Jack and Mrs. Sprat

I love the various storybook/nursery rhyme characters that Carolyn DeAngelis designed and I try my best to do one each year for my tree.  This year, I chose Jack Sprat and his wife.  I love the vintage feel they have and I chose bright colors.  I love how they turned out! 

The Golden Girls

The Golden Girls is another of Caleb's favorite TV shows.  I find it dated and not that funny anymore.  (Don't shoot the messenger.)  He loves it, though, and I thought it would be fun to make him a set of ornaments.  I don't know how many different drawings and illustrations I looked at before purchasing these two pieces of clipart on which to base my designs.

Of course, I wanted to add a little bling to each one, so I added a few beads and sequins.  I think they turned out great and Caleb was thrilled.  

I had a piece of zebra print felt that I picked up at Joann years ago.  It's an acrylic square, so it's not the best, but I took stitches a little bigger and did more of them to make sure none pop out.  I think Dorothy looks the most like the actress, but I think Sophia is the funniest with her little purse and her glasses chain.  And, of course, the Rose ornament makes me sniffle a little since Betty White just passed.  

Reminder to clipart designers:  I do not sell the ornaments or the patterns.  I purchase the clipart and use it to make felt patterns.  I profit in no way from anyone else's work.    

Drag Queens

Our son, Caleb, counts Ru Paul's Drag Race as one of his guilty pleasure TV shows.  He's also a huge lover of my handmade ornaments, particularly if there are beads and sequins involved.  I was bored one night and wondered if there was any drag queen clipart that would possibly work for my purposes.  The ornament gods smiled on me when I found these:  

As soon as I saw it, I knew it was perfect!  It took a while to track down each individual piece on sites where I could purchase it.  It took some time to design them and some more time to pick out beads and sequins from Cartwright's.  On Amazon, I found tiny rainbow flags meant for cupcakes and they were perfect.  Once I had all the materials and patterns, these were like a good book I couldn't put down.  I decided to give each one a fun drag name and I even stitched those on the back because I like to over-achieve whenever possible.  

So please meet this year's contestants in the Drag Race!

Miss Cherry BonBon

Miss Honey B. Arthur

Miss Kiki Lime

Miss Peachy Keene

Miss Purple Reign

 Miss Sapphire Skye

Here they are, posing for a group shot

I won't lie, these aren't for for the novice stitcher.  They have eye shadow, lips and teeth -- all freehand cut from felt!  Honey B. Arthur and Purple Reign are my favorites.  I love their hair . . . . and, I'm not gonna lie, their cleavage.  I just think they're hilarious.  And Caleb did, too.  They're really some of my best design work.  Since one of our local small-town fairs requires a set of six ornaments for entry in the handmade ornament category, my family really thought these should be this year's entry.  Somehow, I think the humor may have been lost on the older ladies who judge.  

Here's a link to a video of Caleb opening them.  You might want to make him an ornament when you see how much he loves them.  You've been warned!  

Caleb's Ornaments

Reminder to clipart designers:  I do not sell the ornaments or the patterns.  I purchase the clipart and use it to make felt patterns.  I profit in no way from anyone else's work.    

  

Sophia

Once I finished Steppe Brother, I wanted to make him a friend.  I really like my Internationals to be in pairs.  Usually I do a boy and girl, but the Eskimo has the husky dog and my Paco has a donkey.  There's a Carolyn DeAngelis pattern for a cute Peruvian girl, and she might get a llama.  But I digress. 

Sophia is the pattern designed to go with Steppe Brother, but she's a little random:

And she looks suspiciously like Happy Heidi, but with different hair:  

I did a little searching for traditional Russian costumes and landed on these two images I liked:

  

I took elements from the two of them and put a new spin on Sophia: 

She looks kind of nondescript on her own, but when you see the pair, it makes sense.  

Jack and Jill

At this stage of the game, I'm designing a lot of my own patterns.  That takes time and I sometimes get caught in need of a new ornament to stitch, but nothing designed and ready.  That's when I reach for one of Carolyn DeAngelis' patterns.

For some reason, I have a fondness for the nursery rhyme/storybook characters.  The last time I visited Ouida, she was working on Jack and Jill and they were super cute, so I put them on the mental to-do list.  The first time this year I needed to cut a pattern ASAP, I reached for them.  

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do color-wise.  They had a lederhosen vibe, but I didn't want them to look like the German couple I already have -- Happy Heidi and Al Pine for you hardcore CDA fans.  I did a quick Google search for some inspiration.  Right away, I saw this:

Exactly what I was NOT going for!  Then I saw this and for some reason, I was hooked.  Maybe it was the vintage feel of it:

 

I used that picture as a guide for making my ornament and I just love it.

And, yes -- they are connected.  So is it "ornaments" or "ornament?"  I haven't attached the hanger yet.  I guess it'll attach to the back of both heads.  

Spa Girl Mariah

Mariah is planning to go to beauty school to become a nail tech and is into all things makeup and girly.  I happened upon this cute spa day clipart  that I thought would be an adorable ornament.  I've actually had it for a couple years and finally got around to making a pattern and ornament. 

I think the face mask is HIGH-LARIOUS!  And I just did little dots of paint for the nail polish.  Yes -- those individual polka dots are stitched down because I'm a martyr, but that's exactly what Mariah's little furry bathrobe looks like.  I even took my felt up and matched the color.  She's gonna love her!  



DISCLAIMERS:

In case anyone happens by and thinks I've stolen someone else's work or thinks I'm profiting from it:

• I purchased the clip-art.  I did not do a "right click/save as."
• I am not selling a pattern made from this clip-art.  I'm not even giving away a pattern made from this clip-art.  
• I am not selling ornaments made from this clip-art.  

