DIY Christmas Decorations: Fabric Hearts

This Christmas I am on a mission; I must hand-make every decoration we hang in our house. Why? You may ask; because I am sick of trying to create a chic yet cosy home out of my mum's mismatched, tacky decorations. This year I am taking matters in to my own hands, and I will succeed. 

For the past week I've been running round like a headless chicken trying to purchase everything necessary to hand-make an entire Christmas. As I sat down to start my first set of decorations, I realised this was the perfect opportunity to start a little series on my blog. Therefore, every week leading up to Christmas I will post one tutorial... This may be more for my own entertainment than for yours! 

I decided to start with these fabric hearts, as you can make them entirely out of things from around the house if you wish. These are really great because if you choose not to use Christmas fabrics then they can be hung up in your bedroom all year round! 

Enjoy!

You will need: 

An assortment of fabrics, some of these are scraps I found around the house and some were purchased here // Stuffing, I'm using pillow stuffing but you could use cotton wool or even newspaper! // Ribbon // Things to decorate with; buttons, beads etc // Scissors // Pins // Needle and thread // Marker pen.

Draw out a heart on to the fabric; I did this by hand but you may want to print of a template to draw around.

Cut it out.

Pin it to a piece of matching fabric so that you can cut out an identical heart.

Sew your decorations on to one of the hearts.

Cut off about 4" of ribbon and fold it in half. Sew it to the reverse side of the heart that you decorated. Then pin the two hearts together, with the reverse sides facing outwards.

Sew around the edge of the heart, stopping about an inch before the ribbon on each side. It's best if you do fairly small stitches as when you turn it inside out this creates a smoother shape.

Turn inside out.

Stuff to your heart's content!

Pin and sew up the gap left next to the ribbon.

I finished this one off with an overcast stitch, as I think it gave it quite a cutesy home-made feel. See below for other ideas as to how to decorate them!

Which one is your favourite? Will you be trying this DIY out?
KJ xo