DIY Disney Ornaments: Ursula the Sea Witch Rules the Tree

Happy Holidays! It’s prime tree-trimming season and I have Disney ornaments on my mind. You may have seen my previous posts covering how to make ornaments of  Winnie the Pooh and Boba Fett.  Today, I’m sharing how to make an ornament inspired by Ursula, from Disney’s The Little Mermaid.  Yes, it’s an odd choice, but when you start the collection with a stuffed bear and a bounty hunter can it really get any weirder? Ursula fits in just fine.

I also chose Ursula because my daughter requested her. I dragged my feet (fins?) for a while because Ursula looked WAY more challenging than the previous two. Turned out she was. You can decide whether or not it was a success. If you want to try this yourself I can save you time by sharing my mistakes. Maybe it will make you smile too.

Our journey begins with finding the right inspirational photo. Life’s full of tough choices, isn’t it?

I chose this one for its rather simple outline.

It also happened to be the image on the cover of last month’s Disney Rewards Insider. I saved time by tracing the image to make a pattern. It’s big for an ornament (roughly 6″x8″), but that seemed appropriate for our hefty sea witch. After I traced the perimeter and some of her features, I cut out the pattern and went looking for supplies.

I purchased some faux fur for her hair (which you can easily skip) and an additional sheet of purple felt. My giant felt pile already included the other colors I needed: another shade of purple, black, white, red, blue and gold. Doesn’t the gold look like a crown? I took it as a sign I was on the right track. It’s really just a remnant from cutting out Winnie the Pooh.

My other supplies included felt glue, scissors, Poly-fil, needle and thread and blue sequins.

Next, I pinned the pattern to two sheets of felt to create the front and back pieces of the ornament. I chose black for the front and a darker purple for the back.

After I cut out the front and back pieces from the felt, I cut the pattern into a smaller piece to serve as the pattern for her upper body. I used lighter purple for this part.

Once I cut her upper body out of the felt I placed it on top of the black felt for the front of the ornament.

Then I repeated the same process of trimming my original pattern into smaller pieces to guide the shapes needed for her hair, necklace and tentacle.  I added black stitching for the design on the center of her necklace and lavender stitching to show her arms. Then I used the felt glue to attach these pieces to the black felt.

I changed my mind about the lavender stitching and covered them up with darker purple felt instead. I also added some blue lines to detail her tentacles and a piece of purple felt to show her chin. Then I started on the rest of her face.

Ugh. I’m not going to lie to you Angel Fish, the face was the worst part. I added her large mouth first and then started on her eyes. I tried about 47 different types. That’s an exaggeration of course, but sadly not by much. It’s really hard to translate detailed cartoon images into felt. This is not exactly a surprise, but a fact I optimistically overlooked when I started this gig. I tried little round eyes, round eyes with dramatic lashes, oversized eyebrows, eyes with slanted lines and more. I also tried sequins, beads, fabric paint, thread and various color combinations of white, blue and black.

As I stared at my inspiration photo again, Ursula’s grin looked more like a smirk. I’m pretty sure she was mocking me.

Serves me right for wanting to hang a villain on my Christmas tree.

Ultimately I decided to keep it simple (after thoroughly exhausting all of my complicated options) and went with chunky arches for the eyes. It’s kind of a blend of her small eyes and impressive eyebrows. Maybe we can say she’s grinning with her eyes closed? Other than leaving her face blank, it was the best I could do.

After all that effort, I gladly flipped her smug face upside down and pinned her to the back piece of the ornament for sewing. (Take that you evil sea witch!) Then I hand stitched around the perimeter of the ornament. I started with her arm, continued across the bottom and worked my way up to the other arm.

Then I stopped and flipped her right side out. Or at least that’s what should have happened. In actuality her tentacles got stuck in a wad in the bottom of the ornament and refused to flip right side out. I pulled so hard I ripped part of the felt. Ultimately I removed the stitching from the tentacles, flipped the felt right side up by hand, and stitched it closed again. It made the bottom of the ornament messy.

I may tell people that my dog pulled Ursula off of the tree and chewed on it. Although I don’t have a dog, so it wouldn’t be a very convincing story.

If you’re playing along at home, I would highly recommend stitching in the opposite direction. Start with her arm, sew across her head and other arm and then end up at the bottom of the ornament. You may still have messy stitching across the bottom, but at least you’ll save yourself the headache.

Next was my favorite part: STUFFING! I was so excited to get started on this part I forgot to take a picture. Ursula is a sea witch with considerable girth, so I spent some time cramming as much Poly-fil into her belly as I possibly could. Body language is important to her after all. Then I closed up the stitching around her head.

Once I had her stuffed and sewn I added some final details. I glued some blue sequins to the tentacle on the front of the ornament to add some sparkle. I liked the effect so much I added a few more to the back of the ornament too. The sequins on the back also helped mask or at least distract from the messy stitching. Then I added the date in black felt and a loop of embroidery thread to hang her on the tree. The final step was to glue a tiny piece of fur to her head to finish her hair.

And here she is… wasting away to practically nothing on my Christmas tree.

Here she is with her DIY Disney ornament friends. I should probably move Winnie to another part of the tree for safety purposes. Boba Fett can hold his own.

If you’re new to this blog this is where I feel compelled to share that I’m not a crafter, I just play one online. The purpose of trying projects like this is to try something new, flex some creative muscle and add a little fun to an otherwise normal day. Maybe it will inspire you to tackle something new today too? It doesn’t have to be a dangling sea witch, just whatever will brighten your day.

Want to give it a try? Have other ornaments you want to see me attempt, I mean create? Leave me a message in the comments below!

Until next time, add a little more magic to your holiday!