Decorations Everywhere!

Sunday afternoon and the mailman stopped by…with a package from Nathalie in San Diego!!! She is one of my swap partners in the Festive Swap organized by Miriam:

http://miriamrogers.co.uk/?cat=104. And thanks Mariam for the lovely heart decoration you sent me as a participant of this swap.

Inside the package was a beautiful matching card and tree ornament. I don’t know how she knew that I liked music, but it was perfect. Thanks Nathalie!!! I love both the card and the decoration…

We don’t have a tree up yet(Stewie is too young and would literally try to chew every branch off the tree) so I have it hanging from a bulletin board in my “studio” for now.

I have also been making a few other decorations in cotton fabric and in felt.

3 plump fabric stars from “Made Fabric” that went to 3 friends at our Christmas dinner last week(Nathalie–see the music  fabric centers!!!). I pulled out 10 pieces of fabric that I thought would look nice together and just sewed the pieces together, random except for placing the music fabric near the center(I love the smiley face in the music on the star to the left). I got the tutorial from  http://www.leighlaurelstudios.com/my-blog/2013/11/ornament-exchange.html

3 origami style fabric stars(the same type I sent to my other swap partner Andy Lean in the Festive Swap). These stars involve NO SEWING and were from a free tutorial by Betz White: http://blog.betzwhite.com/2011/12/fabric-star-ornament-tutorial.html:

I also started playing with felt and ordered some lovely heather wool felt from a shop on Etsy.com called Felt on the Fly. So far I have made 2 decorations.

This first one is the pattern I  found on Etsy.com that prompted me to buy the felt in the first place. Isn’t it cute??? I just love the little marshmallows. It is also by Betz White and is in her Etsy store(see her website for the link). This is my first attempt at the mug:

Unfortunately the felt I bought was a bit too thick for this pattern to work perfectly, so I have a few wonky edges and ripples(especially along the bottom of the mug). Too wonky to give to anyone so, I guess I have to keep it for myself…… I definitely want to buy some thinner felt and make another one for my friend Elizabeth, who hopefully will be patient enough to wait till the new year for it. This is also a NO SEW pattern except for the embroidered snowflake…lots of glue involved and my fingers may never be the same.

The second felt ornament I made was for fellow Winnipeg blogger( PrairieJill at http://prairiejill.blogspot.ca/)…she was lucky enough to capture a blue heron with her camera earlier this year, so when I saw a pattern for a blue heron, I knew I had to make one for her. The pattern came from a fabulous website that has tons of bird felt patterns which are generously provided for free:

http://www.downeastthunderfarm.com/bird-patterns/

I added the little wreath to make it more Christmassy….but the wreath is removable so it can stay up all year long! Not a perfect likeness, but not bad for my first felt bird. I need to practice my embroidery stitches and get more embroidery thread- orange stitches on the beak would look better I think). I also need to perfect my wire skills so I can make wire legs. I intend to make alot of the birds available from the downeastthunderfarm website. In fact, I already have the felt cut for a second heron.

I have actually started a pinterest board with quite a few links to websites that have free tutorials or patterns available for purchase or a finished ornament for sale:

http://www.pinterest.com/coolquilting/xmas-ornaments/. So check it out and let me know if something catches your eye!