottom of a box. It's this little frame with some Smooshy Stack Trees inspired by Lolly.

Lolly's instructions are great, so click the link above if you want to see how to make them. For my trees, I only used two fabrics, a red and a green polka dot. I made sure the green was on top for all of the trees. I made 5 trees in all, and I think two of them might be the same size but the others are all different. I backed it all in a red and white paper that I had.

I decided to put it on our bookshelf for now, since that seems to be my central point for Christmas decor

In the middle, I added a chipboard "peace" that I probably picked up for $1 at Michael's or something. I put it all on a frame that I had sitting around; it's not made for 3-d objects so the trees are kind of flattened down in there and I had to put masking tape all around the back to hold everything in place. But it works! I just didn't want to spend money on a new frame. It also wasn't a planned-out project; I just sat down one night and decided to make it. But I love it!

It's a fun little accent that I can put basically anywhere, and I love how the glitter looks with Christmas lights near it.