D-I-Y Giraffe Nursery Art Christening gift

Hi everyone I have been making a gift for a friend's baby and I thought it would make an excellent tutorial to share with you all so here goes my first craft tutorial :)

Tools Needed...

They are not necessary, but some items will make the job a little easier.

• Template you can use mine or draw your own
• 3 different contrasting Fabric's (I used old clothes I like to upcycle)
• Dressmaking scissors
• Kitchen scissors (So not to blunt the other when cutting paper)
• pins or safety pins
• Iron
• Fusible Web Applique paper
• Needle and embroidery thread in you choice of colour 
• Box frame (I used a 10 x 10 inch box frame)
• Pen/pencil
• Printer
• Sewing Machine & Thread

Step by step Instructions

• First off print out my template or draw your own (Sorry I did not photograph this stage as I had not decided to do the tutorial :( yet)
• Trace the design onto the fusible web (Remember if you are drawing your own it will be revered in my template the giraffe is already reversed for you)
• now cut around the design leaving a small border (put the leaf to the side we will use that later)
• Select the fabric for the giraffe's body and lay the fusible paper on the back you will now need to iron it for a few seconds and the paper will bond.
• Now cut neatly around the design
• Next choose your backing fabric cut this 1 inch all around bigger than the size of your frame.
• Peel of the backing paper on the giraffe and position on the backing fabric and iron into place
• Next we need to embroider the words write the word onto the leaf that you have printed or drawn.

• Now pin this onto your leaf fabric
• Take the embroidery thread (I used 3 threads from the 6 but use as many as you like)
• Tie and knot on the end and stitch over the words into the fabric perforating the paper as you go. I used backstitch and kept my stitches about 1mm long but again you can use whatever stitch you like.

• When you have stitched over all the words cut away any excess paper with the kitchen scissors.   

• Now cut a piece of the fusible interface bigger than the leaf and iron onto the back now cut out the leaf

• Carefully peel away the paper (you can moisten if its hard to remove)

• Remove leaf backing paper and iron into position. 
• You can leave the design as it is now and frame
• OR you can use a sewing machine to sew around the design which I what I have done I used zigzag stitch length 1.5 and width 2.