We documented the process, so here it is. You’ll see both of the prototype ornaments we made in the steps. Tutorial below pictures.

(PS: We have some great guest blogger how-to’s coming over the next few days!!)

1. Felt and old wool sweater (shrink it!)., 2. Cut our your ornament shapes, 3. Cut a ‘window’ in one of your two halves, 4. Materials: sweater material, old plastic packaging, embroidery thread, ribbon or thread for hanging, 5. Cut a square out of your packagin slightly larger than the window., 6. sew the window on to your sweater, 7. Window sewn in, 8. Stitch the two pieces together,, 9. Leave a space large enough to stuff/insert picture., 10. Stich around the window to cover your thread, 11. Ready to stuff: insert picture, and stuff, and then stitch closed, 12. Hang on tree!

Materials:
Old wool sweaters, felted. I washed these in the washing machine with hot water and they shrunk nicely. Just google for felting sweaters if you need more info.
Flexible clear plastic – repurpose packaging from kids toys or similar. Mine was a bag from a diaper bag set.
Pictures
Embroidery thread
Ribbon (for hanging or embellishing)
Stuffing (polyfil or whatever you have on hand, even extra sweater scraps)

Cut out 2 matching ornament shapes from the body of the sweater.
Cut a ‘window’ in one of your two halves slightly smaller than your picture.
Cut a square out of your plastic slightly larger than the window.
Sew the window on to your sweater – I machine stitched this, but you can save a step and just sew on by hand with embroidery thread. (If your fabric has an obvious front and back, be sure to sew the ‘window’ plastic to the back of the fabric)
Stitch the two pieces together using a blanket stitch. Sew in a loop of ribbon when you get to the top, and leave an opening at the bottom for stuffing and to insert the picture (note, you can insert the picture, tacking it in with tape or glue, prior to this step if you like)
For extra interest, I stitched around the window to cover my thread. (I didn’t do the neatest job sewing it on the machine!)
Insert your picture in through the bottom hole. (I didn’t do anything to secure it, just stuffed behind it and it seemed secure enough)
Stuff and then stitch closed. I had a little extra ribbon, so I added a tassel on the bottom when I was closing up the bottom.
If you’re really good, embroider the year on the back.
All ready to wrap for a gift or hang on the tree!

And the drawing, colored in Photoshop, just for fun:

If you want to make your own, here are some quickie directions. [I have very detailed directions, ideas and experiments in my Shrinky Dink Test Lab from earlier this year. Oh, and I did an instructable too if 6 pages of experiments are too much for you, it’s most of the basic info in one place.]

If you want the Santa template for your own use, you can download it as a pdf here! (Wanna cheat and have it colored for you? See the bottom of this post)

Here’s how I did it (and do see the pics of the process below):

I sketched out an ornament design at about 3x the size of the final ornament. Then I used black sharpie to trace over the lines for my final design (you could skip this step though). Then took my #6 plastic lid (must have that 6 in the recycle triangle impressed in it), and taped it to the drawing. I traced over the inked drawing with the black sharpie.

I then cut out the circle, and punched a hole (using a typical office hole punch) in the top for hanging.

Then I turned it over and ON THE BACK colored it with colored sharpies. (This way, you don’t have to worry about smearing the black ink). I left the things that would be white as clear. (One hack – I didn’t have a peachy sharpie for the face, so I used orange and just smeared it out while it was still wet, so it was very light.)

Then into the 225 degree toaster oven on a sheet of parchment paper. Almost immediately the circle started to shrink/warp. Give it time, and it will flatten itself back out again.

When flat and shrunk, I removed it and pressed down to make sure everything was flat.
Just add a cute ribbon, and it’s ready to go! You can optionally seal these, but it’s not really that necessary if you’re just going to hang it on a tree once a year.
Another idea I had was spray painting the back (the colored side) white, so the clear parts actually show through as white.

Pics of the process here (click through for larger)

1. Sketch, traced over with Sharpie, 2. Trace on plastic with sharpie, 3. A view of both, 4. Cut out circle, then hole punch it, 5. Turn over, and color, 6. Finished coloring, ready for baking, 7. Into 200-250 degree oven, 8. Starting to warp/shrink, 9. All Shrunk!, 10. Purdy, aint it., 11. Close up, 12. Finished, next to original template

Again, if you try this just for fun with the kids, this is all you really need, but if you want to really do something that you don’t want to accidentally mess up, you may want to read my Doodle Earrings instructable, which has alot of the ‘gotchas’ — and/or the ShrinkyDink test lab.

EDIT
Are you lazy and just want cute ornaments without all this work? Go buy Printable Shrink Plastic Sheetsfrom your local craft store, and print this (lightened) colored version out on them! (Click through to download from Flickr)

Related:
All the Shrinky Dinks Test Lab Posts
Faboo Shrinky Bracelet
Shrinky Wine glass markers

Edit: Check out this new Shrinky Santa Ornament Tutorial!

Click through to the picture for a link to the tutorial: 1. Scrap Fabric Ornament, 2. felt ornament dove, 3. Heart and Star Ornaments – free tutorial!, 4. stocking ornament tutorial 021.JPG, 5. more snow folk ornaments, 6. snowman ornament guts with instructions!, 7. hang him up, 8. Baubles, 9. Shrink Plastic

Direct links to some of the tutorials pictured above (and below)

• Gingerbread Man
• Felt Bird
• Star Ornament
• Stocking
• Bauble Ornaments
• Shrinky Ornaments
• Felted Candy Cane

More Ornament Links:

Too Cool! Hamster Ball ornament with How To.
Make your own Geeky Keyboard Xmas ornaments
Sew Scrappy Tree Ornaments
Really cute tin ornaments – tutorial too!
Resparkle your old ornaments
Several great ornament tutorials at Craftypod
Resurrection Fern’s ornaments
Ribbon Pinecone Ornament
Fabulous scrabble tile ornament
Neat chandelier ornament (via)
Fun handpainted ornaments for sale
Etch a Sketch Ornament (via Craft)
Wooden Snowflake Ornament
Make a reindeer with a blinking nose – for the true eletronics geeks.
Turduckin Ornament
Old diskette Ornaments
Bead ornaments, paper ornaments, and many more eco-friendly projects at Little Elephants

One Pretty Thing has even more cool ideas in their Ornament Roundup.

Here are some more! 1. How to Make felted candy canes, 2. Heart Ornament How-to, 3. How to make a folded paper star ornament

Final thoughts:
Christmas cookie tree Instructable

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