Stashbustin' Ornaments Pt 11: Gingerbread House

I created a Gingerbread Family so it made sense to me that they needed a house. :D

Materials needed:

• felt in various colors - I used tan, red, white and green.
• craft glue - Elmer's doesn't work well I've found.
• small amounts of polyfil or filling of your choosing
• scissors - Not your good fabric scissors!
• embroidery thread in tan, white, red and green
• white ribbon for the hanger
• red pom poms 5 mm wide

Gingerbread House Pattern (click to print!)

Step 1
     Cut out your pattern pieces.

Step 2
     Glue the chimney pieces together and then glue those to the inside of one of the house pieces at least 1/4" from the edge of the roof. Next, glue the snow to the chimney. Allow to dry.

Step 3
      Fold the ribbon in half and tie the end in an overhand knot. Glue into place to the right of the glued chimney piece. Allow to dry.

 Step4
     Glue the roof pieces into place using a thin line of craft glue close to the edge of the house. Then, lightly glue the door and window in place. Using too much glue on those two pieces will make it difficult to stitch later. Allow to dry.

Step 5
     Lightly glue the remaining decor pieces to the front of the house. Allow to dry.

 Step 6
     Starting with the red decor piece using white thread and working from the center of the circle and the split stitch, work a spiral from the center towards the edge of the circle.

Step 7
     Using the green thread and the back/outline stitch, work a line of stitches along the edge of the door.

Step 8
      With white thread, work a back/outline stitch around the edge of the green piece just like you did the door. Then, stitch "fruit sections" into the center of this piece.

Step 9
     Using the red thread, work a back/outline stitch only one stitch covers the entire cane on a diagonal.

Step 10
     Glue the red pom poms in this fashion on the window. Allow to dry.

With the green thread, work a back/outline stitch between the pom poms and also create the cross pane.

Step 11
        Beginning at one corner where the snow on the roof meets the house, begin whip stitching the snow across the top passing through the ribbon and chimney. Finish off the white thread on the opposite side of the house as directed in the stitch tutorial.
     Next, using the tan thread, whip stitch 2 sides of the house leaving the last side open for the stuffing.

Step 12
     Fill with polyfil or stuffing of choice. Finish up the whip stitching of the remaining side.

Only ONE MORE WEEK remaining in the Stashbustin' Ornament GIVEAWAY! Be sure to share pictures of your ornaments!

One More Thing Off of the To Do List!!!

I've slowly but surely worked my way through my Holiday To Do list. If I couldn't craft it myself, I was able to swap for it on Craftster so this year's gifts are mostly hand made! :D

Here's my most recent creation.

One of the gifts for my husband is a trash can for his car. I ended up making a pair just because I had the material so now, we'll have one for each of the kids when we travel. (They are the ones who make a mess anyways.) They are made from black Naugahyde (not as hard to work with as I had thought!), designed to hang over the back of the front seat, have a pleated bottom to make them roomier at the base (amd they will sit flat!),  unlined so that we can reuse plastic shopping bags which are always in abundance on trips and have long straps with velcro on the ends so that they will fit easily on the metal posts of the headrest.  As for size, I wanted them deep enough so that if the kids put soda bottles in the bag, they wouldn't fall out. A 2L bottle fits inside of the trash can with no problem.

I worked on these tonight while he was immersed in playing Call of Duty with his brother on the XBox in his office.  ;D

Next, I'm tackling the knife roll! I have the canvas laid out and have already measured all of the knives. Just need to start cutting. WooHooo!

Stashbustin' Ornaments Pt 10: Snowflake Gnome

With the arrival of Thanksgiving, the temperatures here in Georgia are finally dropping. Winter is almost here! Now, Old Man Winter has a lot of work to do to make sure that everyone gets that white Christmas so I decided he needed some help.

I created this Snowflake Gnome to help OMW (what the gnome said that he calls the Old Man...) keep everything snowy white outside for Christmas Day.  ;)

Materials Needed:

• Felt - I used light blue, dark blue, white (hair and beard) and beige (face).
• craft glue - NOT ELMER'S!
• scissors - Not your good fabric scissors!
• coordinating embroidery thread
• needle
• silver ribbon - white can be substituted.
• polyfil or filler of choice (not pictured)
• silver sequins (not pictured)

Snowflake Gnome Pattern (click to print!)

Step 1
     Cut out the pattern pieces required. You are welcome to play with the color combinations!

Step 2
     Glue the head pieces to the body and hat. Do not glue too closely to the edges! I left about a 1/4" unglued so that it would be easier to whip stitch later on. Allow glue to dry.

