Jenny B Harris + Papertrey Dies = Fun

December is holiday month, and that means playing elf and making all sorts of not terribly useful, but very fun items........like elf shoes. The elf shoes above were a match made in heaven: Jenny B Harris' pattern for elf clogs, and Papertrey's wonderful dies for holly and hearts.
 
Jenny's elf shoe pattern is as perfectly executed as it is cute. If you cut out the felt carefully, all goes together without a hitch. I used a buttonhole or blanket stitch (with real vintage cobbler's cotton thread) which worked out fine, but was a bit slower than Jenny's excellent suggestion of soft Pearl Cotton combined with whip stitch. The toe balls on hers are too cute, but they seemed over the top after the hearts and holly went on.

To be sure these would be my elf's favorite Christmas clogs, I used the smallest heart die from Papertrey's  Heart Prints Collection, and the middle sized holly sprig from the Holly Jolly Die Collection. (One of the things I love about Papertrey's dies is the fact that they can be really small.  I love creating tiny items, and Papertrey is the only die company, I've run across, that have truly small dies. Yeah!) I chose to needle felt these small felt parts to the unassembled, but cut out, shoe pieces. A few beads and a couple of sequins sewn on, and the shoes were ready to stitch together. As you can see, the shoes are a bit big for my elf, so maybe I'll hang them on the tree or leave them is some mischievous location.