Create a unique Christmas home decor from felt or recycled fabrics now!
For me, Christmas equals creation. I adore handmade decorations, gifts, greeting cards, and homemade food. I like to create and decorate and also – to receive handmade gifts.
And it’s even better if I can make these Christmas decorations from recycled materials!
In this tutorial, I will show you how to embroider and sew a handmade Christmas decorations. This tree ornament will be a great home decor accent and a wonderful gift for your loved ones.
Tools and materials
For this project, you will need the following:
- Printed pattern. Download a FREE printable design HERE. Print it with your home printer, and cut out the shape;
- Scissors, pen, and paper;
- Brown felt fabric or some old knitwear (I used an old wool sweater, that’s why my decoration does not look like gingerbread cookie. It is more like a chocolate one :));
- Some white yarn. Knitting yarn or pearl cotton will do;
- Sharp needle for sewing, big enough to accommodate your chosen thread;
- Ribbon or cord for hanging ~30 cm (12 inches);
- Sharp big needle, big enough to accommodate a ribbon you chose;
- Toy stuffing (polyester filling or cotton wool);
- Wooden or plastic bead with a large hole, big enough to accommodate a ribbon.
Transferring the pattern
Cut out the paper House shape from a printed pattern. Place the model on the felt material, pin it, and cut it out. Don’t trace the embroidery pattern, as it will be almost impossible if you will use knitwear fabric. Instead, draw the shapes by hand with a white marker or chalk. The forms are elementary, so it will be easy! If your material is light-colored – use a water-soluble pen.
Read more about tracing tools HERE.
Embroidery
For this Handmade Christmas decorations project, you will use these stitches:
- Backstitch for outlining the door and a window. Watch a video tutorial of Backstitch HERE.
- Chain stitch to embroider the wreath. Watch a video tutorial of Chain stitch HERE.
- Fly stitch to make snow on the roof. Watch a video tutorial of Fly stitch HERE.
- Straight stitch to make snowflakes.
- Blanket stitch to sew pieces together. The tutorial on sewing with the Blanket stitch is HERE.
Assembling the ornament
Remove the tracing marks from the embroidered shape. If you used a Friction pen, you would quickly remove the tracing with a hot hairdryer of an iron. Water-soluble pen marks will be canceled with a wet wipe. The chalk pen is cleaned rapidly with some rubbing.
Put both parts together and sew them with a Blanket stitch, using the white yarn (the same as you used for embroidery).
At the bottom, leave a hole for stuffing.
Stuff the toy stuffing (or cotton wool) in the gap until the decoration is padded but not too firm.
Then, finish sewing and close the hole.
Thread a ribbon into the large sharp needle and pass it through the felt material at the top of the House.
Put a wooden bead on top.
Your handmade Christmas decoration is ready!
Make more of these and decorate Your Christmas tree or attach them to the gifts you will make!
What’s next?
If you are interested in creating more handmade gifts for this Christmas – check out these tutorials and patterns:
- Embroidered zipper pouch tutorial
- Christmas Card Tutorial
- Keychain making tutorial with free pdf pattern
N.B. Some of the links may take you to the EasyToMake designs blog. This is my older hand embroidery blog. While I’m dedicating all of my energy to the Practical Embroidery blog, the previous version still has a lot of great content!
