No-Sew Turkey Applique – Occasionally Crafty

Hi, I’m Valerie!  My sister Laura and I blog over at Occasionally Crafty.  I’m a piano- teaching, book-loving, craft-when-I-can mother of three kids, ages 7,5, and 3.  On our blog, you can find us doing a little bit of everything, including sewing, home and seasonal decor, crafts for kids, recipes, and more.

I’m THRILLED to be here today.  I’ve been a Sugar Bee reader for several years now and it’s really exciting to be part of this guest series. I knew when I saw the call for posters that I wanted to do a Thanksgiving project.  Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, but Halloween and Christmas get all the craft love, you know?  There’s so much good food, family time, and counting your blessings that make me want to see Thanksgiving get a little bit of the spotlight. Usually, we stay home for Thanksgiving.  My husband and I have families that are spread out all over the country, and getting together means paying for 5 plane tickets or making a 24 hour drive.  Not counting stops.  Um- no thanks.  Well, this year my mom and my siblings are all in the Western United States, so we decided we HAVE to get together.  My 7 year old daughter will be the only girl cousin there, so I decided to make her something special to wear for Thanksgiving.  Today I’m sharing with you this cute shirt with an easy embellishment:

Here’s what you need: A shirt (great way to re-use a shirt with a stain, or buy one on clearance) Felt or fabric (I used orange, white, and brown felt) Heat n Bond Wired Ribbon (mine was sheer 1 1/2 inch width ribbon) Glue gun/sticks Scissors, pencil Iron/Ironing Pad Skill level:  Easy Time:  An hour or less 1.  Design your shape.  I used my Silhouette software and took elements from two different shapes to create my turkey.  The “feathers” came from a scalloped circle that I cut, and the turkey came from one of the Turkey shapes.  (If you’d like the file, I’d be happy to send it to you.  Just drop me an email!)

2.  Supposedly you can use the Silhouette to cut felt.  I know you can use it to cut fabric by applying Heat n Bond first, then running it through the machine.  I tried this with my felt, but it hardly cut at all. I have had many problems with my blade, though, so feel free to give it a try.  In the end, I just cut my shapes in paper, ironed the Heat n Bond onto my felt (following the directions on the wrapper), then traced the shapes onto the paper liner. 3. If you’re doing that, once you have your shapes cut out, remove the paper liner from the Heat n Bond.  You’re ready to iron your fabric onto your shirt.  Repeat this for each piece of the turkey. (If you’re going to make a turkey face, do it now.  I wasn’t going to, then changed my mind and added one later.  It was a little harder that way).  Details below.

4.    Isn’t this a cute shirt?  I love the lace detail.  Normally I would use a plain white tee but this was on clearance for $4.  I just used a seam ripper to remove the pocket.

Now fuse the orange feather piece onto the shirt, then fuse the white feather piece onto the orange feathers

5.  Take your ribbon and roll the edge over twice.  Put a dot of glue on the top and bottom to hold it in place so you have  clean edge to start with.  You could also just melt the edges with a lighter or small flame.

Now make a ruffle by simply folding your ribbon every inch or so and adding a tiny dot of hot glue to hold it in place.

6.  Once you have your ribbon the way you like it, glue the ends down, then hot glue your brown turkey body piece over the ribbon, making sure to cover up any empty space below.  I only glued from about halfway down the body to leave the top part free.

7.  I wasn’t going to use a face, but I didn’t like how it looked.  So, I added a piece of fabric for the beak, using the same Heat n Bond method described above.  For the eyes, I simply used a fine-tip Sharpie Marker to draw two little dots.

It’s little beady eyes follow me everywhere.  I hate that. Here’s the finished shirt–

And here it is on my daughter.  I paired it with a matching skirt that I whipped up.  Won’t she look extra cute for Thanksgiving?

A note– If you want to sew the feather pieces on, it will add a little stability to it.  You certainly can’t put it in the wash like this, but hey.  She’ll probably only wear it on Thanksgiving anyway.  😉 Thanks again to Mandy for the opportunity to post today.  I’d love to see you over at Occasionally Crafty, where you’ll find home decor projects like this Sheet Music Wreath, Thrift Store and Dollar Store Makeovers like this Thrifted Frame Earring Holder,

Have a great day!