Love Birds

Bad news: the US is under ice and snow. Good news: I had a SNOW DAY! 

That means....new blog post!

Just some Love Birds. Gettin' ready for the Love holiday coming up...

I love those love birds. They are the first of a few V-Day projects I have in my head. I was dying to make some decorations for this fun holiday, but, of course my initial problem was that the traditional colors of V-Day are red and pink. 

Love me some red, but I am not a fan of pink.

 I feel like I'm pretty girly, but I hate pink. Especially bubble gum pink. Bleh. Magenta's good and I love a great coral-pink, but other wise, meh. And while I like bright hot red, deep reds are more my kind of thing. (This is evident by all the deep reds in my apartment. I can't help it. I am drawn to it. And golds. And browns and oranges these days...Matt makes fun of me because we only have "harvest colors" in our apartment. Annnnd my favorite season is fall- for many reasons, but a lot because I'm surrounded by my favorite colors. As opposed to when the Easter season rolls around and there are pastel colors everywhere, I kind of want to vomit. :)

 SO this girl won't be making pink and red decorations for Valentine's Day- at least that's how I feel today anyway. So what colors do I nearly always fall back on? Deep red and gold :) I've had my eye on this red wool felt (with little black specks in it that are hard to see in the pic, but are super cool) and that loud gold-ish wool felt at Joann's for awhile. I got some to make a different project and ended up using it for this as well.

Materials needed: felt (less than 1/4 yd for each color. I like to have extra for possible mishaps), embroidery floss and needles, scissors, 5x7 frame, and a hot glue gun (not pictured).

I kinda forgot to take enough pictures for a full blown tutorial, but I'll tell ya how I did it with a couple pics thrown in. To make all the hearts I used the ole' fold a square in half and cut out half a heart method. 

I free-handed the bird onto card stock and then cut it out to make a pattern. 

If you don't want to make your own, download my Love Birds Template, cut out patterns, trace onto fabric, and cut. 

Pin birdie pattern to felt and cut around. Do the same for all the hearts (if you use my template) or you could just do the elementary school method mentioned above right on the fabric. Make two wide hearts for wings (upside down) and then 3 hearts of different sizes to make the layered heart. I put just a few dots of hot glue on the layered heart to hold it together. I did the same with the birdie wings. Cut tiny half circles for the birdie eyes. Cut a 5x7 sized piece of felt and hot glue it to the cardboard that comes in your picture frame. 

THEN, I did something I've never done before....embroider! I used this great tutorial at the Purl Bee on how to do a couple basic embroidery stitches, and I'm so glad I did! The birds turned out precious, I think, and embroidery is super fun and easy! You should try it! I used the blanket stitch around the edge of the birds and a backstitch on the wings and layered heart. so fun. Once your birds and heart are all done, put a few dots of hot glue on them and carefully position them on your 5x7 felt. Stick your finished piece in the frame and voila!

I loved it, but something was missing...

There. That's better. 

My love birds look great with my already red and gold decor :) Valentine's Shmalentine's. I may leave it up all year.

I didn't do a tutorial on the flowers. When making they yellow flower, I tried to remember the felt flowers from this rose barrette tutorial on the Purl Bee, but didn't quite get all the steps right and I used hot glue. I liked how mine turned out okay though. I like the pointed petals better on this flower anyway. For the other two flowers I used the rolled fabric rosette method that is on blogs everywhere. Here's a good tutorial on Little Birdie Secrets. I always use hot glue though.

I actually got the inspiration for my love birds above after making these love birds first:

My friend Dara, from Teach.Craft.Love, picked up this awesome birdie fabric for me at Hobby Lobby, saying she thought I just needed it. :) Not sure what I'll use the rest for yet, but the first thing that came to mind was applique. Valentine's Applique! 

The materials you'll need are pictured above: (pretty much same as before) fabric, scissors, 5x7 frame, birds from fabric :), Wonder Under (available at almost any craft store), and an iron (not pictured). 

These love birds are quite a bit easier since there is no embroidery involved. The birdies are already super cute. 

Cut out two birds out that face each other. I tried to find two that had good coordinating colors. 

I used wonder under (while following the directions on the package) and my iron to adhere the birdies to the fabric. Then I did it again, alternating fabrics. I made the heart and adhered it the same way. Once they were done, I adhered them to my 5x7 piece of fabric. (no pic, sorry) I thought about using a zig zag stitch or maybe just a straight stitch around the edge of the birds and heart, but was afraid I would mess it up. :)

Now I just need to find a Valentine to send these love birds to...hmmm.

Happy first day of February! We're one month closer to Spring! Kinda hard to believe when we've got almost an inch of ice covering everything outside right now. Whew.

This just in: Snow Day Number 2 tomorrow!

Looks like more crafting is on my schedule. Yessss. Everyone be safe out there.

Linking to these great parties!

Woo Hoo! My lovie birdies got featured!

And on AllFreeHolidayCrafts.com!!