Fabric Pendant- Christmas

I've been wanting to make fabric pendant banners for a while and am SO excited to have my Christmas ones done!  I found an awesome tutorial here that makes 4 banners.  2 work in our apartment just fine, but I am holding out hope that next year (in a house) we'll have room for all four.  I'm planning on doing a birthday one, as well as ones for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and maybe Valentine's day. 

So fun and festive!

Bird (Freezer Paper Stencil) Pillow

After finishing my flower petal pillow, I started looking for ideas for the second, matching pillow. I came across this pillow at Running with Scissors and fell in love. I have been wanting to do freezer paper stenciling for a while and this was the perfect opportunity to try it out.

At first I thought I would just draw my own tree branch stencil, but after a few attempts I realized that I wouldn't be able to recreate one I liked better than the free template that Jess provided on her tutorial. I printed out the template, traced it onto the freezer paper and cut it out with an exacto knife. I wanted a slightly different bird, so I used my Cricut and the Child's Year Cartridge to cut out the bird I liked best.

After painting all of the parts onto the fabric, I used some yellow scraps of fabric I had in my fabric box to add some color to the pillow. I didn't have a single piece long enough to use so I sewed a few together and it worked great.

I used a thin brown ribbon to finish the edge between the stencil and the fabric. Then I cut some velvety brown fabric remnants I had to make a few leaves with added texture and zigzagged them around the edges.

Last, I wanted to copy the detail from the pillow in the tutorial by adding the wording "No. 3" but wanted to change the font slightly. I ended up using the font 'Blackadder ITC" from Microsoft word and traced it into freezer paper and used the same method to paint it onto the pillow.

(Note: Since this was my first time using freezer paper, I didn't have any fabric paint on hand. I decided to try using acrylic paint instead and the results were great, plus it's way cheaper. I am guessing that acrylic may dry a little stiffer than fabric paint but for this project, it didn't really matter. )

Felt Petal Pillow

I am really excited about this pillow. I LOVE how it turned out! (Excuse the terrible photo). I found the tutorial at Cluck Cluck Sew. I love finding sewing projects simple enough for even me to handle. :) The tutorial says it takes half an hour, but it took me longer than that. If I made another one, it would go a lot faster now that I completely know what I'm doing. Also, I packed more petals in so I had to cut more circles than what the tutorial suggested. Trust me, it looks way better in person. And so easy to make! Love that.