Felt Gingerbread House Ornaments

No blog posts last week because I was busy with work travel so it’s blog-a-palooza this week as I document all the Christmas projects I’ve been working on! I hope you enjoy 🙂

The annual prize at Gingerbread House Party (besides the honor, glory and having a picture of your house in the hall of champions) is an ornament. Usually I just pick up a gingerbread themed ornament at the store and call it a day. This year I decided I wanted to make the ornaments and I think they turned out adorable (you know, if I do say so myself)!

To make the magic happen, I picked up

Felt
Swirled brown fabric
Beads
Baby rick rack in red and white
Fiber fill
Ribbon
Fray check

I cut the shape of the house from the swirled brown fabric and a snowy rooftop using templates I created. I then free hand cut a heart and front door to the house.

The striped effect for the candy cane was achieved by twisting the rick rack together. It gets a bit contorted, but you can lay it flat to create the candy cane shape. I thoroughly doused each end of the candy cane with fray check and let it set before cutting out each candy cane segment. I stitched the snowy roof to the house, placed the heart on the door and sewed both to the house and then placed and sewed on the candy canes.

After doing a couple of these I found it was easier to simply pin the edge of the candy cane at the bottom of the house and then position the rest of the shape as I stitched. This turned out to be a far faster method than trying to pin down all that itty bitty twisted rick rack.

I laid the house front on to a piece of dark brown felt and cut out around the shape leaving ¼” on all sides.

I cut a 5” piece of ribbon and tucked it into the top of the house and sewed around the house leaving an opening at side of the house for filling.

Stuff the house with the desired amount of filling, pin the side in place and stitch it closed.

You’re almost done! The finishing touches on this little ornament are to sew on the peppermint candy button above the door and add a few randomly placed beads on the snowy roof of the house. Perfect, now it will glisten in the light of the Christmas tree.