How To Make a Burlap Christmas Wreath

December 2, 2017 · 8 Comments

How To Make a Burlap Christmas Wreath

One of my favourite pre Christmas jobs is to make a wreath for the front door.

In the past, I’ve used a foam ring and made one with greenery and berries. But over the last few years, I’ve tried making different kinds of wreaths instead.

Making a green wreath was going to be harder this year as my source of Leyland Cypress has been cut down and replaced with a fence. It’s less work for the people who run the plant nursery behind us, but it’s less useful at Christmas!

The oasis flower foam people recently sent me a couple of rolls of burlap ribbon along with a vase and a lantern. I’ve used the lantern, and I wanted to make something with the ribbon.

I also made some felt poinsettias earlier in the week, and as somebody on Facebook suggested, they would look very nice on a wreath!

So I decided to make a burlap Christmas wreath.

Initially I decided to have a go at making a bubble wreath, but I discovered that my wreath form wasn’t the same as the ones used in the tutorials I’d found on YouTube. It’s also not as easy as you’d think, and you need masses of ribbon! I had 3 rolls, each with 3 metres on, and it wasn’t enough.

So I undid it and tried something else! This is what I came up with.

The ribbon is plaited around the wreath form. The messy bit where the ends are is covered with the bow. The felt flowers are the same ones I made earlier in the week (the tutorial for them is here).

So here are the instructions for making a plaited burlap Christmas wreath!

I have included some affiliate links.

Plaited Burlap Christmas Wreath Tutorial

You Will Need

A wreath form (I got these from Amazon), wide ribbon in 3 different designs (3 3 metre rolls will be plenty), felt flowers (the tutorial for the poinsettias is here), a pipecleaner or an elastic band, a needle and thread.

The burlap ribbon I used came from Oasis Home and Hobby. The tartan stuff came from the weird little shop over the road from my house.

Making the Wreath

1. Using the pipe cleaner or an elastic band, secure the ends of the ribbon to the wreath form.

2. Start to plait the ribbon around the wreath form. To do this, take the ribbon from the back around the edge, then through the gap in the centre.

Keep going! Try to keep the plaited sections about the same size.

When you get to the joins, just take care to cover them up. You can always pull the ribbon a little bit to hide them.

3. When you get back to wear you started, tie the ends by wrapping them round the wreath once and pulling the ends through.

4. To make the bow, make a loop with a piece of ribbon and sew the ends together. You might like to gather it a little bit.

5. Hold the bow to the wreath over the ends, then take a piece of contrast ribbon and wrap it around the wreath and the bow. Sew a few stitches at the back to hold it in place.

6. Cut another piece of ribbon and fold it in half to make the tails of the bow. Sew it to the back of the wreath.

7. Take your felt flowers and arrange them at the bottom of the wreath on one side. Sew them to the wreath by sewing a couple of stitches into the back of the flower and passing the needle through the wreath. Sew a couple of stitches into the ribbon and tie off the ends.

8. Hang the wreath on your door and expect to feel Christmassy every time you come home!

If you like making wreaths, you might like to take a look at these wreath tutorials here.

How To Make Felt Poinsettias

November 30, 2017 · 4 Comments

How To Make Felt Poinsettias

A splash of red is always lovely at Christmas. Poinsettias offer that splash of red, but unfortunately for any plants that enter my house, the chances of them lasting more than a week are slim.

Thankfully there is an alternative for those of us who do not have green fingers!

I’ve been amazed at the beautiful flowers some people are able to make just from a simple medium like felt. And once the flowers are made, they can be used in all sorts of ways, including ways that might not be possible with real flowers.

So here’s a tutorial showing how to make felt poinsettias!

I have included some affiliate links.

How To Make Felt Poinsettias

You Will Need

Red felt (you can buy it by the sheet at Minerva Crafts and at Hobbycraft), needle and thread, buttons or sequins and beads, template (download it here or you could make your own).

If you use my template, the finished flowers will be approximately 8 cm across.

Instructions

1. Make your template, or print and cut out the one I used. If you’re making your own, the template will need to be a symmetrical leaf shape.

2. Cut leaf shapes from red felt. You will need 8 for each of the felt poinsettias you want to make.

3. Take one of the felt shapes and fold it in half lengthways. Sew a couple of stitches up from the point to hold the shape. Do this for the other 7.

