happy pear hand-sewn felt ornaments

Here’s a simple hand-sewn felt ornament kids can make — I’m calling it a happy pear. Cute, right?

Sewing with felt is a fantastic craft for all ages 5 and up. It helps develop fine motor skills, teaches a traditional skill, and the finished ornaments are a beautiful keepsake to decorate your tree year after year. If the stitches are a bit messy or the face a little wonky it just adds to the charm.

This easy sewing craft was first published in 2016 and has been updated and reshared for today’s audience.

You might also like these 12 Christmas paper crafts

“On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me a partridge in a pear tree.”

… and here is a pear from the tree! This is a quick and easy sewing project that I have put together for Sew A Softie for Christmas, which is a blog hop organised by Trixi of Sew a Softie blog. 

This pear adds a cheerful splash of fruity colour to our tree.

There is a free printable pdf pattern I’ve created digitally, even though in the tutorial I’ve used a hand-sketched pattern. You could sketch your own pattern too if you prefer.

How to make a happy pear felt ornament

You will need:

• soft felt in pale green with scraps in pink, green, brown and red for the extra details (leaf, stalk and face)
• embroidery thread
• needle and pins
• stuffing
• The happy pear template

How to:

1. Attach your pattern to two pieces of felt with pins and cut out your pear shape.
2. Cut out the extra shapes you will need: a leaf, a stalk, a mouth and some pink spots for cheeks
3. Sew on your facial details (or you could alternatively glue them on using fabric glue). The eyes are embroidered on with black thread.
4. Sew on the stalk and leaf, adding a line of running stitch down the centre of the leaf.
5. Sew the two pear shapes together using blanket stitch until you have a small gap left for the stuffing.
6. Stuff through the gap and sew the gap together.
7. Sew a cord onto the back and tie together so you can now hang your ornament.

All done!

I told you it was easy! Don’t forget to visit the blog hop for lots more hand-sewn Christmas softie cuteness.

You might also like:

• We love how these Rainbow Fairy themed wooden spoon ornaments turned out!
• Check out our Christmas paper ornament collection — 12 beautiful decorations you can make from construction paper
• There is also a template to create some classic mini paper lantern ornaments
• For younger kids these cardboard shape ornaments are easy and fun to make – also includes free template
• You can’t go past glitter-encrusted nature ornaments for young and old to make!