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Festive Felt Snowmen make great decorations for your home or holiday gifts. They are simple and quick to make, requiring no sewing machine skills and you can customize them to coordinate with your own themes or colors.
To make one of these creative characters, you will need:
2-3 sheets of paper
pins
1 sheet of white felt
1 sheet of black felt
1 sheet of orange felt
1 sheet of green felt
1 sheet of blue felt
5 miscellaneous buttons (small)
black embroidery floss
green embroidery floss
blue emroidery floss
needle
2 small twigs or sticks collected from outside
crafters glue
white polyester stuffing
Instructions:
To begin, using your paper, cut an outline of the following: snowman's body (white-should be about half the size of an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper), hat (black), mittens (blue), carrot nose (orange).
Using pins, pin patterns to felt and cut out shapes. All should be cut out in double (with felt folded so you have a front and back piece).
Using black embroidery floss, make a face for your snowman. Stitch eyes and a mouth and glue on carrot nose. On body, sew three buttons. Then, still using black embroidery floss, stitch around the outside of snowman body - you should use a blanket stich or stitch from the top to the bottom, allowing floss to wrap around side of body. About halfway from top to bottom on each side, place a small amoung of glue inside and insert one twig. Stitch around glued twig to hold in place. Leave a 1 inch opening at base in order to stuff your snowman. Stuff your snowman and sew opening closed.
Taking pieces of hat, stitch around the outside but not the base, using black embroidery floss. Pull each side of the base over the top of snowman's head and stitch across - this should close hat and attach to snowman's head. Using green felt, cut two small leaves that coordinate in size with the remaining buttons. Sew leaves and buttons onto one corner of hat to form flowers, using green embroidery floss.
Next, using blue embroidery floss, stitch a straight-style stitch around mittens, leaving base open. When finished, place a small amount of glue inside base of mittens and attach one to each twig to form snowman's hands.
Your snowman should now be ready to display. If you would like to make your snowman an ornament, use remaining embroidery floss to make a loop from the top of snowman's hat for hanging on the tree. Snowman can be customized using various colors of felt for the mittens and hat. You may also choose to add other items - a scarf (cut a long retangular piece of felt and wrap around snowman's neck. leaving excess at both ends - glue into place and use scissors to fray edges), or a vest (cut a small square to cover part of snowman's back and two front rectangular pieces for vest front - glue pieces onto snowman, placing each front piece on the sides of buttons).
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