Minnie

It's a good thing I did that Mickey first, because had I started with Minnie, she would've been destined to be a spinster on my Christmas tree.  Holy cow!  I knew I was in trouble at this stage:

Look how tiny some of those pieces are!  And because I'm a classic over-achiever where these ornaments are concerned, I decided to STITCH on the polka dots using 1/8" punched circles.  I'm pretty sure it took over an hour just to cut the darn thing out!  That might've been my first clue.  

Once again -- lots of gluing on this, which is not my favorite thing, but the engineering was a nightmare and that was the only way to get the whole thing together once everything was stitched and stuffed.  This seemed like it took a hundred years to make, but it was totally worth it:

  

The kids love them and can't wait to see them on the tree this Christmas.  I saw Mariah thumbing through that Disney book as if she was looking to see what other ornaments she'd like me to make from it.  I put it away somewhere that NO ONE will ever find it!

Mickey

Several years ago, I was procrastinating about cleaning perusing ornaments on Ebay and came across this book of ornament patterns for Disney characters:

My first thought was, "That looks like it was made for Ouida and me!"  A smarter person's first thought might have been, "Oh, look -- the directions are in Japanese!"  I figured I didn't need any stinking directions; as long as I had the pattern pieces and a picture, how hard could it be?  I don't even want to think about how many years ago that's been and the book had been in a drawer since I bought it.

Cut to this spring when two of our kids went to Disney on a band trip.

They had the time of their lives and I was caught up in a Disney frenzy.  MUST.  MAKE. MICKEY.  ORNAMENTS.  I dug out the book and got to studying.  And I mean that seriously:  studying.  These patterns aren't for the faint of heart.  There are a million pieces and most of them are tiny.  There are diagrams, but no English text, so sometimes it was hard to tell what piece was what.  The diagrams definitely came in handy.  The ornaments themselves were quite small, too, so I enlarged them a bit.

The first thing I did was decide to do the Mickey first.  I initially intended to do the pair, but thought I could potentially see the writing on the wall.  If the first ornament turned out to be a nightmare, I might wave the white flat on the second.  In my fantasy version of the future, my kids will fight over these ornaments after I'm gone and I figured they'd both like a Mickey, but Brayden might not like a Minnie, so I decided to do the Mickey and let them duke it out if the need be.  

I'm not going to lie:  this was a major challenge.  But it was a good one.  It was sort of like putting a puzzle together.  There is more glue than I normally like, but I think we'll all survive.  He turned out great . . . . so great, in fact, that I decided to proceed with the next ornament.  Stay tuned for chapter two!  

Lancelot

If you recall, I designed the monstrously complicated West Holmes Knight to represent my daughter's school mascot.  I knew what would happen as soon as anyone around here saw it.  I had my response all ready:

NOOOOOOOO!!!!

People always ask why I don't sell my ornaments.  I always tell them it's because they can't afford them.  Seriously -- that West Holmes Knight ornament would require someone to take a second mortgage!  I had a couple of people, though, who I knew would truly appreciate some sort of school mascot ornament, so I came up with a simpler design of just the knight. I had purchased some clipart from Etsy for the other knight and it also included this image:

  

I used that to design my little guy.  I substituted our school colors and put the initials on the shield and here's the finished product:

It was still a lot of work, but nothing like that knight on horseback.  The recipients were very pleased and I think he 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.  

Doczee

Brayden, our latest acquisition, had a dachshund when he was little.  He was determined to get an ornament this year, so I quickly threw this one together right at Thanksgiving.  I added the brown patches to make him look more realistic.  He was quick and easy . . . and well received!  

Panda

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know I make each of my nephews an ornament each year.  My oldest nephew is graduating high school in May, so that means I'll be making another blasted Graduate ornament this year.  Another one that turns out great, but makes me hate it through the entire stitching process!  I was sort of stumped as to what ornament I'd make for him this past Christmas.

