Yesterday I shared my Birds on Branches Christmas Ornament Patterns with Blue Jay, Cardinal, Chickadee, Titmouse, Goldfinch, and Nuthatch patterns. Today I experimented with making the ornaments out of paper.

I started by tracking the circle on a piece of heavy paper. I used a torn paper collage for the background (with pages pulled from old magazines) and glued the strips with PVA glue.

I positioned another circle to trace the shape and cut out the circle.

I used fine-tipped markers to free-draw the branches, needles, and berries.

I cut out the bird parts from magazines and glued them on step by step with PVA glue. I used glass seed beads for the eyes. Sometimes I drew the bird’s detail – like the Chickadee – and other times sewed the designs using one strand of embroidery floss.

Rather than knot the end of the thread, I taped it down for a smooth finish.

I used floss for the snowflakes and found it wise to pre-punch the path for the needle from the front of the design. When working with felt, it’s easy to bring your needle up from the back of the design and then reposition it if necessary. You can’t do that with paper without ending up with errant holes. I cut a back circle out of card stock and attached it to the front with double-stick tape. Then I punched holes for the blanket stitch that would finish it off.

I like the way the blanket stitch frames the ornament.

If I go into production mode with these, I’ll use the Cricut machine to get nice even circles of paper. And be sure to “dry fit” your pieces before gluing, or you’ll end up with a Titmouse with an eclipsed tail like I did!

While I initially designed these for Christmas ornaments, I think I’ll make more of these for Christmas gift tags this year. I’ve thought about modifying the design into a rectangle – skip the bead – and laminating them for a bookmark or turning them into a greeting card. There are lots of possibilities!

Click here to download the Birds on Branches patterns.