First up, hand painted North Pole Candy Cane signs. These signs are made using card stock and wooden craft spoons. I still need to attach the ribbon hangers for these but that will only take a few minutes. I made 75 of these in total in September or October. These wooden ornaments will go to friends and family outside of my Grandma's side of the family who are getting the other ornaments (more on those in a moment).
Cute right? I tried to vary the number of stripes, directions of the signs and the lettering so that none came out looking like another even though they are basically the same thing. I hate handmade items that are carbon copies.
For my Grandma's side of the family, I'm making fleece pigs. They are little pillow-like ornaments. Grandma collected pigs so this year I decided to make a pig for everyone. I'm making 90 of them. I hope it is enough because they take a long time to make. I'm trying to convince Mom to help me with some of the sewing since I'm in the middle of NaNo but quickly running out of time to get these babies done. Here is a step by step picture demonstration of the materials and the work from beginning to end. Click the pictures for a bigger image.
This is the materials for several pigs. I'm using pink and white fleece that I found on clearance, hair cutting sheers for a good crisp cut, two different kinds of ribbon, and 5 different colors of thread.
Here is the material for one pig. I picked a pink ribbon and tried to match the ears, legs, hands, and snout based on the size of the triangle I chose to use. I have 4 different sizes of triangles from 2.5 inches across the bottom to 6 inches across and varying sizes of ears, snouts, and appendages so that I can change up how they look.
This is the two pink fleece parts that make up the body of my pig.
I haven't sewn the pieces on yet, but this is how the ribbon, ears, arms, and legs sit on the inside of the back piece of felt. I'll attach them to the back so the thread lines don't show on the front.
This is the setup for the front of my pig. White and magenta thread, the snout, and the front of the body.
Here I have attached the snout with a simple cross (an X basically) and then decorated the face with magenta nostrils and white/magenta eyes. The stitching is very simple!
Here is the finished product with the back part and the front part sewn together. I'll be tucking the corners in on some of them to get more variety in the pigs. Overall, they are going to look super freaking adorable.
It took about 3 hours to cut out all the material. I have the noses sewn on about half of the fronts. I'm trying to do everything in shifts. I'm getting the noses done first, then I'll do the face details in a second round. Then I'll attach the hanger, ears, arms, and legs. The last part is putting the two pieces together and stuffing them. The part I'm trying to get Mom to do is sew the two sides together on two of the three edges, leaving me to stuff them and sew up the last side. If I did them one by one, like this pig, it takes about an hour for each pig. We'll see if I can get her to help me out in time for Christmas presents!
I'm also making sock monkeys for the kids. I gave one to my newest family member, my cousin's daughter. I'm not sure if I posted it or not. Here is a picture in case I haven't.
So what do you think? Do I have time to finish NaNoWriMo, 10 sock monkeys, and 90 pig ornaments? I certainly hope so. :)
All these pictures are mine but feel free to share them around. If you want step by step directions for the pig ornaments or ideas on other homemade holiday stuff, post a comment and I'll try to help you out!
Love is love, no matter the back story. <3 DS
1 comment:
Sock monkeys are the real cute. And now that I think about it, sock monkeys would be a pretty good name for a punk rock band.
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