How to make toys on the Christmas tree with felt?

New Year is one of the brightest and most fun holidays. He is loved and celebrated in all countries of the world, despite the fact that it is celebrated on different calendars. He is loved by both adults and children, they carefully prepare for him, storing gifts and gifts for the festive table. This holiday is usually celebrated with family. Adults and children are preparing for this day together: decorate the house, prepare surprises and gifts. One of the essential attributes of the New Year is the green fluffy beauty tree. Shortly before the holiday, many beautiful Christmas tree decorations made of glass, plastic, paper and other materials appear on sale. All these are the most different colors and shapes at the most different prices. From all this magnificence scattered eyes!

But remember the Christmas tree from your childhood.After all, the most favorite toys on it were the ones that you made with your own hands. Suppose they were inconspicuous and not always neat, but mom and dad were happy for them most of all, because it was your gift for the general family holiday. Childhood has passed, but you always have the opportunity to give these magical happy moments to your children. Spend time waiting on the eve of the holiday with the children for an interesting and useful activity: making Christmas-tree toys with your own hands. Such toys will not only decorate your Christmas tree and will be an excellent gift, but also help kids to learn simple handicraft techniques. One of the most affordable and easy-to-use materials for such toys is felt. Consider what it is, how to work with such material, what toys can be made of felt, whether children can cope with their manufacture.

Felt in French means felt. This material is obtained by dumping down or wool fibers into thin or thick sheets of various sizes. It is suitable for making hats, shoes and jewelry. It is very simple in work: it does not crumble, it is light, soft and pleasant to the touch, does not cause allergies.That is why it is a favorite raw material not only for many needlewomen, but also for those who work with small children.

Available in sheets of A3 and A4 format in packs or rolls. In packs there are two options: plain colored or colored sheets. Felt with a pattern of various subjects is very popular among needlewomen. On sale there are also kits for creativity from felt. Of course, modern felt is made not only from the fibers of the down and wool of sheep and goats.

Depending on the fiber composition, it is used differently.

• Pure wool felt is most often used for making jewelry. Usually it is thicker. It can be ironed, observing the correct temperature of heating of the iron. Of its shortcomings - the tendency to razlohmachivaniyu. Colors in stock.
• Half-woolen felt in its composition has additives from acrylic or viscose. This material is a bit cheaper. It is soft, and therefore products made from it, as a rule, do not very well hold their shape, as they crumple. Will fit on small toys and decorations.

• Acrylic felt has a small thickness, because of which sheets of light shades can appear through.Very durable, but at the same time soft and does not fade. The distinctive gloss on the surface helps to distinguish it. It is not recommended to iron at high temperatures.
• Viscose felt is the most gentle, soft and silky in comparison with others. It is durable, but requires careful cleaning. Suitable for toys and decorations.
• Polyester felt - one of the most durable and dense materials. It is perfect for the manufacture of any kind of products.

Whatever composition of felt you buy, you will be pleased with a wide variety of colors. Material thickness from 1 to 5 mm.

To work with felt, you will need special tools and materials.

• Scissors can be used the most common. For cutting holes more suitable small. A nice option would also be curly scissors.
• The marker for the fabric is used to transfer the lines of the pattern. If this is not, do not despair, you can always replace it with chalk or a finely sharpened piece of dry soap.

• Cardboard or paper for making patterns.
• Threads for stitching parts, you can take bobbins. If you have embroidery floss threads, then even better. The seams made with the floss threads look neater and beautiful.
• Needles for hand sewing with a sharp end and a large eye (so it is more convenient to thread the floss thread, which is usually used in several additions).

• Glue can be used PVA, "Moment" or any textile.
• It is better to use a filler for Christmas-tree toys: sintepon, sintepukh, hollofayber. These materials are very light and do not form lumps.
• Beads, beads, sequins, buttons, ribbons, braid are suitable for decorative decoration of your Christmas tree toys.

In addition to the loop, you can use the “forward needle” and chain (“pigtail”) seam for decorating products made of felt.

If you are familiar with the sewing machine, you can use straight or decorative machine stitches.

