Christmas Crafts: Quick and Pretty Poinsettia Ornament Tutorial, Just in Time for Christmas!

This post may contain affiliate links, please check out my disclosures page for more info.  Thanks!

Need a quick and lovely gift to bring to Christmas dinner or just because?

Try these Poinsettia Ornaments.

I made them a couple years ago as Christmas presents. They are beautiful and can be changed up easily depending on what supplies you have available. 

Materials needed:

• Poinsettia clips (These come in a three pack)
• Christmas bell Necklace
• Festive Ribbon
• Thin Ribbon or Cord for Hanging
• Felt Scraps
• Scissors
• Glue gun
• Needle and Thread

Most of the supplies I got at Dollar Tree from their Holiday Section. I actually got the idea for these ornaments by wandering through the aisles there.

First, remove the center and clip from a Poinsettia. Feel free to save the clip for another project. 

Cut a piece of the "chain" of one of the necklaces with a bell. Glue just the ends to the center of the Poinsettia, so the bell hangs loose.

Cut a length of your thin ribbon/cord to make loop to hang the ornament. Then glue it to the back.

Cut a small circle of felt and glue on the back to make it look neater.

Now cut a piece of your festive ribbon about 5-6 inches long.  Sew and gather along the edge...

...To form a nice ribbon rossette. 

If you need more help, please check out my lace rosette video tutorial. 

Then, just glue the rossette to the center to finish up the ornament. Alternatively you can use a large decorative button or gem.

Only thing left to do is make more.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Give it a try:

• Christmas House Glitter Poinsettia Ornament Clips, 3-pc. Packs
  
• Christmas House Beaded Bell Necklaces, 2 ct.
  
• Crafter's Square Decorative Holiday Ribbon, 9 ft., 1 ct.
  
• Assorted Bent Scissors By Craft Smart®
  
• 9" x 12" Basic Felt by Creatology™
  
• 3mm x 7yd. Metallic Cording by Celebrate It™
  
• Crafter's Square Felt Roll, Assorted Colors, 1-ct
  
• Mini High Temperature Glue Gun by Ashland®
  
• Loops & Threads™ Start-to-Sew Kit
  

 

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Rhinestone and Pearl Pins, A Quick and Easy Tutorial

This post may contain affiliate links, please check out my disclosures page for more info.  Thanks!

Here’s another project I’ve been working on for Christmas, a few accessories.  Pins to be exact.  I love making pins and brooches and I guess it shows (see my lace applique brooch tutorial among many others).

These are made from some scraps of felt with gems and flat back pearls.  Super quick and easy to make and they make great gifts.

So to keep the giving going, I made this quick video tutorial.  Yay!  Now everyone can enjoy these pretty accessories.

All you will need is:

• felt scraps
• flat back gems and/or pearls
• pin backs (like these)
• glue (I used Aleene’s Jewel-it)
• needle and thread (optional)

Enjoy the video.

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Christmas on Pinterest 2015 Plus Some Gift Help

December first, Christmas is now less than a month away. (Insert appropriate, adult reaction).

Here to help with your holiday planning needs is the latest edition of my Christmas Pinterest board.  And as with all my yearly holiday pin boards, I will continue to add to it throughout the entire calendar year. 

Anyways, here it is:

My Christmas 2015 Pinterest Board

Some highlights:

• Recycled K-Cup Snowman Hat Ornaments
• Victorian Christmas Clip Art Girl with Wreath
• Minion Christmas Ornaments
• Felt Gingerbread Gift Bags

Plus, I created a new general pinterest board that could prove useful this season.  A Gift Ideas board, solely intended for crafts and other stuff that would make nice gifts for other. 

Gift Ideas Pinterest Board

Some highlights:

• 25 Things to Sew in Under 30 Minutes
• Teacup Candles
• How to Sew a Sock Monkey
• Ear Bud Holders

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Yay! Birthday Time!

That’s right.  Today is my birthday.  Age-wise it wasn’t exactly one I was looking forward to, but a birthday is still something to celebrate no matter what the number.

