Wired Felt Snowman

I thought you might like to see another of the crafts featured at this year's Family Christmas Workshop. This is another felt ornament that I emulated from a scrapbooking page by Rebecca Sower.

This little guy can be dressed in various ways, like with a felt vest or stocking cap, even some little boots. We went with a simple scarf and ear muffs.

For supplies, you will need the following:
- white felt (self-adhesive felt works great!)
- red fabric or felt
- fabric for a scarf
- sturdy but pliable wire
- 2 poms for the ear muffs
- orange felt for the nose
- 2 buttons
- 6-8 seed beads for the eyes and mouth
- gold string for a hanger
For tools, you will need scissors, wire cutters, tacky glue, and (optionally) hot glue.


Begin by cutting a template for your snowman, making a shape that's appealing to you. We're making ours about 6" tall, but you can adjust larger or smaller. (Smaller ones would make great lapel pins.) Then, use the template to cut two snowman shapes from the white felt.

Cut a length of wire for the arms. Apply a generous layer of glue to one of the felt snowman pieces. Place the length of wire in position for the arms. If needed, add more glue around the area of the wire to ensure stability. Alternatively, self-adhesive felt makes this step less messy.

Place the other snowman felt onto the glued section, sandwiching the wire between the two sides.

Next, create a template for your mittens, and cut two sets of the mittens from the red fabric.

Apply some glue to one of the mitten sets and place the mittens around the tips of the wire.

Repeat for the other side.

Next, place the scarf around the neck of the snowman.

Gently tie the scarf around to the front.

Use scissors to snip fringe into the ends of the scarf.

Apply glue to the front of the snowman to secure the ends of the scarf.

Position the scarf into the glue.

Next, add a couple of buttons to the belly of the snowman.

Cut a nose from the orange felt. Pinking shears add a nice edge if you have any handy. Glue the nose to the center of the face.

Next, glue the eyes.

Draw a thin line with glue for the mouth and apply the seed beads. Try using a pin to maneuver the tiny beads into position. The glue keeps the seeds from rolling away and dries invisible.

You could also apply some blush to the cheeks. Then, set the snowman aside to dry for a few minutes.

Twist another length of wire into a curled shape for the ear muffs and trim to size.

Use hot glue to secure the poms to the ends of the wire. You can use tacky glue, but the ear muffs will need to be set aside to dry.

Position the ear muffs and glue in place.

Tie the gold string in a loop around the wire of the ear muffs for a hanger.

As soon as he's dry, he'll be ready to decorate your tree or add some cheer to a package.

While you're at it, make several! Since he's flat, he stores very neatly.


Try some different outfits while you're at it! If you give this project a try, please let me know and I'll link you up. I'd love to see what you come up with!


And be sure to check out the endless list of inspirational ideas at my home page childmade.com.



I'll be linking to some of the fabulous link parties listed on the right sidebar ... but really, that's a LOT of parties! I probably won't get to them all, but you should stop in and visit a few yourself.
While you're at it, stop by my home page and add a few links there too!

Name Block Photo Clips

As part of my last-minute Christmas gifting, I made a modified version of the Wooden Joy Banner for several of my family members.

I made several for my cousin's little girls, Victoria ...

... and Alexi. These were both hinged, but it's nice that there's the option of displaying either way.

And for another cousin's new little baby boy, Parker.

I also made some full-name blocks for my aunts for their grandbabies.

I just made a separate one for each name, rather than hinging it.

And I selected different stitch fonts too.

And I also did one for each of my grandmas. The longer lettering allowed for more picture clips, which is great since they have lots of grandchildren!

Check out my tutorial on how to make the photo clips and of course the Wooden Joy Banner to see how to make the hinged letter blocks.

I think the options for this idea are endless. I can see something coming up for Valentine's day already!

Thanks for visiting!!

And don't forget to check out the endless list of inspirational ideas at my home page childmade.com.

Fleece Head Bands

For my son's school party this Christmas, I decided to make a personalized headband for each of his classmates.

I started by machine-embroidering their names onto a piece of fleece, but this project can also be done without the names. Otherwise, if you don't have an embroidery machine available to you but still want to personalize yours, you could also embroider them by hand or use other personalizing methods, such as stenciling or iron-on transfers.

I use a Singer Futura, which is just a hobby machine, but it was reasonably priced and works well for what I like to do. I plan to do a review post on it shortly, for those of you that have no familiarity with embroidery machines.

I embroidered their names before cutting the fleece apart, so I could get the most out of the fabric.

I did the boys' names on red and the girls' names on lime green.

After I was done stitching and cut the names apart, I applied a little glue to the backside of the stitching to prevent unraveling.

The solid-colored pieces are 2" wide, and the coordinating backside pieces are 4 1/2" wide. Both parts are about 23" long, but that will vary slightly depending upon what size head you're trying to fit.

When you cut your fleece, test the fabric to see if it stretches more one way over the other. Ideally, you'd like to have the stretchy direction going around the head. This isn't always possible if the print isn't going in the direction you want.

Next, I lined up the two parts of fleece, with the "right" sides together. With fleece, it's sometimes difficult to determine the right side. My philosophy is that if I can't tell, it's not likely anyone else will be able to tell either. Of course, it is important for the piece with the name.

I stitched the edges that were aligned, leaving only about a 1/4" seam.

Next, I aligned the other sides. Since the one piece of fabric is wider, there will be a fold in the wider piece in order to correctly line up the open sides.


I stitched these edges together, again leaving about a 1/4" seam.

Next, I turned the piece of fabric right side out.

I laid the piece flat to align the edges.

Next, I folded the piece in half and aligned the raw ends, making sure the name would be centered on the finished item.

I used pins to hold everything where I wanted it, so that the seam lines wouldn't slip out of place.

I sewed the end. Mine needed to be about 22" around to fit the students in my son's class.

After stitching, I used pinking shears to trim the excess.

Since fleece doesn't fray, this was all the finishing I did. Plus, it will be on the inside where it isn't seen when worn.

And that's it!

One for each of the 23 students in the 4th grade.

And the fabric I used makes them coordinated but unique.





Check back for the embroidery machine review I mentioned.

And don't forget to check out the endless list of inspirational ideas at my home page, childmade.com.