I’ve been working on a pretty ambitious felt tree skirt project this year, and it’s left me with a bunch of leftover ivory felt, so I’ve been trying to come up with some small projects that make use of the felt leftovers. These little ornaments aren’t at all difficult to make, even for beginners at embroidery, and even though they make extensive use of the fancy (and intimidating, so I’ve read) French knot. Trust me, the French knot isn’t difficult at all once you get a few practice knots in, and here’s a a video that takes you through it in real time, so if you’re a visual learner like me you’ll be a French knot pro in no time and will want to use this stitch anywhere that you possibly can.

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I had so much fun designing this year’s set of printable holiday gift tags, but I have to admit that I had some trouble finalizing a color scheme because I had about ten different color palettes that I wanted to use. I wanted something sort of retro, subdued, but still festive, and I finally decided on a palette of candy apple red, icy teal blue, mint green, and silvery taupe. Download the free printable gift tags (161Kb PDF).

If you’re looking for more holiday tags, please check out 2009’s wintry holiday gift tags and the colorful, patterned gift tags over at Paper Crave.

You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to download and use this file. Download the reader for free here. These templates are for personal, non-commercial use only.

This project started off as an advent calendar and kind of took on a life of its own. I was going to make fluted circle ornaments with the calendar numbers cut out of the middle, but then I realized that numbers like “6” and “8” were going to look a little odd because their entire interiors would be cut out. D’oh! So, I morphed the project into a riff on the polymer clay wreath ornaments that I made earlier this year.

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This craft is part of the 13 Days of Halloween project. Download number templates for the project, as well as the bug template for Day 3, in the tips and supplies post. Links to all of the crafts from this project can be found in the main 13 Days of Halloween post.

This is it, Day 13! This little owl may look menacing, but he’ll be holding Halloween treats for you when you get to the big day. Happy Halloween!

Quick Tip: If you’re pressed for time and want to speed up the process, you can cut 2″ wide x 3/4″ tall pieces of black cardstock and use decorative edging scissors (Fiskars Clouds and Scallop work very well for this) to make the feather ruffles, instead of cutting out the feather ruffle templates.

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This craft is part of the 13 Days of Halloween project. Download number templates for the project, as well as the bug template for Day 3, in the tips and supplies post. Links to all of the crafts from this project can be found in the main 13 Days of Halloween post.

This craft started as a tissue paper dahlia (you can find the original craft and template at Martha Stewart Weddings), but turn it upside down and you have a ghost! I scaled the original template to 65% to make the ghost, and though I can’t include that template here for copyright reasons (don’t want Martha and her people coming after me!), I have included a quarter circle template at the same size that you can download below. If you have pinking shears or decorative edging scissors, you can use those to create an interesting edge on the circle for your own ghost.

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This craft is part of the 13 Days of Halloween project. Download number templates for the project, as well as the bug template for Day 3, in the tips and supplies post. Links to all of the crafts from this project can be found in the main 13 Days of Halloween post.

These mini treat boxes can be used for all sorts of occasions. They’re the perfect size to fit a snack size candy bar or a couple of mini Reese’s peanut butter cups (my favorite – so glad they make sugar free now!). But you can use the boxes for small favors and gifts, too. Use different patterned and colored papers to create a limitless number of looks.

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