Poshta Presents - Festive Reindeer Pillow!

Hello friends!  We hope you are having a great week! We are back today with another installment of Poshta Presents, and our July guest, Megan Swindell, has more than one special project for you!  Read on the see all of the cuteness!  Take it away, Megan!

This week, I’m taking on a more traditional Christmas project: a festive lumbar pillow for my guest bedroom featuring Santa’s nine reindeer.

While brainstorming project ideas, I revisited Lizzie’s original blog posts and was inspired by her reindeer garland idea made with the Pencil Pine Characters die. When I found this extra-long white gauze pillow at Target, I knew it would be perfect for my spin.

When making several of the same base, I like to work assembly-line style with my Sizzix machine. For this pillow, I cut nine large Pencil Pine shapes in Indigo, nine medium Pencil Pine shapes in Gingersnap, 16 Morel antlers, two Glitter antlers, eight Inkwell noses, and one Crabapple nose. Then I re-ran the Antlers detail die on the nine Indigo bases and the Reindeer Face die on the nine Gingersnap bases.

After poking out all the holes, I moved on to the stitching. I worked on one reindeer at a time, stitching the antlers to the Indigo base, the eyes and nose to the Gingersnap base, and then attaching the Gingersnap face to the Indigo base along the interior line only. I left the outside edge of each Pencil Pine shape unstitched.

Next, I attached each reindeer to the pillow with a bit of tacky glue, securing the bases while avoiding the stitching holes. Then I stitched each reindeer to the pillow using coordinating thread. I found it worked best to stitch the Indigo layer first, then add a little more tacky glue between the Gingersnap and Indigo layers to keep them aligned before stitching down the faces.

To add a cute Christmas saying, I used the Banner Builder Alphabet set and Crabapple felt to spell “up on the rooftop.” I love the pop of white thread (3865) for stitching the letters.
I’m so happy with how it turned out and can’t wait to put it back on the bed the day after Thanksgiving!

And, as promised, here’s another Pencil Pine Penguin bonus project: my Poppin’ Pastel Penguin Pal ornaments! While browsing Lizzie’s wool felt balls, I loved the combination of Lollipop, Pixie, and Wintergreen. To give those pastels a little more punch, I paired them with Rendezvous, Orchid, and Spearmint. I used Tundra for the bases, Granite for the faces, 4mm black brads for the eyes, and Inkwell for the beaks. For a fun detail, I used different stitches on each hat band – cross stitch for Lollipop, running stitch for the Wintergreen, and chain stitch for the Pixie. For the final pop of color, I added a small heart from the Snowy Friends kit, matching the brims of each hat.