Technically I already celebrated it last Saturday with my closest friends, the hazards of a week day birthday.  We ate pizza and hung out which is always fun no matter what day it is.  I received several goodies this year, gifts from friends and from myself (it makes the whole aging thing easier).

First is these dice bags.  I have been dragged into the wonderful fanciful world of Dungeons and Dragons by my friends, so these will really come in handy.  They were apparently bought from a vendor at a craft fair, love the MLP print one.  Of course a new dice bag isn’t complete without…

…Dice.  I got to pick them out myself.  I think the colors go nicely with the bags, although that probably isn’t the most important part but it’s still fun.

Moving on, there was only one thing I really wanted to do for my birthday.  A trip to the Sanrio store. It was fantastic, one little bitty store packed with so much cuteness.  Even the plastic shopping bags were cute!

As a gift for myself, I got this Chococat laptop sleeve for my new computer.  Did I mention I got a new computer?  I’ll give more details on that later.  Anyway I needed a case for it and this one was on sale and too cute to resist.

Back view.

My friends got me a grab bag.  This was one of the reasons I wanted to go in the first place.  I can’t resist grab bags.  It’s always fun to see what surprises await, and you get them at a fraction of their normal retail price.  Plus, if you don’t like the contents than you can give them as gifts or even sell them.  It’s a gift the keeps on giving. 

So what was in this bag?

On the right is a set of Keropi stickers with a “sticker book” and the left is a Hello Kitty bobble head and a stretchy bracelet with a thankfully removable Hello Kitty charm.  I say thankfully because I really don’t like the bracelet part.  I don’t care what anyone else says, orange and pink do not go together.  Beyond that, I think I faired very well with this pack.

And one last gift was these birthstone earrings from another store at the mall.  I know my birthday isn’t in June, but I got to pick them out and I just prefer the June stones the October ones. The color is more me. 

So overall it was a good birthday and now there’s more to look forward too.  Halloween! In just 2 more days.  Just wait until you see the costume I made.  Look forward to it.

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Lace and Friendship

I mentioned sometime last week that I recently got a huge amount of lace, so I thought I should show it off a bit.

A really nice lady I know from church apparently sews costumes and such.  People are always dumping stuff on her, including random bits of lace.  She decided to lighten her stash by filling a bag for me.  I was ecstatic.  Especially since I was expecting a grocery bag sized bag.  This was bigger than that.

This was the entire contents of the bag.  Tons of different types lace as well as ribbons, bric brac, and a couple of angel wings.  I think those are intended for doll making, score!  There’s a funny story about about the two balls of gold metallic trim at the bottom of the photo.  During Sunday school I pulled it out and started tugging at it, it was still a tangled mess then.  Anyway, I was thinking how I couldn’t find the ends of the trim and I accidently said this out loud.  Next thing you know about five people were all simultaneously trying to help me untangle it.  The exact words from one of them was “what are friends for”.  Aww, it’s now the “Trim of Friendship”.

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Now You See Me, Now You…

So I disappeared for like a week for finals, returned only to disappear again.  The reasons?  Holiday traditions, mainly that one about getting sick amidst all the good cheer along with other obligations. 

Anyway, the good news is that I finished my project list, without staying up all night sewing.



I have a certain little niece who’s under a year old, so I had to make something as cute as she is without anything she could choke on.  So I made this cute baby bear out of off-white fleece.  The eyes are embroidered and the diaper is sewn securely on, so hopefully this little guy won’t be hazardous to her health.



I somehow got the idea to decorate plain paper lunch bags to make gift bags.  I used a glue gun to glue on lace for handles.  Then glued two rows of lace along the edge of the bags to reinforce the handles and make the bags cute.  Simple, sweet and costs less than $2 to make about 40 of them.  Considering that even at a dollar store $2 would buy only about 4 gift bags, that is a bargain.



My brother tends to run errands a lot for himself and other people, and when he does he makes use of some old reusable shopping bags we have lying around the house.  These bags are starting to wear out on him, so I thought he might like a nice new one of his very own.  It’s a very simple, roomy bag with an outside pocket for convenience.  The color is a reddish brown color which I was hoping wouldn’t look too feminine.  Actually my brother couldn’t care less about that sort of thing, so no worries. 



