Christmas Button Floozies Swap

Because I love buttons so much, I'm following the blog Button Floozies. They've have two swaps so far, the second being the Christmas Ornament swap.
Here's the definition of a button ornament from the site: Definition of a button ornament:
A Christmas ornament made to hang on a tree or to be a small shelf or table accent, that is decorated with buttons. The buttons do not necessarily need to be the only decoration element of the ornament -- but it should be a main or special element of the decoration. Your ornament should be handmade.
I had no idea what to make, then I saw an ornament my mother had made awhile ago in the shape of a heart with buttons on it. That was my starting point. I decided to do a round ornament instead, I first wanted it to look like a wreath, but after sewing buttons in a circle, it needed something else, so I added another button in the middle. Here's how they turned out:
All the buttons are vintage, except for a few on the red wreath, I didn't have quite enough red buttons. We only needed to make 3, as we were in groups of 4, but I made an extra for me, and one for my stocking swap partner (more on that later). I kept the green one for me. I have heard from one person, that they've received their ornament, and I figure others will be getting them soon.
Go here for the ornaments I received. And go here, to see what other people made and received.

I've also decided I need to join more swaps where I can sew. Between this swap, the pennant swap and the stocking swap (mentioned above), I love hand sewing, it's so peaceful to do while watching TV. After I mail and get word from my stocking swap partner, I will show that. But, I will mention, I LOVE how it turned out (so much so, that I've thought about keeping it and making another one for her. But, I won't).

Maybe I just need to sit down and sew more for fun.

Pretty Pennants

Apparently I don't have just one post on how I did these, so here it is. I signed up to do a Pretty Pennants swap for my The Sum of All ATCs Yahoo group. We had a pattern to follow, and we had free range otherwise to make them however we wanted with some type of hanger. I originally planned to make mine out of vintage hankies, but since the pattern was from an 8.5"x11" sheet of paper they were too small.
So, I decided to use a vintage scarf I had. I cut out 3 pennants and glued them to some quilt batting.

My original thought was to sew on the vintage buttons at the top, one of these has 4 hole buttons. Then I added the crocheted circly piece and the green button.

I was going to sew ric rac to the edges, but couldn't find any vintage pieces for a price I was willing to pay. The trim I ended up using I got at a garage sale. I had the hardest time figuring out how to finish them.

I finally just decided to sew around the edges. I decided to add ribbon to the corners for the hanger. The ribbon also just happened to match pretty well in color.

This is my back, this one's a little messier than the ones I mailed out, because I figured out the ribbon thing after sewing the back on. The ones that I mailed out have the ribbon in between the felt and the front. I also added a little tag on the back with my information on it.

These turned out to be made with mostly vintage items. Everything on the front: the scarf, circly thing, buttons, and trim all came from garage sales. The ribbon I got in a swap. I used new quilt batting, felt and thread.

I've been meaning to do some kind of sewing with my vintage stuff, and this is a great start. I have more vintage pieces I hope to sew with in the future.

Pretty Pennants

Remember this post? I made these great vintage pennants for a Pretty Pennants swap for a Yahoo group. Here's mine again,
And here are the two I received:

This one's from Barbara DeLisle's, I love the stitching on this one. Such a beautiful ues of the little touches of color and beads.

This one's by Iris B (no blog). I love the way she embellished the paper with glitter and gemstones.

Merry Moos

I signed up for a swap called Merry Moos on TheSumOfAllATCs Yahoo group. A Moo is a card that 1"x3". These were supposed to be Christmas themed and have a way to be hung.
Since I collect snowmen, when I think about Christmas, snowmen are the first thing to come to mind (I hope no one in the swap minds). I took some holiday paper, cut it to size, and glued it to cardstock with the patterned paper on the outside for a thicker card. I added these little plastic icicles to the bottom. I stamped a snowman on some snowflake paper. I cut the poky pieces of the backs of some star brads and glued them on the top. There is a white eyelet with some white raffia for the hanging portion. The last Moo with the diamond dangles is mine because I ran out of the icicles by the time I got to mine. You can also see I ran out of the raffia and had to use some silver cording.

For the backs I just typed up the name of the swap, the hostess, my name and my email. Then I printed it out and glued it to the back.

I kept putting these off, because I kept thinking 'They're not due until November, I have plenty of time'. Then today I got an email reminding me of when they are due, and realized It's November. I decided I needed to get them done.

What are you all working on?