Step 3
     Glue the beard and mustache in to place. Allow to dry.

Step 4
     Using French knots, stitch the eyes. I wrapped the thread 5 times.

Step 5
     Stitch the snowflakes. I used a silver sequin as the center of the flakes and used a French Knot (wrapped 4 times) to secure it. You can skip that if you don't have any handy. I used the back/outline stitch for the flake "spokes".

Step 6
     Fold ribbon piece in half and tie ends with an overhand knot.

Step 7
     Pin the ribbon into place between the front and back pieces of the gnome hat. Pin the body of the gnome and trim any excess felt if needed.

Step 8
     Starting with the coordinating thread for the hat, begin whip stitching at one corner working towards the ribbon hanger. Pass the thread through the ribbon a couple of times while stitching to make sure it is secure. Continue around to the other corner.

Finish off this color but tieing a knot about a 1/4" from the felt. Place the tip of your needle between the two layers of felt and bringing it out the back side of the gnome. As you pull the thread through, it will tuck your knot inside the gnome hiding it from sight.

Step 9
     Do the same with the white/beige and the body sections. Only stitch two sides of the body!

Step 10
     Stuff your ornament! Be careful not to overstuff. Your stitches will pull or look puckered if you do. Finish the whip stitching of the body and hide the knot as explained above.

I think we all need a whole brigade of snowflake elves on our Christmas tree this year!

Please be sure to share a picture of your completed ornament here to have a chance at winning one of my creations in the Stashbustin Ornament GIVEAWAY! :)

You can't tell a hero by his size!

I love Sesame Street! When the opportunity came to stitch this guy up for a personal swap on Craftster, I could not pass it up. :D

This is Teeny Little Super Guy!

Stashbustin Ornaments Part 9: Happy Holiday Pets

Speaking for my family, our pets are like any other family member and I think they deserve to enjoy the Holidays just as much as we do. Here's my little ornament homage to our beloved fur children. These two happy little pets are guaranteed not to bat ornaments off of the tree that you so carefully decorated nor will they climb it! LOL

I also realized that my last tutorial was more than a bit embroidery heavy so I made this one with minimal stitching to be fair. ;)

Materials Needed:

• felt in various colors - I used brown, tan, grey, red, white and black.
• craft glue - Elmer's doesn't work well I've found.
• small amounts of polyfil or filling of your choosing
• scissors - Not your good fabric scissors!
• embroidery thread in black and complementary colors
• red ribbon for the hanger
• white pom poms 1/2" wide

Happy Holiday Pets Pattern (click to print!) 

Step 1
     Cut out pieces needed. (I'm doing the Dog first!)

Step 2
     Glue the ear and tongue pieces into place on the inside of one of the head pieces. Be sure to glue at least a 1/4" inch in from the edge so that you can stitch the ornament together. (It's no fun trying to push a needle through dried glue...speaking from experience here.)
      Fold the ribbon in half and tie an overhand knot in the end. Trim excess ribbon if you wish. Glue inside of the same head piece. Allow glue to dry.

Step 3
     Glue the white and black eye pieces and the nose into place on the front of the second head piece. Allow to dry.

Step 4
     Do the "freckles" in a simple seed stitch. (Seed stitch is like back/outline stitch only not done in a line. It's up through the felt, and back down no more than 1/16" from where the needle came out in a complete random pattern. Tiny, tiny, tiny...) I did 6-7 on either side of the nose.

 Step 5
     Pin the front head piece to the back head. Pin the ribbon hanger in place as desired. (It will move on you if you don't. :/)
Step 6
     Glue the brims to the hat pieces. Be sure to glue the hat pieces going in opposite directions so that you can use them as mirror images when you put the hat on our pooch.

Step 7
     Place the top hat piece at a nice jaunty angle and glue down. Flip this piece over carefully. Glue the other hat piece into place on the head and then pin it down to keep it from slipping. Now glue the entire hat together from brim to the pointed tip. Allow to dry.

Step 8
     Using the whip stitch and starting at one of the two points in which the hat brim meets the dog's head, begin stitching. When you get to a tongue or ear, stitch through them and continue around leaving a 1"-1 1/2" inch unstitched.

Step 9
     Lightly stuff the head. Don't put so much that your whip stitches start to strain or poof.

Step 10
     Finish the whip stitching and hide the knot between the layers of the head as instructed in the stitch tutorial.

To make the Cat:
The only difference between the construction of the dog and the cat is the face stitching. Use back/outline stitch to make the whiskers.

Now it's your turn! Make your own holiday pet and share a link here to win one of my ornaments in the Stashbustin' Ornament GIVEAWAY!