My niece has mentioned a few times that she doesn't have enough clothes for her Barbie dolls.  I thought why not whip up a couple of pretty skirts to stuff in her stocking this year.  These are similar to the skirts I make for myself only doll-size and the waist bands and bottom hems are different. 

For the hems, I used that one stitch on my sewing machine that’s intended for button holes.  Sorry I don’t know what it’s called.  It leaves an edge that’s not as bulky as a regular hem and easier to do on such a small sized skirt.  Then I just added lace on top.  Voila, two finished skirts and hopefully a happy little girl. 



Now we need a happy little boy.  My nephew’s Cabbage Patch doll has be laying around his room with no clothes.  Me and my sister used to make clothes for our Cabbage Patch dolls out of our outgrown clothes.  Time to revive the tradition.  This was an old t-shirt from one of my nieces,  I thought it would be perfect to make a cute doll dress.



With a few cuts and stitches here and there, here is the new dress.  It looks cute and is easy for a small child to pull on and off.  You can’t tell very well, but I made a stretchy headband with some of the scraps. 

Want to know how I did it?  Don’t worry, I’m going to show how later.  Possibly after Christmas.  Look forward to that.

Update: I made the tutorial and you can find it here. enjoy!



Now the last ones.  I had plenty of scraps of fleece cut into squares lying around the place and I finally came up with an idea to use them all up.  Patchwork plush toys. 

From right to left there’s a dog, a cat, a bunny, and a lizard.  The lizard is for my nephew, the one that doesn’t like dolls and such.  What could possibly be more perfect than soft and cuddly fleece animals?



Animals with sleeping bags.  I had enough fleece squares to make a simple little sleep pouch for each of them. 

Here’s the updated list:

• Mittens
• Wildlife
• Baby bear
• Ornaments
• Gift bags
• Bows
• Doll makeover
• Bags
• Collars
• Barbie clothes
• Doll clothes
• Animals
• Sleeping bags

Twelve down and out.  All that’s left to do now is to finish wrapping, as in cramming stuff into the gift bags.

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Making a List and Checking it Twice

As usual, I will be making all my gifts this year.  I also intend to trim my tree with new handmade ornaments this year.  So here’s my newest list.

Holiday Craft List:

• tiny scarves
• tiny boxes
• sock monkey
• pom-poms
• wire ornaments
• kitty
• belt
• mitten ornaments
• scarf
• CD holder
• horsie
• pin cushions
• wrapped accessories
• apron
• felt ornaments
• disk boxes
• tote
• house
• pet house
• bell ornaments
• roll

I’ve got a lot to do in a little bit of time, but I can pull it off.  I hope.

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Truly Giving

This is one of my recent ideas, isn’t it so cute!  I made it with the intention of selling it in my shop, but I find it hard not to just keep it for myself.  It got me thinking, have you ever made something intending to sell it or give it to someone and wanted to so badly keep it?  What do you do?

Will first if you’re selling, the easiest thing to do is make an extra one for yourself.  You can probably justify this as promoting your work.  I’ve heard plenty of jewelry designers say that one way they promote themselves is by wearing their creations.  People complement them and they hand out cards.  Seems like a perfectly valid excuse.

Now for gift giving, you can try the same thing, but you should ask yourself one question first.  Is the gift actually appropriate for the recipient, or is it more appropriate for you?  What I mean is sometimes people give gifts that they themselves would like not realizing the person they are giving to may have slightly different tastes. 

For example,  my twin sister has on many occasions given me things that would suit her way more than me.  Once she gave me this fringed belt that I totally hated, but she loved to death.  She actually wore it more than I ever would dream of.

So the best thing to do is to think carefully about what they would like, and in what design would suit their tastes.  For this you’d have to pay close attention.  It may be extra work for some, but it’s worth it. 

After all, most people say they prefer to give and receive handmade gifts because extra thought was put into them.  That would mean giving a handmade gift that suits the recipient has twice the thought put in it.  And not to sound corny, but I think that’s truly the gift that keeps on giving.

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