Made It: Meaning of Christmas Ornamnets

~~~~~~  I ran out of photo space on blogger, so after the holidays I'll have a little more time to clear out some photos so I can update this post. Until then, here is a picture-lacking tutorial on how I made my ornaments. ~~~~~~~~~~ :) Happy New Year!!

Earlier this month I mentioned that I was making our ornaments this year. I have this list of "The Meaning of Christmas" in my Christmas book, and decided this would make a great project, and be something meaningful. And, best of all, they aren't something that my boys can destroy! Boy-proof is a MUST for us! lol.

Here's the list of items and their meanings:

Here's how I am making them:

Take a chalk pencil or some kind of marking pen and draw the item on some felt fabric. Cut out the pieces and any other details you want to add. I decided to keep mine really simple and not decorate them too much. It just makes sense to not make them all bling-bling when the purpose of them is to remember the meaning, and not be distracted by design or fanciness. Anyway...

 

Then I took some simple craft glue, glued on the details and let it dry for a minute. Then I took one of the main pieces and glued only right around the edge of it, leaving some room for an opening.

 ----> 

After the glue dried, I took some coordinating floss and did a simple whip stitch around the edges of it to help keep the pieces together and to add a more finished look, leaving a small opening for stuffing.

`````````````````````floss pic``````````````````

About a week ago I realized I should really be sewing them like this to add at least a little bit of cute detail.

`````````````````other way to sew pic`````````````````````

Next stuff your ornament to desired fill, and finish sewing your ornament shut. I didn't glue the last edges before sewing. You could probably do without gluing at all, but I wanted to make sure I didn't get little stuffing fuzz falling out everywhere.

``````````````````````````````````finished pic`````````````````````````

I also was going to add some ribbon before closing, but with how my boys are crazy rough with our tree already, and I knew they would do what they could to take them off anyway, I figured it might be safer to not tie them on, less the tree fell over while trying to get them off. (For the same reason I'm kind of glad we don't have our decorations out. haha.)

So instead of hanging, we just place the ornament in the tree, and they can play with them, or leave them. So far, we love them! :)


I'll show the pillow when I get it finished too. I can't decide it I want to embroider the words or just use a fabric marker. I haven't done embroidery for so long, though it has turned into a great crafting method for doing while I'm doing whatever with my boys all day! So I just may have to start doing more of it! :)