A fun felt and glue project …

Many  years ago my mother in law made us some Santa napkins. Hers were rolled hem red sheeting and Santa was sewn from fun fur with felt and google eyes. We use them every year and I wanted to spread with joy without making napkins, so a version using paper serviettes and felt was born.

her version has a triangular beard and straight top head but I preferred a combination of outlines I found on pinterest so drew this stencil with a 7 inch band. Felt is forgiving so have a go and scribble out your own version, but keep it simple enough to cut out cleanly.

To make…

trace your stencil onto white felt (thicker is better if you can find a roll of quality felt), I reversed my stencil to get some variation in beard direction

cut it out inside your trace lines so they don’t show on the finished version

cut a piece of flesh tone felt and hot glue it behind the face gap – I suggest you hold the felt with tweezers to avoid glue burns and help be precise-ish, tweezers also pull off any glue strands

hot glue on a red mini Pom Pom for the nose and googly eyes in a characterful position, tweezers again most useful

I added pinking shear cut felt strips as a moustache and tiny pieces for eyebrows then glued the band into a loop with about a one inch overlap

some people embroider on names or add other embellishments… I like this clean and simple version

If gifting a set of these include spare red serviettes to encourage reuse.