Today I am thankful for well-behaved children and Tofurky. Hope you have a relaxing holiday.
Thrifted Holiday Trees
There are a million felted sweater projects out there, but I think it’s a great idea to save money and recycle wool sweaters. I found some more sweaters on a thrifting excursion the other day, so I made these plump holiday trees. They are about 7″ tall and each has 32 felted sweater circles.
Supplies:
- felted wool sweaters (washed and dried 100% wool sweaters)
- scissors
- pins
- wire
- wire cutters
- bead or star for the tree top
Instructions (for one tree):
Step 1: Print out the templates below and cut out paper circles.
Step 2: Pin paper circles to the sweaters and cut two of each size. It helps to cut out a square from the sweater and work with that, rather than trying to cut from the whole sweater.
Step 3: Bend the wire at the bottom and begin slipping sweater circles onto the wire, beginning with the largest first. It helps to find the center by folding the circle in half, then half again.
Step 4: Wrap a bead or star at the top and bend the wire around. Snip.
If you make one of these, I’d love to see a photo in the Make it Monday Flickr group. Thanks!
Clean Holidays
Everyone I know should be clean this holiday season. I made way too many of these snowflake soaps, using the same melt and pour method that I’ve mentioned before. Our dining room looks like a soap shop right now.
And check out the recycled Thanksgiving crafts from my post for Alpha Mom this month.
Elf Skittles
Now who doesn’t want to bowl over those cheery little elves? Here’s a pretty simple project inspired by the French handmade bowling pins that we bought from Reform School last year. You could vary this project to create gnomes, fairies, farm animals, monsters, your family…whatever!
Supplies:
- 36″ dowel rod, 1″ wide (for 6 bowling pins)
- saw and miter box
Yes, this project requires a saw and miter box. If you don’t have these, I’m sure you can find a friend who does and possibly even someone to cut the dowel rod for you. But it’s easy, I swear.
- acrylic paints, red and black
- paint brushes, medium and tiny
- painter’s tape, 1/2″ wide (may need to be cut from a larger width)
- spray polyurethane (optional)
- felt bits cut according to hat-template.
- white yarn scraps
- green and red thread
- pipe cleaners, 2
- glue gun and glue sticks
- wooden ball (maybe 2)
Step 1: With a hand saw and miter box, cut wooden dowel rods in 6″ lengths.
Step 2: Sand bottoms until they stand flat.
Step 3: Wrap painter’s tape in 1/2″ increments around each pin and paint red stripes. Remove tape when the paint it just barely dry by pulling straight up.
Step 4: Paint faces.
Step 5: (optional) Spray dowels with polyurethane.
Step 6: Sew decorative stitching onto edge of felt pieces (ric-rac would be nice).
Step 7: Make little pompom by wrapping yard in loops and tying it around itself. Then trim ends and fray them a bit.
Step 8: Lay pompom on right side of felt, fold right sides together and pin in place. Sew along seam with 1/4″ seam allowance. Reinforce the end with yarn. Turn right side out, using closed tip of scissors to gently push out the tip.
Step 9: Insert a small piece of pipe cleaner into the top of the hat so it will bend. Adjust all of your hats to the desired position.
Step 10: Put a bead of glue on the top edge of the dowel rod and carefully place the hat.
Now give them to some deserving kid. These are a present for a super sweet three-year-old boy. If you make your own version, I’d love to see them! Please add your photos to the Make it Monday photo pool.
On Dancer, on Prancer….
Is it possible that there are only 38 days until Christmas? So here’s a new appliqué design for the holidays, now available in my Etsy shop. You might notice that this is my deer design with antlers! I hope to get a snowflake embroidery design up later this week. I’ve also updated the holiday craft links in my sidebar and added a button for the handmade toys page. Both new buttons designed by my almost-six-year-old.