Easy Christmas Decoration Tutorial 1 - Snowflakes

Hello lovelies! 

It's happened. December has arrived, bringing with it giant boxes of chocolates (apparently these are meant to be "to share"?! Whatevs) and shops full of deer-shaped stuff; my all-time favourite shape of stuff. I'm feeling particularly inspired to be crafty at the moment due to a very unexpected rush of festiveness. Normally, I'm more, well... 

I normally blog my craft projects without explaining how I've made them (with the exception of this "tutorial" where I cut up a hat to fit on a teapot...), but I'm suddenly feeling the need to share the warm and fuzzy festive feeling in my bowful-of-jelly-like-belly. So, I thought I'd add in a few little tutorials for some of the Christmassy bits and pieces I'm making this year, accompanied with Paint illustrations when words just won't cut it. 

First up- snowflake decorations. 

You'll need: 
White felt
Ribbon
Needle & thread (either white or a contrasting colour)
Thin card (a cereal box works well; and it's a good excuse to finish off the Crunchy Nut...)
Pen
Scissors

Tutorial:

1. Cut a 10 x 10cm square of cardboard and fold it into quarters. Draw 1/4 of a snowflake shape onto the folded cardboard, like this:

2. Cut around your outline, open out the template and then draw around it twice onto the felt - once with the template facing up and once with it facing down. This is so the sides will fit together perfectly; even if your snowflake's "arms" aren't symmetrical. 

If you want to fancy-up your snowflake with some embroidery/buttons etc. do this now before starting stage 3. 

3. Pin the two sides of the snowflake together, with the drawn-on sides on the inside, and then blanket stitch around the edge. When you're nearing the top of the final "arm", slip two ends of a little loop made of ribbon between the felt shapes, and sew a couple of extra stitches through the ribbon to secure it. 

It should end up looking something like this:

Katie xxx

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