Christmas Shapes Printable Lacing Cards

Printing this is as easy as 1-2-3-4! If you're not familiar with printing PDFs, here's the step-by-step, along with a few tips.

1. Click the red button in the next section that says, "Click to Download Printable Christmas Sewing Cards" P.S. Make sure you know the location of your download.
    
2. Find and open the PDF.
    
3. Click the "Print File" button, choose the printer, choose how many copies you want, make any additional adjustments needed for personal preference, and click the "Print" button.
    
4. Cut out the shapes and start sewing! Alternatively, you can sew and then cut out (whichever is more comfortable).

Click to Download Printable Christmas Sewing Cards
 

The first page includes four festive shapes: a ball ornament, star, gingerbread man, and gift, all with dotted outlines.

The second page has slightly more complex shapes: a Christmas tree, holly, sleigh, and Santa hat.

Plus, scroll down for a bonus PDF with more dots.

Once these Christmas card shapes are cut, you are ready to sew. Let's discuss the materials you'll need for sewing practice:

1. Thread - A thicker thread, such as embroidery floss or even a lighter weight yarn, works perfectly for this type of threading practice.
    
2. Needle - You need a needle sharp enough to poke through the paper but you don't want children using super sharp needles, so keep this in mind. Tapestry needles have a blunt point and large eye, which is helpful for kids. Yarn needles are safer, too, but they may be too big and blunt for thicker paper without poking holes with a different object first.
    
3. Scissors - Used to cut the thread at the start and end. Most scissors will work for cutting thread. A thread cutter can also be used.
    
4. Needle threader (optional) - For smaller needle eyes, needle threaders can be incredibly helpful. Especially for children who are learning. 
    
5. Glitter glue, small buttons, markers (optional) - For embellishing (find more information below, along with suggestions).

You can use the embroidery floss to "color" the lacing cards or combine a few different mediums to create vibrant and textural ornaments or decorative paper pieces. We used markers, colored pencils, glitter glue, and buttons in addition to floss.

Before sewing, we tried coloring the shapes so that the sewing could be an accent (such as an icing border for the gingerbread man) or just another layer of the same color (such as using a green marker on the Christmas tree, then green floss over that to imply branches).

Keep in mind that using a darker color could hide the dots and make it more difficult to follow while sewing. We'd recommend lighter colors for beginners.

Here is an example of the coloring before the sewing, some with markers, some with glitter glue (let glitter dry before sewing):

And after sewing, before getting cut out.

We also tried using floss as the main coloring and then adding additional embellishments, such as buttons! This works particularly well for the gingerbread man, Christmas tree, and ball ornament. However, you do need small buttons to fit the size of these Christmas shapes printable lacing cards. Adding buttons is not recommended for young children.

This is the perfect project if you're practicing your embroidery stitches, too! Running or straight stitch, stem stitch, lazy daisy, and French knot are all great options for this project.

We then cut the shapes out and turned some into ornaments by poking a hole at the top and threading a loop of floss through it to hang. Some were also given additional decorative looks, such as a colorful circle border.

We thought we'd provide a second set of Christmas lacing cards with more dot suggestions. These are the same shapes as the PDF above but with more dots, which allow for extra precise sewing practice from one spot to the next.
 

Click to Download Printable Christmas Sewing Cards (Version 2)