Good Saturday morning and welcome to the 4th day of the Essentials by Ellen October Release blog hop. I’m excited to be hopping along to share Brandi and Julie’s amazing stamp and die sets. You should have arrived here from Julia’s wonderful blog. If you want to start at the beginning of the hop just go back and start at the CLASSroom. You can see the whole release here along with some great samples and video tutorials.
I’m playing with Julie’s new Bear Hug die set. If you love Julie’s All Inside Stamp and Die Set then you are going to love using this die set for all kinds of projects.
I chose to create a plush bear Christmas ornament with the heart in the set and a poinsettia and tiny Christmas trees. I used the small flower die from the Otter Ware Die Set to create the poinsettia and the Christmas trees from the Home and Hearth. I thought I would show a few step by step photos of how I put the bear together.
I used acrylic yarn from JoAnn’s to sew the pieces together.
I line up the two bear pieces and arms and pinned them in place. I started sewing by slipping the threaded needle in between the two bear layers so the knot would be hidden inside and brought the needle up through the first hole of the top bear. I used a simple whip stitch beginning along the straight edge of the bear so that I would be finishing the closure on a straight edge.
When I was all the way around the ears and feet edges of the bear I started back down the straight edge and left the opening large enough to allow me to insert the batting to fill the bear. I knew it would be much easier to close the opening along the straight edge rather than near the feet or ear edges of the bear. I gently inserted the batting up into the ears and down in the feet sections first and then filled in the rest of the bear. Once I was satisfied it was filled enough I completed the stitching to close the opening.
When the opening was totally secure I inserted the needle between the two layers and pushed it through to the other side of the bear. I didn’t want there to be a knot showing so I pulled the yarn through and out the other side and snipped it off. I failed to get a picture of the backside of the bear but it is as flawless as the front showing no knots.
I used hot glue to attached the eyes and nose to his face.
I created a knot with the yard and then pulled the needle through both poinsettia layers to create the center and then hot glued the yarn to the back side of the second flower and trimmed it off. I decided to use the tiny Christmas trees as the foliage for the poinsettia and to layer on the heart. The picture above just shows the pieces for that little arrangement. When I was getting ready to attach the heart inside the arms of the bear I decided it would be cute to add a trio if trees behind the heart along with a little star to top off the center tree. I hot glued the three trees and heart in place to finish.
Note: I failed to add a yarn hanger to the bear so it could be hung on the Christmas tree. I should have created one by knotting two ends of yarn together and tucking the knotted end in between the two bear layers before stitching it together. With the knot inside the bear you would not have any ugly knots showing on either side of the bear. Duh! I didn’t think of doing it as I was making this little guy. LOL!
Here are links to the whole release:
I appreciate you stopping by and I hope you have fun hopping on over to Laurel’s blog! You can find the complete hop list below.
Ellen Hutson LLC
Francine Vuilleme
Sharon Harnist
Taheerah Atchia
Julia Stainton
Kittie Caracciolo (you are here)
Laurel Beard
Project Links along with my regularly used tools and supplies:
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