Then I recalled his love of pandas when he was little.  So deep was his love that he once wanted to be a panda vet when he grew up.  Not just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill vet -- a PANDA vet!  This fact is at the root of the great panda/pop-tart incident.  My brother-in-law does not allow food in his car.  Ever.  When Alex was in grade school, he fooled around one morning and didn't get breakfast before it was time to leave for school.  He begged to eat a pop-tart in the car and his father wouldn't let him and was hoping to teach him a lesson about procrastination and parents meaning what they say.  Alex had a flair for the dramatic and pitched quite the fit.  "If I don't eat breakfast, then I won't be able to concentrate!  If I can't concentrate, then I won't do well on my test!  Then that will wreck my GPA!  AND IT WILL DESTROY MY DREAM OF BECOMING A PANDA VET!!!!!"  

Sigh.  Good times.  

I'm not a huge fan of Carolyn DeAngelis' original panda pattern, so I decided to make some modifications to her Christmas bear pattern:

I liked the general shape of the body and the changes to the face seemed easy enough.  I had seen another panda ornament on the web that was clutching a bamboo stalk, so I sort of made something up.  I just rolled up a piece of felt and tied it with thread.  I cut some small leaves and glued those on.  It turned out well and Alex enjoyed the stroll down memory lane!

Happy Belated New Year!

Wow . . . . I can't believe I haven't posted since AUGUST!!  Did you think I'd been kidnapped by aliens?  I wish it were something that glamorous and exciting.  The short story -- which is about all you want to hear about my personal life on a blog about felt Christmas ornaments -- is that we inherited/got/took in another stray kid in the fall.  (I really don't know what the right word is.  It's not a traditional foster care situation.)  Now my house has TWO teenagers and all that goes with that.  Additionally, we moved my 94 year-old grandmother from her home four hours away to an assisted living facility 5 minutes from me back in November.  I try to go over every day for at least half an hour.

So . . . here is what my "immediate" family looks like now:

All of that activity has left me precious little time for stitching.  I didn't abandon it completely and I do have a few new ornaments to post.  I did several that were duplicates of ones I'd already done and I didn't think you needed to see another Ashland Eagle.  (And trust me . . . I didn't want to STITCH another Ashland Eagle, either!  I think that's my last one in this life.)

Consider this a late "Fond Farewell to 2015" post and enjoy this photo of all the ornaments I did manage to finish last year.  

Tinkerbell

This is an ornament I wanted to make in 2014 to commemorate our trip to Disney.  I didn't have a pattern and ran out of time to design something, so it just didn't get done.  I'm glad I waited because something showed up on Pinterest this year that worked great!  First . . . a little back story.

Mariah had never been to Disney and we didn't want her to be any older before she went.  Scott had sworn about 20 years ago that he would NEVER go again, so I really had to exercise the power of persuasion to get him on board.  We decided to go in the fall when it would still be warm and the crowds would be low.  We pulled Mariah out of school for 2 days -- we are THOSE parents -- and flew down for a long weekend.  At that time of year, there's a special event called Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party.  The park opens after hours and everyone is in costume.  There's a special parade, special fireworks, etc.

Mariah had NO idea about this trip.  It was a complete surprise.  We picked her up from school at lunch time and drove straight to the airport.  We told her when we left school where we were going.  We did not, however, say one word to her about the Halloween event.  Unbeknownst to her, I had made costumes for all three of us.  I worked on them during the day when she was in school and had them stashed in our storage room.  

Our first day at Disney World was great.  Mariah bought the customary Minnie ears and wore them for the duration: 

We told her we were coming back to the hotel to rest for a bit and then go out to dinner.  When we got back to our room, we asked her to open one of our suitcases.  (It had all the costumes in it.)

Mariah was Tinkerbell, Scott was Woody, and I was Minnie.  Here are a few shots of us as we headed out for a really fun evening.  

I had big plans for making all three ornaments, but that didn't happen.  I had kind of let it go when I saw this on Pinterest:

I couldn't track down an actual pattern, so I used this as inspiration to design something and here's what I came up with:

Mariah loves it and it's the perfect souvenir for a really happy memory . . . even if it is a year late!