Pages

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Christmas or Valentines Kiss Holder Tutorial


I'll not be making these with my girlies just yet (another year or two), although they love the finished product! But those of you with a little older kiddos should have super fun with this blast from the past :) These would make fantastic Valentines!

"Squeeze my cheeks and I'll give you a kiss!"

Retro cutie Kiss Holder Ornaments


-Plastic Canvas Sheets
-Yarn
-Yarn Needle
-Candy Kisses
-Googly eyes
-other embellishments optional :)
Step 1:
Cut the plastic canvas into squares that are 10 little squares wide and tall. You need 3 little squares to make each kiss holder.

Step 2:
Using a long piece of yarn (I used the length from my extended arm to opposite shoulder), begin by coming up from the bottom in the corner of one of the squares and pull till only an inch is left on the underside.


Step 3:
Hold the inch long tail against the square as you begin to diagonally weave the yarn through the canvas by using only the outside row of squares (the tail should become covered and held into place by the yarn.


Step 4:
After the square is full of diagonal yarn it should look like this:

Then you want to whip stitch around only two of the outer sides of the square (I do 3 stitches in the corner)

You will only add this whip stitch finished edge to 2 edges and only on 2 of the three squares, the final one you will leave with all the edges bare. As you finish each square, you can weave in and hide the loose end by pulling it under the finished diagonal stitches as shown below and cutting the excess.


Repeat the whole process for the second square. The third you leave bare edged, so your three squares should look like this:


Step 5:
The two most important tips to remember when joining the squares are that you will not be sewing the finished edges (that's the mouth opening) AND the two squares with finished edges will not be sewn to each other.

Stack one of the finished-edge squares on top of the bare edged square and using a long piece of yarn, whip stitch together the two sides that are unfinished for BOTH squares (don't tie off your yarn, you'll use it to continue on joining the 3rd square). This is what it should look like after joining the first two:

To join the third square, you will simply align the finished edges and the unfinished edges and then whip stitch to join the unfinished ones. To line them up, you can squeeze the corners of the two joined square and make a sort of pyramid.

After sewing together the final two sides, you should have an almost-finished guy, pinch the two corners together to get his mouth to open like this:


Glue some googly eyes on, plop a candy kiss in his mouth and add a loop of yarn or ribbon for a hanger!

4 comments:

  1. This is adorable! What a cute idea, saw it on Free Pretty Things. TFS.
    Babs

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm so glad that you posted this! My parents still have a "Santa" version of this on their tree (from the 70s I believe) that has a little worn out tag that says "A Kiss from Santa". My mother went through bags of Hershey Kisses during the holidays because everyone wanted a "kiss from Santa". I'll have to make some of these for my own family now. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  3. OH these are so adorable! I've never seen these done before and will have to pin them to try myself!


    I would love if you came over and linked this project to my weekly Round Tuit party at:
    http://jembellish.blogspot.com/
    Have a great week!
    Jill @ Creating my way to Success

    ReplyDelete
  4. My grandmother use to make these for us when I was a kid. I had completely forgotten about them until I saw your post. I am really excited to make them with my kids. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete