Art Elements Ornament Blog Hop!

This is my second ornament blog hop of the month... I participated in on hosted by the Art Bead Scene blog earlier in the month and you can see all the entries HERE.  Now with the Art Elements challenge, I'm continuing with variations on a theme from what I made for the ABS hop and sharing more of my adventures in needle felting and bead embroidering Christmas Ornaments!

This year I decided to try my hand at making some needle felted Christmas ornaments.  I got inspired last year when I saw a blog post by my friend Diana Ptaszynski over on the Art Elements blog.  (You can see her tutorial HERE.)  I was intrigued by the idea and already had some wool roving that I had bought to felt some beads and focals...  now I just needed to collect some cookie cutters and better needles.  I gathered my supplies this fall and got busy once everything had arrived!

Here are a couple of process pictures... 

Me getting all stabby on a Christmas tree.

Some shapes felted but not embellished.

I did a little more bead embroidery on this second batch of ornaments than on the first round.  (You can see my first three attempts HERE if you missed them.)  I think my favorite might be the star!  I lucked out when I went to buy sequins that Michael's had a great multi pack of different colors and sizes as well as a package of little gold stars.  Initially I had thought that I would just needle felt the white stripes onto the candy cane, but I was worried that I wouldn't be able to achieve consistent, straight lines that way.  I decided to do sequin and seed bead stripes instead which adds more sparkle to the mix for sure!  

The only one that I'm not totally thrilled with is my little gingerbread man.  The brown that I was able to find makes him look a bit burnt and I think his expression is sort of demented.  Part of the problem is that the way I did his smile makes it look like a really toothy grin... Maybe I should have tried needle felting a little bit of white to make his eyes and smile.  Thoughts?  Suggestions? 

Thanks for stopping by to check out my second round of needle felted ornaments.  I got a big ol' tub of fun cookie cutters and I hope to make more of these guys in the future... maybe in time for next Christmas!!    This is a blog hop... you can see what everyone else created by using the links below.  

Guest Designers

Kathy Lindemer

Hope Smitheran

Denise McCabe

Paisley Lizard

Samantha Wescott

Sarajo Wentling

Divya N

Linda Newnham

Melissa Trudinger

Art Elements Team

Susan Kennedy

 Caroline Dewison

Laney Mead

Cathy Mendola

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Lesley Watt

Lindsay Starr

Claire Fabian

Niky Sayers

Wishing you all a very happy holiday season!  May it bring you peace and joy!  It will be quiet around here for a bit as I celebrate Christmas with family and friends over the long weekend.  I hope to sneak in some creative time to make new jewelry to share with you before the year is over.