Felt Penguin in Rudolph Disguise [Free Pattern!]

I wanted a little extra something to slip in a Christmas present for a friend who loves penguins, and designed this decoration - a penguin dressed as Rudolph (obviously!), complete with antlers and a bright red nose.

If you want to make one, cut two bodies out of black felt, a round tummy out of white felt, a small nose out of red felt (or you could made a yellow triangle for a beak), four antlers from brown felt and a pair of feet from yellow felt. (The feet are optional, but help anchor the design as a penguin and not a confused reindeer!) Stitch the tummy and nose on to the front body piece, and embroider some eyes. Stitch down the centre of each pair of antlers to hold them together, and then stitch the two body pieces together inserting the feet, antlers and a small piece of hanging ribbon as you go. Get the template below, and let me know if you have any questions :)

Cream and Gold Kusudama

This marvelous ball of flowers made from folded paper is called a Kusudama. I am not at all knowledgeable about it, but it is beautiful! It is relatively simple to make, though quite time consuming - that tends to be the way with origami! The tutorial I originally followed was on a site called Folding Trees, however this appears to have been replaced by a new site, PlanetJune. The basic petal/flower tutorial is still available here, but a donation is now required to view the full instructions. I suspect a Google about how to assemble an origami kusudama could help you find your way :)

I made this kusudama with half cream flowers and half gold flowers. because my gold paper was single sided, and thus had white edges, I applied gold ink to the centre folds for more colour and sparkle. I hung the kusudama using organza ribbon and some lovely complimentary beads from my stash. If you're wondering about adhesives, I used pritt stick to form the petals, double sided sticky tapes to form the flowers, and then my glue gun for final assembly. Despite it being a rather larger task than I anticipated, I already have another one in the works! Here it is on the Christmas tree:

Crochet Bauble

In December 2014 I dug out a polystyrene ball, a small crochet hook and my embroidery threads, and started making this crochet bauble, making the pattern and stitches up as I went along. Come January, I hadn't finished it, and was in a bit of a grump with it as the sizing wasn't quite right. It then sat on the coffee table until last month, with the threads in this lovely state. I knew I just needed to get it out of the way, even if it wasn't perfect! Here it is, finished. It's certainly colourful!

Stamped Christmas Cards

I like to keep my Christmas cards simple in design, allowing me to make them for as many people as possible! I like this classic colouring of cream, maroon and gold - it feels rich and warm.

Having inherited a large amount of stamps earlier this year, I went looking through the box for an appropriately Christmassy design! This isn't super festive, but the leaves could be perceived as holly, and I think embossed in gold it looks right for the season :)