button it up!

Thank you to everyone who came to the button hairclip demo at Crafty Wonderland! It was a wild success — I brought zillions of buttons and 288 (!) blank hairclips with me, and left with about a quarter of the buttons and about a dozen clips. It was super fun and I got some fantastic handmade things at the sale, too.

Speaking of free button projects, I wanted to share one I came up with last Christmas — I miniature-ized the Big-Eyed Owl into a teeny little ornament to decorate with — the Tiny-Eyed Owl! Here are the ones I made for an ornament swap with some crafty friends:

They’re very simple to make — here’s how to get started whipping up your own Tiny-Eyed Owl ornament!

You’ll need remnants of felt in two colors, a tiny triangle of brown felt (or you can embroider a tiny beak), two 1/2-inch covered buttons in a contrast fabric, a six-inch piece of ribbon, a puff of batting, scissors, sewing machine or needle and thread, and a small bead or button.

1. Using the instructions for the Big-Eyed Owl project on page 163 of Button It Up and the owl template here, adapt the same general owl shape into a tiny, 3-inch tall version. I cut mine out of newspaper. Pin the mini-pattern to two layers of felt in color #1 and cut it out.

2. Pin your two pieces of felt together. Double the ribbon into a loop and tuck the raw edges into the top of the owl’s head (it will become the ornament hanger, as you can see in the photos). Hand- or machine-stitch most of the way around the perimeter of the owl, catching the ribbon ends inside the seam at the top and leaving a small opening at the bottom for stuffing.

3. Tuck the batting inside the owl so it’s nice and plump and pin and stitch the opening closed. Sew the covered-button eyes on and glue or embroider the beak below them.

4. Now cut a strip of felt in color #2 (mine was 7 inches long and about 1/2 inch wide) and fringe the edges to make a little scarf — you can see the fringe in the photos. Wrap it around the owl, securing it in the back with a few little hand-stitches, and cross it in the front as shown. Secure it with a little button or bead — I used alphabet beads with each friend’s initial.

5. Give it to a friend (it would also look very cute adorning a wrapped gift or ribbon-ed bag) or hang it on the tree!

If you happen to make any Tiny-Eyed Owl ornaments of your own, I would love to see them — please add photos to the Button It Up flickr pool.

I have a few other quick and easy holiday craft project ideas up today, too, if you’d like to check those out:

Carnelian and Black Agate Earrings over at Bead Simple,

and Tiny Ribboned Gift Bags to put them in, over at West Coast Crafty.

Hope you enjoy them and that you have wonderful holidays! Thank you for the very kind support for my little button book in 2009 and I will see you in the new year with more buttons and projects!