Christmas Crafts – Easy Children’s crafts – age 5 and up – “Sakura” Felt Ornament and Button Snowmen – FREE Patterns.
Sakura – Two circles of felt embellished by faux pearl beads
White Cherry Blossoms or Japanese Sakura
White Cherry Blossoms in Japan are called Sakura. See link below the photo of the Cherry Blossoms for a full explanation.
Pinterest – DIY Sakura Flower Ornament
DIY Sakura Flower Ornament
For the DIY Sakura Flower Ornament there are no instructions, just the photo.
Templates for the Sakura type ornaments
I made my own templates for the Sakura type ornaments
Using a CD for the larger circle, to make it bigger as they used two smaller circles. Bigger circles for little hands. For very small children just use the two larger circles of different colors.
For older kids use one of the smaller circles for the inside and one larger circle for the front and one larger circle for the back as in the photo.
- I made the larger circle templates out of binder paper. I folded one of the larger paper template into 8ths and made small cuts for marking the felt before cutting the lines in the felt.
- I used a Sharpie pen to mark the felt. Making the cuts to within ¼ of an inch to the center and to the edge.
- Carefully cut the lines. You may need to do this for the little kids. Alternately you could just cut out a thin diamond pattern so the kids do not have to do the sewing.
- I did the sewing or tacking the two sides of each of the cut outs.
- I then added the smaller circle to the back. For smaller kids they can use the larger circle and just glue it to the back.
For decoration the kids could use glitter as I did in some of the photos. Add school glue to a cup and have the child use a small paint brush to dab the glue onto the felt. Use a thick layer as the glue soaks into the felt very fast!
Older kids can sew the beads onto the design.
You can use “Perler” beads or pony beads that do not require a small sharp needle that can be sewn with a large eye blunt needle. A blunt needle will go through felt just fine. You can mark a dot with the Sharpie pen so they know a good place to poke the needle.
Older children, teens and adults can follow my pattern or the one in the original Pinterest Sakura website. They used a canning jar or Mason jar liner lid and the corresponding screw top. They also used two large circles and one small circle.
Small 3.25 inch circle
Large circle after cuts and sewing
Template with cuts – A 4.25 CD size circle
Inside where the sewing is done to attach the two sides of the cut outs
Close up of the inside
The sewing is done all but one part not sewn
Front side of the circle with the cut outs and beads attached
Two colors for each ornament
Added bead on top after sewing. I think they look more like a sand dollar design. A cherry blossom has five petals and a sand dollar also has five points. Many things in nature have the five parts. I think I also have seen a sea creature that looks like this design with the 8 parts.
Bottom of the ornament from the smaller circle side
Two circles
As you can see I just used one small circle for the back and one large circle for the front. I will add a length of six strand embroidery floss to hang the ornament.
Side view of the ornament
Ruffled edge
I like the way the edge came out as a ruffled edge. I thought that looked better than the flat edge like theirs. But what ever way you want to make it is correct!
Blue and purple ornament
Three tiny beads on each of the 8 petals
I used random colors of the smallest beads, bigger than seed beads or twice the size of seed beads.
Three pearl beads on each of the 8 petals
I added three faux pearl beads to each of the 8 petals.
Adding beads
I used a double length of regular thread and smallest needle to add three of the beads to each of the petals tieing off each with two knots.
Glittered ornaments – Glue the area you want to glitter
Add glue to disposable cup and dab with sponge brush
Add glitter fast as glue soaks into felt very fast
Have glitter and an opened envelope ready so you can shake off the excess glitter into the envelope and place it back into the container. Less messy. Use newspaper for kids.
Wet glue will be still white and you cannot see the silver glitter
Wet glue and glitter where the glitter will not be visible until the glue dries
Less than an hour later glue is starting to dry and you can see more of the glitter
I used the flash so you could see the colors better and the glitter
Glitter dried in two hours
Glue almost all dried
Pinterest Button Snowmen
She has many great ideas, but just photos no patterns or instructions
More sophisticated Button snowmen
They used floss for the arms of branches. I cannot tell what they used for the neck scarves. I made my Snowmen simple without the embroidered arms.
Felt backed Button Snowmen
Some two button and some three button snowmen.
I cut out small rectangles of felt. I used three strand embroidery floss to attach the buttons. I made a french knot for the eyes in black floss. I used red for the mouth.
I used six strand floss for the blanket stitch on the edging and a loop to hang the ornament.
I had some tiny half size rick rack for the scarves which I attached with three strand floss.
Adapting the button snowman ornament
For young children they can glue on the buttons and embellishment for the scarf. No need to embroider the edges. They can add a row for felt to frame the rectangle by gluing that frame.
I wish I had more buttons. I was going to buy some in lots online there are many websites that have just buttons! You can buy them in pounds or half pounds as well as specialty groups according to designs and patterns at one of my favorite button site called “Buttons Galore and More”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