Lilo and Stitch

As I said earlier, Penny gets a Disney Princess and her sister, June, is getting princess sidekicks.  For June's first Christmas, they got Elsa and Olaf.  This year, they're getting Lilo and Stitch.  I used Carolyn Deangelis' pattern for Leiloni, the Hawaiian girl, and I added some details to make her look more like Lilo.  I've done Leiloni before: 

This is an example of the head being attached to the body in one piece.  Not my favorite look.  There's no chin and she just winds up looking like she's eaten too much Spam. I Googled for images of Lilo and decided this was the direction I wanted to go:

And here's my final product:

I just freehand cut all those little green leaves and individually glued them on.  I know -- the horror.  But they were just too tiny.  Ain't nobody got time for that.  Next, it was on to Stitch.  I simply Googled him and found tons of images.  I looked for the one that was the simplest and would lend itself well to an ornament.  Here is my final product:

And here's a little lesson on perspective and sizing.  If these two ornaments were going to stay together forever, I would've made Stitch substantially smaller than Lilo, like he is in the movie.  But when Penny and June grow up, their ornaments will be on separate trees and I didn't want June to be stuck with a bunch of tiny ornaments.  For that reason, I am making all her ornaments full-size.  Here's what they look like together:

 

Dutch Couple

I haven't done any international people in a while and I decided I wanted to add to that collection.  I like the idea of little groupings within my collection.  I'll make it easier for my kids to divide up the ornaments when I die.  "You get the international people and I get the Peanuts characters."  LOL!

So far, this is what my group includes:

 

Most of those are DeAngelis Patterns -- all except the Thai people and I did them myself.  And once again, I didn't put noses on some of these and I don't know why.  It makes the Thai people look like aliens.  My stitching details have evolved over time.  Anyhoo . . . I was perusing patterns one day looking for something simple and decided to whip up the Dutch Couple:  Dutch Uncle and Della From Delft.  Once again, I drew inspiration from Clif and Ouida.

Clif's Pair

Ouida's Della

You can see that Ouida used the original hair pattern, while I went with an actual braid like I used on the Anna and Elsa Frozen ornaments.  I did a little little Googling and decided to add a white shirt to my Dutch Uncle.  I kinda like Clif's hat with the brim.  Different stitchers add their own unique details!  

Sparkle Angel

I make an angel every year for Audrey.  I've about run through all the DeAngelis angels.  (All the ones I like, anyway.)  I knew I was going to have to design something.  In the meantime, I ordered some new felt from National Nonwovens and they had some new glitter felt.  It's kind of interesting.  The dots are random sizes and sort of scattered irregularly.  I had red, white, and green and I thought it would be perfect for a Christmas angel.  I headed over to Etsy and bought a piece of clipart.  Etsy is my go-to place for clipart because I can't draw.  I thought this was perfect for what I wanted:

I think the sparkles on her dress made me think of the glitter on my felt.  I made a change to the hair for engineering purposes.   I think she turned out great!

DISCLAIMERS:

In case anyone happens by and thinks I've stolen someone else's work or thinks I'm profiting from it:

• I purchased the clip-art.  I did not do a "right click/save as."
• I am not selling a pattern made from this clip-art.  I'm not even giving away a pattern made from this clip-art.  
• I am not selling ornaments made from this clip-art.  

Birthday Party Cake and Moonbeam

A treasured friend of mine has a daughter turning one next week.  Lorraine really treasures the handmade gifts I've made Millie -- like a whole wardrobe of baby doll clothes -- and she has always loved my ornaments.  Two Christmases ago, when Lorraine announced she was having a girl, I made her the Blessed Event ornament:

To be fair, this isn't actually the one I made for Millie.  I had to wait until they arrived with a gender reveal gift and then I quickly wrapped the felt baby in a pink blanket and glued it together right there in front of them . . . aaaaaand forgot to take a picture.  Suffice it to say it looks just like this one but with a pink blanket.  

This past Christmas, I made this ornament for Millie:

In case that looks a little familiar, here's why:

It's actually the Moonbeam mouse ornament.  There's so much you can do with mixing and matching pieces parts of existing patterns.  

For Millie's first birthday, I made her a toddler quilt:

And I also made her this ornament.  It's the Birthday Party Cake pattern.  Just perfect for a 1st birthday gift!  I plan to tie it to the bow on the quilt package.  

And here is sweet Millie with my husband, Scott.  Her party is this Sunday and it's a fiesta theme.  Millie is turning UNO!  Because babies and tacos . . . it's a thing.  

Lucy

I don't know what it is about these Peanuts patterns, but they seem to be kicking my butt.  First, there was the Charlie Brown fiasco where my facial features turned out so bad, I had to take the whole head off and redo it:

Yikes.  I still cringe when I look at that first one.  Snoopy and Woodstock turned out great.  But then I had an issue with Lucy's skirt.  Here was the first round.  

Seriously -- what is wrong with me?  And it looked even worse from the back.  She looked like she was in a gang with her pants sagging.  I wound up taking the whole skirt off and then I had to glue it back on.  GLUE!!!  Oh, the shame.  I can live with it, though, because she looks so much better:

Here's a side-by-side comparison:

Much better!  We'll see if it can get it in gear when I do the rest of the characters in this series.

PLEASE NOTE:  I have never personally communicated with the pattern designer other than to order the pattern.  I didn't receive a free pattern for this post and I'm sure she doesn't even know this blog exists.  I just saw these photos on Pinterest and followed the link.