Sew Your Own Christmas Bell Ornament

How To Sew Your Own Christmas Bell Ornament using a vintage sewing pattern.

Welcome to the 2017 Ornament Exchange & Blog Hop! This year, there are 47 amazing bloggers participating in the exchange. The rules of the challenge were simple: be partnered with a fellow blogger, create a handmade ornament for $15 or under, create a tutorial, and ship the ornament off to a new home!

This is the third year of the Ornament Exchange which is one of the highlights of the holiday blogging season for me! You can see my ornaments from the first two years at the very bottom of this post; DIY Chilly The Snowman and Mason Jar Lid Santa.

My exchange partner this year is busy Mom blogger, Stephanie from swoodsonsays.com. Stephanie’s blog blurb includes the line ‘sewing, crafts, using up scraps…’ She is a girl after my own heart! 

Stephanie’s preferred ornament style includes jewel tones, white and silver. Doesn’t that sound simply gorgeous for Christmas tree decor!

Meet the 2017 Ornament Exchange Hosts

Erlene ⋅ My Pinterventures Kim · Made In A Day Amanda ·Domestically Creative

Shirley · Intelligent Domesticatons Michelle · Our Crafty Mom

Beverly · Across the Blvd. Christene · Key to Inspiration Pili ⋅ My Sweet Things

Nicki · Sweet Parrish Place Megan · C’mon Get Crafty

Hilary · Raising Fairies and Knights Emily · Two Purple Couches

Tina · One Crafty Mess Marie · The Inspiration Vault Debra · Shoppe No. 5

Trisha · Rosewood and Grace Jeanie · Create and Babble Katrin ⋅ Kreativ K

Terri · Christmas Tree Lane Maureen · Red Cottage Chronicles

Toni ⋅ Small Home Soul Ula ⋅ Lulu & Celeste Sue ⋅ A Purdy Little House

Pamela · Home On The Corner Lorelai ⋅ Life with Lorelai Cindy ⋅ DIY Beautify

Debbie ⋅ Tweak and Style Stephanie ⋅ Swoodson Says Chelc ⋅ Inside the Fox Den

Susan ⋅ Super Mom – No Cape! Molly ⋅ Just a Little Creativity

Roseann ⋅ This Autoimmune Life Angela ⋅ Simply Beautiful by Angela

Vicki and Jenn ⋅ 2 Bees in a Pod Joanne ⋅ Our Unschooling Journey

Tylynn ⋅ Bitterroot DIY Sam ⋅ Raggedity Bits Mary ⋅ The Boondocks Blog

Cyn ⋅ Creative Cynchronicity Dione ⋅ Clever Chameleon Quilting

Erica ⋅ Erica Ever After Chelsea ⋅ Love Paper Crafts Evija ⋅ From Evija with Love

Samantha ⋅ Little Bits of Home Hope ⋅ Hopes Crafty Niche Anne ⋅ Orange Bettie  –Pam · P.S. I Love You Crafts

Supplies for How To Sew Your Own Christmas Bell Ornament

• 1/4 yard fabric
• Matching thread
• Vintage McCall’s pattern 7225 
• Shiny silver ribbon (Hobby Lobby)
• Matching frilly ribbon for bottom of bell (Hot Pink from Hobby Lobby)
• Blingy Button (Sewology from Hobby Lobby)
• Clear stick on jewels
• Pillow stuffing
• E6000 glue

I love vintage patterns and was thrilled to find this bell pattern in my stash! It is McCalls 7225 which originally cost only $2.50! Patterns are much more expensive now! 

First, I doubled my fabric and cut out the bell after pinning it down.

This is a pattern I can actually follow! You can read about my learning to sew struggles in this post about how it took me a year to make an apron for my daughter.

A fun trip to Hobby Lobby netted all of the bells and whistles! Sorry, I had to make a bell joke!

You could easily select a Christmas fabric for your bell but I wanted to use this pink as my jewel tone along with some pretty ribbon and the blingy button! The blingy button I selected is just gorgeous! I wanted to add it to both sides as the clapper but it was too heavy so I added it to the top of the bell ornament. You have to have something to catch the flicker of the lights on the tree and the button along with the silver ribbon will serve well in that regard.

I placed both pieces side by side for matching the alignment of the ribbon. To double check, I sat one piece on top of the other. Once I was satisfied the ribbon matched on both pieces, I glued it down using a dab of E6000.

This is the tricky part!

Ribbon Edge

I hand stitched the hot pink ribbon first because this is such a tiny space to work with. The hand stitching kept it in place for sewing on the machine.

Notice that you have to sew the ribbon onto the right side of the fabric with the bottom edge of the ribbon facing up. Once you sew the two sides of the ornament together and turn it out, the ribbon and the clapper will be on the outside bottom. 

Bell Clapper

Cut a small piece of the silver ribbon to use for the bell clapper. Fold in half and stitch into place on the right side of fabric facing inward on top of the ribbon.

Place right sides together and pin the edges to sew the bell together on the machine.

If you look close, you can see a couple of my hand stitches. The ribbon is too small for catching with pins for the sewing process therefore the hand stitching worked like a charm on the bottom edge. 

Be sure to leave a top edge open for adding the hanger and the stuffing as shown in the photo below.

After sewing the two sides together on the machine, turn the bell out. Now your pretty ribbon edge and bell clapper will be visible.

Now add the amount of pillow stuffing which will achieve the fullness of your liking. It doesn’t take much but you would be surprised how much you can get in there!

Next cut a piece of the pretty silver ribbon to make the ornament hanger. Fold in half and stitch into place as you close the top opening.

I hand stitched the closure in this area after stuffing the ornament. You can begin hand stitching from the inside out to sort of hide the sewing.

Finally I glued a couple of shiny jewels onto the bottom of the clapper where I had originally hoped the buttons would go. The buttons were far too heavy and didn’t hang properly. Thank goodness I had these pretty little jewels I keep finding uses for in my craft room!

The finishing touch was to sew on the blingy button I found at Hobby Lobby. It is always nice for ornaments to have something shiny about them to shimmer in the lights of the Christmas tree.

Time to package up this year’s ornament for my exchange partner, Stephanie. I try to always include a Christmas card when I ship off the ornament. Since we do this by mid November, I’m certain it’s the first card of the season!

Please be sure to browse all of the DIY Ornament ideas below from so many talented ladies!

FIND ALL 47 HANDMADE ORNAMENT TUTORIALS BELOW AND SHARE YOURS TOO! Use Hashtag #2017OrnamentExchange so we can see your creations on social media.

Even More DIY Christmas Ornaments