Paper Fabric Heart Ornaments

Hello there! It's been a while!

I'm back on my blog today to offer you a fun holiday décor project. I planned this project a year ago when I was invited to do a short feature in a Christmas show for local TV. I enjoyed both the project and the actual TV-performance (although I can't stop laughing when I see or hear a recording of myself), and yesterday when I thought about the fun I had a year ago I felt it would be a shame if I didn't share the project with a wider audience. So here it is. I hope you'll like it!

Paper Fabric Heart Ornaments

You will need:

• a piece of white cotton fabric/muslin
• an assortment of thin papers (e.g. tissue paper, paper napkins, empty teabags, tissue paper that you’ve decorated yourself with permanent markers and paint)
• basic white glue + a pot for thinning the glue
• a plastic bag or Teflon sheet to work on
• a broad paint/foam brush
• embroidery thread/yarn for the hanging loop (25 cm/10”)
• glitter glue

Making the paper fabric

1. Prepare the papers by tearing or cutting them into manageable pieces (mine were about 5 cm/2” squares).
2. Thin the glue with water: about 1 part of glue to 2 parts of water.
3. Place the fabric on your work sheet and brush a generous amount of watery glue over the whole piece.
4. Arrange the paper pieces one by one on the wet fabric and brush watery glue over each piece.
5. Let the paper fabric dry flat overnight.
6. If the paper fabric has curled up while drying you can put it between two sheets of parchment paper and press it flat with a cool iron.
7. If you wish, you can decorate the paper fabric further when it’s dry: e.g. with permanent markers, acrylic paint or ink, stamps, stencils, etc.

Making the heart ornament

1. Draw your own heart, or use the template provided below and cut out four hearts in paper fabric.
2. Fold each heart in half, right sides together.
3. Spread glue on the back of one half of a heart and stick it to the back of a corresponding half of a heart. 
4. Do the same with the remaining two hearts.
5. Place a string of glue along the join of two hearts, fold the thread to form a loop and press the loop into the glue.
6. Spread glue over the back of two joined hearts and stick them to the other two joined hearts, with the loop in between.
7. Finish the edges with glitter glue as a final touch.

Have fun!

PS: Click on the label 'Paper fabric' in the cloud to the right and you will find more posts on paper fabric.

Needle-felted Heart Ornaments

I'm sorry that it took me so long, but here, finally, are the directions for the needle-felted heart ornaments that I wrote about just over a month ago in this blog entry.

Needle-felted heart ornament

Materials:

• 2 pieces of craft felt, approximately 12 x 12 cm (4.5” x 4.5”) 
• scraps of yarn, embroidery thread, embroidery floss, etc. 
• sewing or machine embroidery thread 
• 1 piece of batting, approximately 10 x 10 cm (4” x 4”) 
• 22 cm (9”) of narrow ribbon 
• beads 
• embroidery floss

Print the template in 150 dpi to ensure that the size is correct

Directions 

1. Arrange the fibres that you wish to needle-punch onto the felt on top of one of the felt pieces. If you use snippets of machine embroidery thread, it is best to place them under the wool, as that makes it easier to secure them.

2. Punch the fibres into the felt with a hand felting tool or a needle-felting machine. You just need to punch them until they stick reasonably well to the surface.

3. Secure the fibres with free-motion stitching or some other form of machine stitching.

4. Trace the heart template on the back of the needle-felted piece, but do not cut it out yet.

5. Place the felt pieces right sides together and stitch along the heart-shaped line, making sure you leave an opening that is approximately 5.5 cm (2 ¼”).

6. Cut around the heart and clip the corners and curves. You can also use pinking shears, in which case you don’t need to clip the curves. Turn the heart right sides out.

7. Trace the heart template onto the piece of batting and cut out the heart shape.

8. Poke the heart shaped piece of batting into the sewn heart through the opening. A tool such as haemostats or tweezers is helpful to get the batting in the right position.

9. Fold the ribbon in half and make a knot close to the raw edges to form a loop. Thread the looped end of the ribbon through a big needle and bring the needle inside the heart through the opening. Poke the needle through the fabric in the indentation on top of the heart and pull the ribbon through. The knot is now hidden inside the heart.

10. Whip stitch the opening closed.

11. Finish the heart with beaded blanket stitch, which is worked like this: take a stitch, thread a bead onto the embroidery floss and push it as far as it goes, take a new stitch, making sure that the bead sits on the loop that forms along the top edge of the stitch.

The finished needle-felted heart ornament

Good luck with your heart ornament!   

PS. Please let me know if you find errors in the directions so I can correct them!