Stars and Stripes Ornament

American Independence Day is coming up on July 4th. I found this cute fabric with pseudo American flags on it and decided I should celebrate my country’s birthday with an ornament.

Since this was the first time I’ve ever used the Kimekomi technique to make an ornament I was nervous. I wondered how I was going to draw my lines straight and how I was going to get them evenly spaced. Honestly, I really hate it when my sections are not uniform in size. It’s always been a struggle to keep everything symmetrical. Using the measuring tape and a little math was so simple I can’t believe I’ve never drawn lines on the foam balls like this before.

I suggest when cutting into the foam, that you use the sharpest knife you have. The sharper the knife the easier it is to cut. Otherwise, you might accidentally remove small chunks as you cut. Also don’t cut too deep or you run the risk of cutting the ball in half. As always, use caution when using sharp tools. You don’t want to bleed all over your ornament.

To stuff the fabric into the cuts I used a paper piercer I use for scrapbooking. This tool worked quite well. Anything similar should work fine.

Materials Used:

• one 70mm smooth foam ball
• denim fabric
• American flag fabric
• 1/2 inch gold sequin pins*
• 3/4 inch gold sequin pins*
• 15/0 clear iridescent seed beads*
• red and blue 5mm sequins
• gold 9mm wide ribbon
• two red pearl topped corsage pins
• two large 1 cm pearl beads
• four gold 1.5 cm star sequins*
• four blue 1.5 cm star sequin*

*purchased at Cartwright’s

Directions:

1. Measure your foam ball and draw your fabric pattern based on the size of your ball. Then draw lines on your ball dissecting it into 4 sections. See Craftster’s video on the newbies page for more details on how to do this.
2. Using your pattern, draw and cut out 4 panels of fabric. Two denim panels and two of the other material.
3. Cut into the foam ball along the lines drawn with a sharp knife. (Do not cut into the horizontal mold line for this ornament. The mold line was only traced for measuring reference.)
4. Alternating fabric panels, stuff the edges of the fabric panels into the cut foam as shown in the video.
5. Cover seams with gold ribbon.
6. To make top bow. First thread a large pearl bead on one of the corsage pins. Then add the hanging ribbon, and then make the bow. Add glue and pin to top.
7. Trace the gold ribbon with a row of sequins. Red on the denim panels and blue on the flag material panels.
8. Cut out one flag from the flag pattern fabric and pin it to the middle of the denim fabric with red sequins. Add star sequins above and below the flag embellishment. Repeat on other panel.
9. Add bottom cap by threading one large pearl bead and one blue star sequin onto the corsage pin. Add glue and pin to bottom where ribbons intersect.