Felt Hanging Bird Hanging Decorations

Yep the felt came out again the other day for some cute little hanging bird decorations. These work especially hard as they can multi task as Christmas decorations for your tree, add a touch of dried lavender and hang on your clothes hangers for a fresh wardrobe or even use for a baby’s mobile.

You will need:

1 sheet of beige felt

scraps of material

scraps of ribbon

buttons

embroidery thread

Soft toy filler

Draw your bird shape on a piece of paper and cut out for your template. You will be able to get 3 birds out of a standard 9″ x 12′  sheet of felt if you size it well.  Draw round you template 3 times then flip the paper over and draw round another 3 times.  This will give you a front and back piece for each of the 3 birds and enable you to hide any pencil or pen marks inside. Cut out your birds. Now cut three chest peices out of your material scraps.  I used this red floral print to give a christmassy robin feel but you can use whatever materials you have to hand. Pin the chest onto the front bird piece and stitch it on just around the top edge as pictured below. Sew on a cute button for his eye. Now take a 20 cm piece of ribbon, fold it over and tuck it between the front and back bird pieces. Pin together. Blanket stitch round the bird in a contrasting colour, leaving a 4cm gap to fill him.  Add some stuffing and carry on the the blanket stitch until he if fully sealed. To finish off take your needle back into the bird and out again at the back of the body. Pull tight then snip the thread and your end will disappear inside your bird so you have no visible knots.

Repeat until you have made up all three and hang with pride! If you like these – also check my felt Christmas Robins which are made from all felt and have cute little wings.

Felt Christmas Decorations – Gingerbread Man, Robin, Christmas Pudding

More felt Christmas fun! I needed something to refresh my Christmas decorations this year but had no budget to buy any. Out comes the felt again! I got so addicted to making these I did a loads to put on my Christmas Fayre stalls.

I don’t have an patterns I’m afraid as I used a cookie cutter for the gingerbread man, draw round a mug for the christmas pudding and used the bird pattern from my Cath Kidston Sew! Book. Hope they inspire you to give them a go yourself though – It’s a great way to experiment with new stitches. Try incorporating blanket stitch, running stitch, french knots, cross stitch and get out your bag of material scraps & buttons to add interest like the gingerbread man’s bow tie and the button for the robins eye.

Red Felt Heart Christmas Decorations – Inspired by those in the Kirstie Allsopp’s New Book ‘Craft’

Any craft involving felt is brilliant in my opinion. It come in a rainbow of gorgeous bright colours, easy to work with, dramatically versitile and super cheap. This was one of the first project I decided to do when planning my stall for the Christmas Fayre’s I was attending this year.  I wanted to make something charming and beautiful to hang on the christmas tree and found myself with an abundance of red felt sitting in my craft box.

My inspiration for these came when I was excitedly thumbing through my new Kirstie Allsopp book a couple of months ago.  There they were these cute red felt hearts for hanging. So here are my version.  I used gingham 5mm ribbon, super cute tiny wooden star buttons I picked up at a craft fair and white embroidery thread to blanket stitch round the edge.  Each heart has a little soft toy stuffing inside to pad them out a little. You could also add a little lavender and give them as a gift this Christmas. That’s savvy crafting!

If you want to check out Kirstie’s Felt Hearts just click here