4. With the thread doubled, thread the petals onto the needle near where you sewed in the previous step. Pull the thread through, leaving a tail. When you have threaded all the petals, pull both ends and tie them together in a knot.

5. Arrange the petals, then sew a sequin and a bead to the centre of the flower. Pass the thread from the back of the flower to the front, then through the sequin. Pass the needle through the bead, then back through the sequin and through to the back of the flower. Tie off the thread. You could sew a button instead if you wanted to, or even glue a sparkly thing to the centre.

6. Use one of the tails to sew a couple of loops to the back of the flower. You can then use these loops to sew the flowers to something, or thread a piece of wire or a pipe cleaner through the loops to attach the felt poinsettias.

If you make some felt poinsettias I’d love to see! Share them on Tea and a Sewing Machine’s Facebook page!

Christmas Lantern Arrangement

November 24, 2017 · 2 Comments

Christmas Lantern Arrangement

I’m always so happy that Christmas is at the darkest time of the year.

I love the winter anyway, and one of my favourite things is putting the lamps on and lighting the fire. You can’t do that in the summer when it’s warm and still light at 9.30 pm!

Since visiting Oslo last year, we now eat breakfast by candlelight on dark mornings. And with Christingles, carols by candlelight and remembering that Jesus came as the light of the world all coming up, Christmas is the perfect excuse for more candles!

If you’re not big on flower arrangements, don’t worry. This is easy :).

I’d actually planned to use one fat candle, but they didn’t have any at the weird little shop in my village, so I used 3 standard candles instead.

You could also use tealights, or even fairy lights in a tangle in the centre if you didn’t want to use candles at all.

For the greenery and berries, I raided the hedgerows on my way home from taking my boys to school! You could try the garden or even a bunch of Christmas flowers from the supermarket. For the actual greenery, an out of control leyland cypress hedge is ideal!

Here are the instructions for making a Christmas lantern arrangement.

Instructions For Making a Christmas Lantern Arrangement

You Will Need

A lantern (I was sent this one by Oasis Home and Hobby), some oasis, ribbon (I used this, again from Oasis Home and Hobby), candles, berries, greenery, pinecones, florists’ wire.

Making the Christmas Lantern Arrangement

1. Cut the oasis to size. You only need a smallish piece as it needs to fit through the neck of the lantern. About 6-7 cm high and about the same across is a good size. If you’re using the ribbon on the roll, this is actually the perfect size, so you can just cut the oasis down to the same size as the roll of ribbon.

When you’ve cut the oasis down to the right size, pop it in the sink to soak. Being a small piece, it won’t need very long, so if you do this first, it should be ready to use by the time you’ve sorted out the other bits.

2. Cut a length of ribbon about 150 cm long. To tie it around the top of the lantern, you’ll need to take the handle off by unscrewing it at the neck.

On the ribbon, mark where the screws are and make 2 little holes. You could cut it if you’re using a ribbon with a close weave. As the ribbon I used was loosely woven, I just poked the blades of the scissors into it and wiggled them about to make a hole.

Wrap the ribbon around the neck of the lantern, poking the screws through the holes you made. Tie the ribbon in a bow and reattach the handle.

3. Cut the greenery into pieces 10-15 cm long. Cut the berries into smaller bunches. Wrap florist’s wire around the bottom of the pine cones.

4. If you’re using 3 candles, you might like to cut a bit off the bottom of 2 of them so that they are different heights. This is what I did :).

5. Now retrieve the oasis from the sink. Push the candles into the middle.

6. Start arranging the greenery around the candles. I started at the edge, then filled in the centre. Remember to leave some space for the berries and pine cones!

Don’t put any into the sides or you won’t be able to get it into the lantern!

7. Push the berries into the oasis around the candles, then add the pine cones. You won’t need many berries and probably only 3-5 pine cones.

8. Drop some greenery into the bottom of the lantern and push it to the edges. This is to cover the sides of the oasis.

9. Carefully drop the arrangement into the lantern. If you’ve pushed the candles in quite far, you might be able to use them as a handle.

I found that I needed to remove the pine cones first, then I put them back in once the arrangement was inside the lantern.Just one word of warning: use a taper or another candle to light it or you will burn your fingers! Not only does this hurt, but burnt fingernail smells bad!

Christmas Cutlery Pockets

November 21, 2017 · 11 Comments

A Christmassy project I have been working on recently is some Christmas cutlery pockets.

The problem with being a crafty person is that you often end up hoarding craft supplies.

In an effort to prevent the situation from becoming completely out of hand, I try to only buy fabric when I have a specific project in mind.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I bought some Scandinavian inspired fabric to “make some Christmas stuff”. That was a specific as it got. I have made a stocking (you can read about that here) and I have decided that a nice way to use some more of it is to make some cutlery pockets for the table on Christmas Day.

These Christmas cutlery pockets are very quick and easy to make, so if you need to make a lot of them, it shouldn’t take too long. I needed to make 6 and I completed each stage for all 6 before moving on to the next stage.

How to Make Christmas Cutlery Pockets

You Will Need: cotton fabric in 2 or 3 designs (I had half a metre in 3 designs and that was way more than I needed!), ribbon or trim, ruler and pencil, usual sewing supplies.

Cutting Out

For the main part of the pocket, you will need to cut a front piece and a back piece measuring 12 cm x 26 cm. I drew the rectangle onto a piece of paper first and used that as a template.

For the pocket section, you will need 1 pocket outer and 1 pocket lining, measuring 12 cm x 16 cm.

Sewing Up

1. Sew the trim to the pocket outer.

2. With the right sides together, join the pocket outer to the lining along the top edge. Trim the seam, turn it the right way out and press.

3. Take the larger rectangle that will be the at the front. With the right sides up, place the pocket on top of the larger rectangle so that the bottom edges are aligned.

4. Put the other larger rectangle on top facing down. Pin, then sew around the sides and the bottom edge.

5. Turn it the right way out and run the iron over it.

6. Tuck the raw edges at the top inwards. Pin, then top stitch all the way round.

I made them all the same to avoid my boys arguing but you could mix them up a bit, especially if you have odds and ends of Christmas fabric left over from other projects.

If you like this post, you might also like these:

Felt Bird Decoration

Easy Christmas Centrepieces

Cookie Cutter Decorations

10 Ways to Get Ready For Christmas Crafts Now

September 19, 2017 · 8 Comments

10 Ways to Get Ready For Christmas Crafts Now

Christmas always sneaks up on me. I know the date never changes, but somehow every year I find it’s the end of November before I’ve even started to think about Christmas crafts and what I might make.

I suspect it might be partly because all 4 of my boys have birthdays in the autumn and I tend not to think about Christmas until the Season of Birthdays is over.

I also don’t like thinking about it too early. I want to feel Christmassy at Christmas. I want to enjoy the cold weather and the twinkly lights. Feeling Christmassy is a hard thing to sustain if you have been doing Christmas crafts since July.

So if you want to get organised for Christmas crafting, here are 10 ideas to help you get ready now before the cold weather arrives without leaving it all to the last minute.

10 Things You Can Do Now to Get Ready For Christmas Crafts

1. Start planning. You can write down ideas if you want to or you could just start having a bit of a think.

What is your theme going to be? Red and gold? Blue and white? Natural?

Do you want lots of Scandi style decorations this year? Or things made from nature? Or felt?

Have you got small ones at home who might like to do some Christmas crafts?

Are you planning on making a lot of gifts or will be you be focusing more on making your home feel Christmassy?

Pinterest is great for organising ideas as well as finding them! My Christmas Crafts Pinterest board is here.

2. Start collecting pinecones. Pinecones are great for autumn crafts too, so collecting them doesn’t have to feel too Christmassy.

If there are no pine trees near where you live, plan a day out somewhere that does have them. Even though we live in the country, there are not that many trees near where we live. Thankfully though, there are woods not too far away, so the boys and I will be having a little trip off to the woods at some point over the next month or 2.

3. Dry citrus fruit slices. I love to do this! Dried fruit can be used to make garlands, tree decorations and wreaths. These can be used to decorate your home nearer the time, and they can be given as gifts too.

Drying fruit is very easy to do! Just slice some citrus fruit thinly and put it in a warm (not hot!) oven for a few hours. Full instructions for doing this can be found here. It’s possible to dry whole fruit as well. I usually stick to clementines as they’re small and take less time to dry.

4. Plan Christmas crafts for your kids. Also plan when you are going to do them. I always find that things get so busy in the run up to Christmas, we end up not having time to do half the things I wanted to. So decide what you want to do and when you want to do them.

If you have school aged children, it’s nice to have some things planned for them to do as the excitement before the big day is often enough to send everyone loopy. You can arrange them round trips to the woods/ common/ beach to wear them out and keep them busy.

5. Evaluate your Christmas fabric and ribbon situation. If you see something you need while you are out and about, you can buy it. Then when the time comes, you’ll be ready to make stuff without having to brave the Christmas crowds or wait for the postman.

It’s worth mentioning at this point too that shops get their Christmas stock delivered in September, but things like red ribbon, gingham and felt are usually available all year round! So stock up on what you need when you get the chance.

6. Identify where you can obtain greenery. Greenery is so useful for table centrepieces, candle decorations, decorating mantlepieces and for wreaths.

Christmas flowers are usually easy to find, but greenery is often less so. You might have some in the garden, or you might have a neighbour with a laylandii hedge who might let you have some if you ask them. I know several places near me where there is hawthorn growing in the hedgerows. I’ll be down there in a few weeks with my scissors ;).

7. Start collecting jam jars. Homemade jam makes for a great last minute Christmas gift and t’s very easy to make. Just weigh the fruit, chuck it in a pan with the same weight in sugar and a little bit of water and boil it until it starts to set. Pour the jam into sterilised jars. When it has cooled, put the lids on.

Jam tastes better if it is left in the jar for a couple of weeks, so if you can make it a little while in advance, it’s worth doing so.

Jam jars have other uses besides holding jam, which brings me onto…

8. Create a Pinterest board of last minute handmade gifts. Stuff you can put in a jar is great. Sewing kits, brownie ingredients, sweets, bath stuff and natural things to make your house smell nice are all things you can make up yourself and put in a jar. To make the jar pretty, you could tie some ribbon round it or cover the lid with a square of fabric.

If these don’t appeal, a quick search on Pinterest will throw up plenty of other ideas for last minute Christmas gifts you can make. Although the point here is to get ourselves organised, it’s a good idea to have some ideas like this as these will probably be quick and easy things to make if you do find yourself short of time.

9. Dig out stuff you have made or started to make over the last year and decide whether you can give any of it to people as presents. A couple of years ago I had a glut of mug cosies, some of which became presents for my sons’ teachers.

Perhaps you’ve made something that was more about trying out a technique than making something you needed. Or maybe you made lots of covered notebooks just for fun! It’s probably worth having a look at what you’ve made or not quite finished.

And if you want to make more gifts, it’s probably never too early to start., so that’s definitely something to start planning now.

10. Start making a list of anything else you might need. Successful Christmas crafting often needs more than fabric and ribbon alone. So start to consider what else you’ll need.

This could include oasis flower foam, wire for centrepieces, twine, raffia, buttons, glitter, gift bags and tissue paper. There’s probably a whole lot of other stuff too that you’ll think of once you start to make your list!

Having a list prepared well in advance will mean that you can get stuff when you see it. It’s no good sitting down to make a Christmas wreath then realising that you don’t have any bay leaves or florists’ wire!

It also means that you won’t find yourself wandering round the Christmas section of Wilko knowing that you need stuff but not knowing exactly what!

You might be interested to know that there is a Christmas craft planner available as part of the super good value Christmas bundle! You can find out more here.

How To Make a Burlap Christmas Wreath

Plaited Burlap Christmas Wreath Tutorial

You Will Need

Making the Wreath

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How To Make Felt Poinsettias

How To Make Felt Poinsettias

You Will Need

Instructions

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Christmas Lantern Arrangement

Instructions For Making a Christmas Lantern Arrangement

You Will Need

Making the Christmas Lantern Arrangement

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How to Make Christmas Cutlery Pockets

Cutting Out

Sewing Up

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10 Ways to Get Ready For Christmas Crafts Now

10 Things You Can Do Now to Get Ready For Christmas Crafts

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