Since the felt is a material that is not loose, the parts are most often cut without seam allowances. A template made of cardboard or paper is placed on the surface of the material and simply traced around the contour with chalk or a special marker.You can draw the simplest patterns with children (for example, the contours of Christmas trees, dogs, sweets, bears, cats, houses or machines). Such toys and make easier, and their design will be unusual. More complex patterns, such as deer, Santa Claus, snowflakes, can be printed on paper and cut. After drawing the template, the part is cut out with scissors.

There are two options for making toys.

• Flat toys are cut from one layer of thick felt. After cutting, the toy is decorated with embroidery or pasting buttons, sequins, beads.
• Volumetric is obtained by stitching two parts of a thinner felt loop or other stitch. When working, they leave a small section unstitched in order to fill the toy through with a synthetic padding to give it volume.

If you are working with felt for the first time, or your children are not able to work with a needle and thread, try to make simple flat products.

Garlands can consist of multi-colored flags of different shapes, worn on a thread or ribbon. The shape of the flags can be very different: rectangular, round, oval, with or without a cut-out, in the form of animals or snowflakes. Even the smallest will cope with such work.

To make them, prepare a template of the shape you like and circle it on blanks of felt of different colors. Holes in the flags can be made with a special hole punch, or simply make two cuts in the upper part with a length of no more than 1 cm. Each blank can be decorated by gluing colored buttons or sequins. After you have prepared enough flags, pass the ribbon through the holes, and your garland is ready. It can decorate the Christmas tree or hang in the room.

Examples of felt garlands will help you in your work.

Such toys on the Christmas tree is also easy to manufacture. For them, you will need felt of different colors, filler, floss threads, flat beads or braid, glue for textiles and a heat gun.

• Cut two circles with a diameter of 12 cm out of cardboard.
• On each half of the front side, glue beads and pieces of braid.
• Then fold the blank together face up. Sew the edges of the toy with a stitch seam of the floss threads in three additions. Do not forget to leave open a small area at the top.
• Through it, fill the ball with padding polyester, sew a hole, do not forget to insert a loop of tape, so that the toy can be hung.

Bright felt balls will decorate your forest beauty.

Christmas tree shaped pendants are made in the same way as balls. Do not forget that you need to decorate the product before stitching.

Felt Christmas tree can be not only a Christmas-tree toy, but also an independent decoration of the interior. In the event that in your house there is not a lot of space for a real fir, make a small felt copy of it. It can be placed on a festive table or window.

• Using the template, cut the two details of the Christmas tree from green felt.
• Sew the blanks with a stitch seam or a “forward needle” stitch, leaving a small patch.
• Fill a fir-tree with a filler from a synthetic winterizer and sew.
• Carefully slide the wooden skewer through the hole in the bottom of the toy. Attach the other end of the skewer in a pot or cup filled with sand or plaster.
• Decorate the Christmas tree with beads, bows, buttons.

Examples of felt trees and templates are attached.

Christmas-tree toys in the shape of animals can be the most interesting, as the animal toys are very popular with children.

For those who do not like to sew, for the manufacture of such toys, you can use color felt with glue on the wrong side. Cut two identical parts from glue felt.When cutting, note that the pattern is displayed in different directions. After that, remove the protective paper layer from the blanks and attach them to each other on the wrong side. Details are firmly connected. When gluing do not forget to put a loop of ribbon for suspension. The toy is ready!

The article provides templates and examples of work.

These animals are strongly associated in our minds with the New Year and Santa Claus. They are the ones who help Grandfather Frost deliver gifts for children on New Year's Eve. It will be very nice to see them on your tree.

For the manufacture of deer will need a felt brown, red or gray. For decorating fit any beads or sequins. You can decorate the details before stitching simple embroidery.

Deer are made on the principle of felt balls: sewn from two halves with looped or other hand stitch. Such toys are also filled with padding polyester and supplied with a loop for hanging.

The templates that are attached, you can safely use, and interesting examples will inspire you to create a toy.

We hope that our advice and master classes will help you prepare for the New Year holidays.

To learn how to make New Year's toys from felt, see the next video.