Good Wednesday morning and welcome to the CLASSroom. I have been intrigued by the Memory Box Plush Die Sets for a while and thought it would be fun to make a soft holiday ornament and matching gift card. My project today was made using the Plush Heart Pocket, Plush Holly Leaves and Berries, Plush Ruffled Rose (faux poinsettia and leaves) die sets. I used the Taylored Expressions Red Felt Bundle, Green Felt Bundle,and Woolfelt White.
I must admit that I was a little skeptical about getting a clean crisp cut using felt with the wafer thin dies but I needn’t have worried. You will see in my pictures that all the pieces cut out perfectly. I wanted to be sure the die didn’t leave any marks on the white felt so I layered white printer paper between the die and felt.
I used acrylic yarn to sew the pieces together. The first couple of pictures show the felt heart being much whiter than the yarn but they are almost the same color.
I started by slipping the threaded needle in between the two main heart layers so the knot would be hidden inside and brought the needle up through the first hole of the top heart and pocket. I used a simple whip stitch beginning along the straight edge of the heart so that I would be finishing the closure on a straight edge.
When I was all the way around both round edges of the heart and starting back down the straight edge I left the opening large enough to allow me to insert the batting to fill the heart.
I knew it would be much easier to close the opening along the straight edge rather than near the bottom point or rounded edges of the heart. When the opening was totally secure I tied off the yarn hiding the knot inside the pocket. I failed to get a picture of the backside of the heart but it is as flawless as the front showing no knots.
I cut one red and green flower from the Plush Ruffled Rose set to create each of my poinsettias.
Instead of sewing I used my hot glue gun to attach the flower layers and then squeezed them together around the tip of my tweezers to shape and secure.
I used embroidery thread to fill in the spaces on the leaves. I alternated the stitches across the leaf, turned and worked backward filling the open spaces. This created a nice clean line of stitches on both sides of the leaf and with only a small knot on the last hole.
When the stitches were complete I used a couple of slip stitches to create a knot and cut off the thread.
I applied the hot glue on the backside tip of each leaf where the knots were tied so they would be hidden when attached to the pillow.
Tiny pearls were attached to the flower centers with a drop of hot glue and then the flowers were arranged around the leaves and attached with hot glue.
I used Julie’s Stitching Lines die set and Memory Box Stitched Rectangle Layers to create a small 3.50” x 2.50” matching gift card.
I hope my tutorial has inspired you to make some fun plush projects of your own. I think this heart and card will be a perfect holiday gift for a friend or co-worker.
