DIY Felt Ornaments - Christmas Stars

I am ready for Christmas to be here and decided it was time to start thinking about our Christmas decorations for this year.  I have decided to make a 'rustic tree'  all from homemade decorations! (If I can make enough to fill a tree in time!)  I have some really fun ideas!  The first one I decided to try was these DIY felt ornaments.  I knew I wanted to do some stars and I found the perfect stencil at JoAnn's, it had many different size stars.  I also want to do candycanes, bells, and snowmen but they will be for another post.  These little guys were fairly simple, a little time consuming, but I absolutely love the finished product.  I am going to walk you through how I made them step by step. 

 

First I got around all the supplies I was going to need. 

Star Stencil (you could do any shape)

invisible fabric marker

fabric scissors

heat n' bond

assorted buttons (I found some great start wooden ones too)

assorted Christmas fabrics

needles and matching floss thread

stuffing (if you want to stuff them)

 

 Once you are ready to start it is time to trace your pattern on the felt color of your choice.  These invisible markers are nice because you can see it to cut but then it disappears.  I do notice it sometimes sticks around on felt more than fabric but not enough to sway me from using it.  So I went ahead and traced 8 stars, because I made 4 ornaments my first time around.  Then I cut them out carefully with a pair of fabric scissors. 

 Next I picked 3-4 fun fabrics that I wanted to use for the center stars.  I cut pieces of heat n' bond and ironed it onto the fabrics.  I always iron on first and then cut out the shape because it makes cutting easier and it saves you from cutting twice or getting heat n' bond on your iron by trying to match up shapes.  Follow the directions on the package of heat and bond.  Paper side up iron carefully.  It heats up fast so move the iron constantly. 

 Once you've ironed it on you can trace your smaller star stencil on the paper of the fabric.  This also makes it easy to cut with the paper attached.  You only need 4 smaller stars, for the front side of each ornament.  After you trace them cut them out. 

 You can now peel the paper off the back and place them on the felt stars!  I forgot to take a picture here but you will now iron them again.  BE CAREFUL this time.  Felt melts fast so you don't want to burn the edges of the star.  If you turn your iron down and move it constantly you will be fine!  You will start to get an idea of what they will look like!  Just wait though, it is the blanket stitch around the edges that REALLY finished them off.

 Now its time for buttons!  I found these cute wooden star buttons at JoAnn's that I used on some of the stars.  Regular buttons do look great too.  I have too big containers of assorted buttons that I bought on clearance years ago and they have been handy SO many times.  They are a great thing to keep in your craft room!  So go ahead and sew your buttons on to the top star.  I used a tan colored thread that I had on hand.

 Now its time to start your blanket stich!  I used a floss that matched the color of the fabric on the center star.  I also started on the bottom of the star coming in from the back so that once I got all the way around I could tie the two loose ends together and cut the strands short.  As you get most of the way around you can start stuffing the star.  Sometimes it works well to use closed scissors to push the stuffing into each point. If you don't know how to do a blanket stich type it into youtube.  I'm sure you'll find a helpful video.  I will try to make one to post here asap. 

 Go all the way around the star.  This is the time consuming part of the project.  I got all mine ready for the stitching and then sat in front of the TV at night to do it.  I think it took me about an hour to do 4.  I also found a very thin ribbon that I threaded through the top of the stars so that I can hang them on the tree once we get one!

 I ended up making 2 sets of 4, so I have 8 stars to hang on my tree when that time rolls around.  I am very pleased with how they turned out!  I hope you like them!  Here are some more pictures!  Feel free to ask me if you have any questions!

I've been featured on: