Felt Reindeer Ornaments

Last night we picked out our tree, but it is still hanging out on the back porch.  Something to do with forgetting to go pick up the tree stand from our storage unit… Oops.

Today for A Handmade Christmas I wanted to share an idea for my favorite little reindeer ornament.  I’ve been making reindeer like this one for several years now.  They are inexpensive, easy to do with kids, and grandparents LOVE them.

You’ll need felt in two colors, brown and tan, plus a few scraps of cream, black and red. (You can make this whole project out of paper instead of felt.  It’s a little easier for small kids to handle  by themselves.)  One sheet of cardstock, a loop of ribbon, a little embroidery floss and hot glue.  Trace your child’s hands and feet, and then cut out of felt. Add some embroidered details to the antlers and face to help give it a little dimension.  I used all six strands of floss and just a simple running stitch around each piece.  Make eyes and a nose out of felt scraps and glue or stitch them on.

Lay your antlers down on the cardstock and trim them so they fit together without overlapping.  This will make the reindeers face much smoother in the end.  Use hot glue to glue the felt to the cardstock.  Add a loop of ribbon to hang on the tree and glue that down too.  Then glue the reindeer face over the antlers and cut around the whole felt ornament.

You can add ribbons or jingle bells or sprigs of holly to the antlers to dress them up.  Write the year on the back and hang them on the tree!  Easy peasy.  I’ve made these in the past with paper, which I mounted on foam core (bad idea, it was a huge headache to cut out foamcore fingers.)  I’ve also used textured cardstock and chipboard.  I’ve also tried to make these with heavy interfacing inbetween two layers of felt, but it was a nightmare trying to get the fingers to line up perfectly as I stitched them together.  Gluing cardstock on the back is about a million times easier.  I have also used combination’s of buttons, beads and googly eyes to create faces instead of bits of felt.  They all turn out cute.

I’m off to work on some more  Handmade Christmas posts, and to see what I can do about digging out that Christmas Tree stand.  See you tomorrow.

PS- My Snowday Giveaway is open until Friday.  Today was super warm and a lot of the snow has already melted.  Boo.