Felt Gingerbread House Ornament

Tomorrow is the last day of my 12 Days of Handmade Christmas Ornaments series.   I’ll be doing a roundup of all the ornaments that I have shared during this series and announcing a giveaway winner!  Make sure to go enter here if you haven’t already.  I saved my favorite ornament for last!  It’s made of felt, so you know I love it!  It’s a cute little felt gingerbread house Christmas ornament. Also make sure to take a look at all of my other homemade Christmas ornament tutorials and free felt Christmas ornament patterns.

But WAIT, there’s more!  The roof comes off and dun da da duh……it’s the home of some cute little gingerbread people!!!

And of course, I always love the small, embroidered details!  Here’s the front.

And the back.

And the sides.

Now it’s time to make your own.  Guess what?!  Another free pattern for you!  Download it here and please consider subscribing or following me in some way if you use it.

You will also need:

• felt (the and type and colors I used are listed on the pattern)
• embroidery floss in white, beige, red, and dark brown
• tiny buttons for gumdrops (I got these at Michaels.  I included a small circle on the pattern if you would rather cut them out of felt)

You’ll need to start with some stiffened felt for the main house.  Follow my tutorial here to stiffen it yourself.  Cut out your pattern pieces.  Make sure to use tape instead of pins for the stiffened felt pieces.  After you stiffen the felt, the holes from pins like to stick around. (I adjusted the pattern a little after taking the next two photos, so the sizes won’t be exactly the same.  Just needed to give you a visual.)

Put the house pieces together using a whip stitch.  See the photo below.

Applique and embroider all of the details onto the outside of the house.  You can embroider the details on the house before putting it together, but I wanted to see where everything was going to be first.  To get the window placement right, I taped the template on the house.

Here’s how it should all look when you are done.  The pattern will give you some more details.

Now take your white candy cane pieces and whip stitch them onto each corner of the house, joining the corners together.

This part is a little tricky.  Just take your time, and make sure you have a nice, sharp needle.  I used four strands of embroidery floss for this.  Please excuse the mess that is the back of my embroidery. 🙂

Here’s the base of the house, all put together.

Fold the roof piece in half.  Bend it back and forth a few times to make sure you get a good crease.  Cut out all of the shingle pieces.

Sew the shingles on with a running stitch, slightly overlapping each row.  The bottom ones should hang off the roof a little.  To keep your work neat, start and stop the stitches between the roof and the shingles.  That way you won’t have any knots or anything showing on the bottom of the roof when you open the house.

To attach the top shingle piece, I just sewed the buttons (gumdrops) on top of it.  Sew one button onto every scallop of the white shingles.

Now your house should be done.  To hang it, put some string on a needle, tie a knot on one end, and poke it through the bottom.

Come up all the way through the roof, and then tie another knot at the very top to keep it from sliding off the end when you open it.

The gingerbread people are pretty simple.  Just make sure to cut two for each person.  Sew the details on the front layer, and then sew the back on with a running stitch.

If I had more time, I would have made a little gingerbread person to represent everyone in our family.  Maybe next year.

Such a cute addition to our Christmas tree, and the kids love it!

<<click here to go to the final day of this series>>

That’s it for day eleven of my 12 Days of Handmade Christmas Ornaments series.  Again, make sure to go back to the first post to enter the giveaway.  Today is the last day to enter!