Neat and Tangled and Benzie Designs Collaboration Felt Ornaments

Hello everyone,
Today I am sharing with you, a project that I created using some products from Neat and Tangled, and Benzie Designs, who collaborated to create the dies used for this project.  (CLICK HERE!) to visit  Benzie Designs, and (CLICK HERE!) to visit Neat and Tangled.

Using the Ugly Sweater and Snowflake Stitching dies from the Neat and Tangled and Benzie Designs collaboration and Glitter and Glass and Winter Mint felt color palettes from Benzie Designs, I set out to make some special winter ornaments.  These palettes include a beautiful selection of high quality felt, but also offer coordinating embroidery flosses (which I purchased).  I cut the sweaters (one for the front, and another for the back) from the glitter and glass color palette.  I was really channeling the "ugly sweater" fad that has become popular over the last several years, but I think I missed the mark a bit, because these turned out really cute!

Once I had the sweaters themselves cut, I proceeded to cut the sweater cuffs and collars from a coordinating color, and stitched them onto the sweater using the embroidery floss.  I used the same process for the candy cane, wreath, snowman, and gingerbread man.  However, I elected to enhance these items by selectively stitching some seed beads onto them to dress them up a bit.  I then attached these items to the sweaters using liquid glue in lieu of the stitching.

Using the embroidery floss again, I made loops of floss, and secured them to the back of my sweaters, and then used liquid adhesive to attach the backs of the sweaters, and moved on to my snowflakes.

I followed much of the same steps to create my snowflakes- beginning with the Winter Mint palette of felt (again with the coordinating embroidery floss), I die cut my main snowflake shapes (in twos- one front and another rear), and inner structure of the snowflakes from the felt.  I then created an interesting series of stitching, incorporating sequins and glass beads to add some sparkle to the felt (what's a snowflake without sparkle anyway?).  After getting them looking the way that I wanted,  I again added some loops to the backs before sealing the snowflake "panels" with liquid adhesive.  These loops will allow me to hang some of these cute "ugly" sweaters from our Christmas tree this year!

I hope you enjoyed my project today, I certainly had a lot of fun playing with something a little different, and I think this would be a fantastic family crafting idea- everyone could spend a little time creating something adorable for your holiday celebrations!

Koren