Christmas Gifts for Friends: Sewn Ornaments

One of my favorite things to gift to my friends is handmade ornaments. I started this tradition when my children were very young and sewing became very important to me as an outlet, so when I look back on the ornaments I crafted over the years, I get so many warm fuzzies. That first year, I made six little birdie ornaments, the next year ten cupcakes and by the third and fourth year, I was making 20 or more. Life got busier over time and I stopped making so many, but it’s something I still love to do for a handful of close local friends, and since “local” changes for me every few years, it’s a joy to gift something small to those women who have impacted my life in each place I’ve lived.

I’ve been searching Etsy for the perfect ornaments to make this year for my local friends and I have found some great patterns there, but today I want to share with you the ornaments I’ve made in years past. I usually choose a pattern and then choose several coordinating fabrics, so the ornaments look like a collection without being all the same. The best thing about gifts like this is that literally everyone will love them! Who doesn’t like receiving something handmade with love? I hope this sparks some inspiration for your Christmas sewing!

A few of my ornaments came from a pair of cute little sewing book called Sew Pretty Christmas Homestyle and Sew Pretty Homestyle. If I’m remembering correctly, the seahorses, cupcakes, matryoshka dolls and boots all came from these books. (I did blog about these at the time on my old blog, but linking practices have come a long way since 2008 and unfortunately my of us were clueless back then about proper source links, so I could be wrong, but I believe these four came from these great books.)

One of my favorites were these origami butterflies. There was quite a bit of handwork involved in these and I was making so many, that in future years, I tried to choose patterns that had as little handwork as possible. There was still handwork involved in every ornament, though and I learned to bring my project bin along with me so I could just work on them here and there. Now that I make fewer ornaments each year, I don’t try so hard to avoid the handwork.

For the butterflies, I used regular origami butterfly instructions, but since I didn’t want raw edges, I sewed two fabrics into a square, turned and topstitched before creating the butterfly. I was inspired by a tutorial for a similar project idea making hair clips. Once folded, the butterfly gets a line of machine sewing right down the middle. Then there is some hand tacking involved, plus sewing on the antennae and ribbon.

The first ornaments I made were birds and I’ve since made more for local friends here. They’re from this book and they’re so, so cute. I was very into Heather Bailey fabrics (still am, really!) and loved using these treasured fat quarters for these birdies. (Clearly, this was before I had any photography skills whatsoever, but I don’t have a better picture.)

When we lived in Virginia, I made little mice and they are so super cute. I pulled out coordinating scraps and love the color palette of these little guys. I had seen something similar on Pinterest, but the link led to nowhere, so I couldn’t locate a pattern. I made them up on my own and since I do still have it, I will try to place a pattern and tutorial here soon. They have little ribbon tails the server as their hangers!

The last large batch of ornaments I made were these adorable little pies. They use jar lids! So, so cute. At the time, it was difficult to find cotton fabrics locally (in Hawaii), so I’m considering making these again this year for local friends, using more modern, fun fabrics. I do love how these ones turned out too, though, they’re classic and cute! I purchased the pattern on Etsy here. I chose to use prints rather than the felt the pattern calls for as the “filling”.

I can’t leave out this little sloth ornament I made Natalie one year! She was into sloths at the time and I couldn’t find an ornament for her ( I gift my kids a new ornament each year, usually store bought, according to their current interests), so I DIYed this little guy. I do think it was inspired by something I saw in an Anthropologie catalog, though, so I cannot take credit for the design.

I’m inspired to get started on some ornaments for this Christmas! When I gift them, I usually write a little card and use twine to tie the ornament onto the card, in a cute little bundle. Ornaments are a low pressure gesture, that will make your friends feel loved, without guilting them into reciprocating, ha! Isn’t it hard to find gifts with that balance?? I think so.

I hope this gave you some good ideas for sewing ornaments this year!

Cheers :)