jingle belles: CARD SIX

this week's prompt at JINGLE BELLES is taken from the song, "baby it's cold outside" and the brief is to use felt on your card...OR...to include an image of a hat, scarf or mittens!

i have had an idea for "paper piecing" ...but using felt... kicking around inside my head since LAST christmas, so this seemed like a good time to give it a go. it turned out to be quite easy...but there were one or two little tricks i discovered, so i thought i'd share a mini tutorial with you!

1. choose, size, and print your image

i love the little reindeer on this paperchase giftwrap, but at 1.5" he's pretty tiny, so i used my scanner to copy & enlarge him to just under 5" tall.

2. attach pattern to felt

i used staples to tack my paper pattern...obviously OUTSIDE the lines of my finished reindeer.

3. cut base image from the most dominant color

before cutting, i xyroned my sheet of tan craft felt onto some white index stock to make a nice sturdy base that will support the decorative additions.

4. cut out & attach the decorative bits

in this case, the reindeer has a brown antler and four hooves, a red nose, a white and black eye, and some tiny white spots. i used my original pattern to cut everything from the appropriate colors of UNBACKED felt. i used aleene's tacky glue, applied with a paint brush, to bond the layers of felt together. the tiny white spots are punched out of paper, and attached the same way.

5. admire your gallant deer!

since this little guy's adorability level was somewhere between a cute embellishment and a beloved family pet...i could not resist using tiny needles and some fine scrap yarn to knit him a little scarf. ('cause baby, it's COLD outside!)

6. make a card!

rudy's so cute that my card didn't need much else: a couple of patterned paper panels, a few snowflakes, a bit of felt rick-rack and a little tag were enough to complete my card. only at the very end did i realize i had subconsciously used amy's gorgeous sketch from last week again-- but hey, it's a great sketch so why not?!"