Christmas Decoration Mini Tute

It may seem a little early to be thinking about decking the halls (or the Christmas tree) but my DDs - as part of their Guide Unit - are selling homemade Christmas decorations for charity this weekend, and I thought that I'd supplement their stock.

I started off with some 'cookie cutter' felt stars.  There are many ways of tackling these, but if you would like to make something similar, here is what I did.

 1) Put two pieces of craft felt together and go to town with your fancy decorative machine stitches.

2) Using a cookie cutter, draw your chosen shape(s) onto a piece of paper.  If you want to make things really quick for yourself at the 'pulling apart' stage use tissue paper or easy tear foundation paper.  I chose stars, but it could just have easily have been hearts or bauble shapes.

 

3) Put the paper onto the felt and stitch around the shapes that you have drawn.

 4) Remove the paper and cut around the stitched shapes just outside the line.

Finally, add a hanging ribbon (perhaps with a button to cover the stitching).  You're done!

I have used the stitched fabric that was left from between the stars to make other shapes for baubles and winged creatures.  These will have a stitched outline added before their ribbon.

Job done!  A quick and easy way to make some decorations.

I also made some Christmas trees - there are instructions for these all over the internet - but in essence I used a pinking edge rotary cutter to cut around an old CD to make green fabric circles.
Then I folded them in half, then 'zig-zaggy' before stitching them down, adding a tree trunk at the bottom.
I have to confess that I even add buttons by machine these days - setting it to satin stitch and being careful to adjust the width depending on the button.

If you make any decorations I hope that you have fun too!