Sheep Christmas Ornament Project

My Sister has been raising sheep for about 7 years now. I get a kick out of visiting and helping her take care of them. I never knew sheep wag their tails when you pet them. Recently I’ve been cutting a lot of sheepskin at work, Soft Star Shoes http://www.softstarshoes.com/, and I thought it would be really fun to make some ornaments for my sister out of scraps. They’re wonderful about letting us use leftovers of leather and other materials. I’ve been enjoying the different textures of wool, the color, and the variation in the hides themselves.

I found three different colors and textures to work with and, of course, there had to be a black one! These are oval about 21/2 wide by 11/2 tall. I then found a photo of a sheep online and uploaded it to my app, Graphic, and created a pattern.

I found some fun black foam glitter paper at Michaels, https://www.michaels.com/creatology-foam-glitter-sheet/10148584.html. It has a bit of thickness to it and has adhesive backing that allowed me to sandwich the ornament string between and then glue the hide on the outside. Quick and fun project!

I printed out my patterns. I then placed the glitter sheet faces together and taped them so the foam wouldn’t shift while I was cutting it. The foam isn’t easily cut with scissors and won’t give much detail. You might be able to use an exacto blade to get more detail, but, I felt that the detail wasn’t necessary for these small ornaments. I did find that it helped to keep taping as I cut to make sure that the cuts remained inline. After cutting them out, I removed the backing and lay in the thread. Then I put a thin coat of Weldbond on the sheep and the leather and pressed it together and repeated the same process on the other side of the sheep.