We have a Halloween costume contest at my work each year. This year my friend and I decided we’d do a group costume, and rope another co-worker, who doesn’t normally dress up, into it with us. We went with a Frozen theme, which is very fitting since Joy and I are like sisters and we almost always end up belting out Frozen songs on any type of road trip. We told our co-worker to just wear brown and we’d take care of the rest (we’d decided he’d be Sven, the reindeer, but of course we didn’t tell him until the day of). Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any reindeer antlers in the stores, so I ended up making them myself. Didn’t turn out too bad, if I do say so myself! And he was really such a good sport about it all 🙂
So, what does this have to do with ornaments, you ask? Well, there was left over felt, and I thought as a little joke, I’d make a reindeer ornament for Sven to remember the time he dressed up for Halloween.
And it turned out so cute, I just had to make another one!
For the shape of the reindeer, I traced a cookie cutter onto a piece of thicker glossed paper (Sephora mailing) that way it held up to multiple tracings. I did make some changes to the antlers, going with a single outline, rather than two separate antlers that were in the cookie cutter, just to make it easier to cut out and stitch. With the dark color of the felt, I found a black Sharpie worked best, and cut 2 shapes for each reindeer, flipping the stencil so that any sharpie marks would be on the inside of each piece. I sewed the 2 sides together using a blanket stitch (you can find a great tutorial over on futuregirl) and stuffed with a little bit of fiber fill as I went.
I used an old button I found in our button tin for the 1st reindeer’s nose. The second reindeer got a mini pom-pom nose. To finish it off, I stitched a loop of ribbon onto the back of one of the antlers, with a dab of glue to keep the ribbon from unraveling.
Seriously, these are so adorable, I think I’ll be making more! And they would be a good craft for older kids too! And you can really do any shape you want, add whatever embellishments you want. The sky’s the limit!
Anyone else starting their Christmas crafting yet? I’d love to see what you’re up to. And if you decide to make your own little felt reindeer, please share
yarn over and bake 