Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Easy Felt Poinsettia Christmas Ornaments



I took my car in yesterday to have the alignment done and the battery replaced. Since I knew I would have some kidless time to sit in the auto shop lobby and wait, I packed myself a felt craft to work on. When I was done, I had three poinsettia ornaments I'm going to use as embellishments on my holiday packages. They are super easy yet adorable so you still have time to make some before Christmas. Poinsettias have been associated with Christmas for centuries and I remember my mom keeping the red leafed plant around our house this time of year when I was growing up. 

The Ingredients: 


- Two cream felt circles, 3 inches in diameter
-One red (or cranberry or dark magenta or similar colors) 3 inch felt circle
- One small yellow circle for flower center
- One 7 inch long piece for the hanger. I used pinking shears and cream felt but you could also use ribbon.
-Cream Embroidery Floss

The Recipe:  


The first thing I did was make a template. I traced a 3 inch circle on paper. I also drew a flower petal, about a inch long. I cut a small hole about centered on the circle. Then I traced and cut my flower petal in six places around the center. It doesn't have to be perfect and the petals don't have to all be uniform. 


Once you have your template ready, the easiest way to cut this out is to tape the template on to one of the cream felt circles. It will keep the paper from getting too weak and hold the pattern steady. I folded the petal area and snipped in then cut around.


 Be careful to pull the template off slowly when you are done so that it doesn't tear the felt. 


Now, layer the red and yellow pieces under the top circle. 


Using cream thread, stitch the colored layers to the top layer. When you are done, trim up the red layer so that it won't be visible when you sew on the back cream layer. 


Loop the hanger piece and decide which way you want the flower to hang. Sandwich the looped hanger between the  front and the back layer, then whip stitch around the circle. 


I left my back piece plain but you could easily embroider the date or a gift recipient's name for an extra special touch. 


Now our ornament is complete!


I repeated these steps with a cranberry  


and dark maroon backing. 


They will be the perfect addition to my Christmas wrapping!

In case you are in need of more felt ornament cuteness, be sure to check out these snow flake ornaments by Oh, Happy Day.

Happy Felting!

~Brittany

1 comment:

  1. Those are so elegant, but so simple. Thank you for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

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