Trixie's Birthday Collar

It's Trixie's 2nd birthday today! When I got her as a puppy I wanted to make sure I took more photos of my pets - when they are babies I take heaps of photos and then I stop using my camera again. So every year I plan on taking photos of Trixie and Dash on their birthdays - and by take photos I mean that I want nice, clear photos of them with a nice background!

Trixie is normally great for photos, except she has been very naughty lately so the majority of the photos I took are of her looking away...

The middle one turned out the best but I just had to make a simple collage in MyMemories to remind me of this years photo attempts! Hopefully she behaves better for next years photos and that my garden has grown some more to give a nice backdrop.

Since it was her birthday I had a great reason to make her a new collar! I reused all the old hardware and this time I bought a purple ribbon with white birds printed on it. I didn't make it long enough for many adjustments though, luckily she stopped growing last year!

Holly Collar Tutorial

Here is the tutorial to make your own felt holly collar for your pet, as modelled by Trixie!

1. Cut a piece of the red felt long enough to fit around your dogs neck – remember to take into account the overlap for the Velcro – and 4cm wide (choose the width based on what you think will look best on your dog).
   Trixie’s neck is 33cm and my piece of Velcro is 3cm = 36cm long x 4cm wide piece of felt.
   Cut 1 piece of interfacing slightly smaller than your red piece of felt and iron on. For your holly leaves, draw the design onto your interfacing then iron the interfacing to your green felt. This will make it easier to cut out your holly leaves
2.  For this step I chose to sew along the long edges of the red felt and down the centre of my holly leaves. I didn’t sew down the centre of the holly leaves on the cats collars so take a look at their photos to see what you prefer.
3.  Attach your Velcro to the collar – making sure you attach one end to the front on the collar and the other end to the back of the collar. I just used tacky glue but you could sew it if you prefer.
4. Next you need to sew your holly leave onto the collar – you could glue this part as well if you prefer.
5.  For this collar I used some 2cm baubles as I didn’t have enough of my big bells. Just sew a couple of loops of thread through the hanging holes of each bauble (or bell).
6. All finished – a very cute and quick Christmas craft project!

Christmas Collars

Well I have been busy making all my Christmas gifts for this year. I have also made collars for the cats and the puppy!
For Trixie I made the Holly Ascot Collar tutorial that I found on the Martha Stewart site.
Link here.
Trixie looks very cute in her Christmas collar and it doesn't seem to bother her at all.

As for the cats I used some felt scraps to make theirs and some tiny little red bells. I plan on making one of these for Trixie as well as I think it looks much cuter and at the same time I will make a tutorial so everyone can make a simple collar for their pets.
I think the little holly leaves and bells would look cute as a hair piece as well!

Trixie's new collar

I decided I wanted to make Trixie a new collar and started pulling apart old ones to see if I could actually sew a nice collar before buying supplies.

I am very happy with it so I also made her a matching lead. I decided to embroider her name and phone numbers on the ribbon for this collar as well since she always loses her tags anyway. Now I just need to hope she doesn't lose her collar as well!

It is nice that Trixie can have a collar different to all of her doggy friends. Next is buying supplies to make collars for the cats...

Ribbon dog tag

We had the need to buy Trixie a zappy collar after receiving a threatening letter about her barking! Not that she barks much because I have her inside - but better safe than sorry. I am home most of the time so she doesn't need to wear it very often, but we have a wedding to go to next weekend and she will be wearing her zappy collar. Because the collar I bought works through vibrations I can't have any tags hanging from her collar or have her wear her normal collar. I don't want to leave her alone without a name tag in case she escapes or gets let out, even though she is microchipped.

Enter Trixie's new ribbon tag...

What you will need:

• A ribbon either the same width or smaller than your collar
• A candle or lighter
• Needle and thread (I used regular sewing machine thread but you can use embroidery thread)
• Scissors
• Marker
• Lamp or lightbox
• Sticky tape
• Optional: Name and phone number printed off your computer
• Optional: Sewing machine

I chose to print off Trixie's name and my mobile number only since I won't be home anyway. I did it in all different sizes then just cut out the size I chose. You can just write directly onto your ribbon if you prefer.

You will need to either write or trace your text onto the ribbon. I don't have a lightbox so I just used my lamp by taping the piece of paper onto the lamp. Now you will need to line up your ribbon and tape it down as well. I just used a texta to trace the text lightly onto the ribbon as a guide for my embroidery.

Now you need to start your embroidery. I used a simple backstitch with a doubled over piece of thread knotted at the end. For added security, at the end of each letter I tie a knot just in case the thread gets caught on something - saves me redoing the whole tag again!

After you have finished you need to trim the ends and melt them using your candle - this will stop the ribbon fraying. Just do it quickly and make sure your ribbon is made of polyester otherwise it will catch on fire! At this point you can either fold the edges over and pin the ribbon onto your collar or just leave the ends unfolded as I have done.

I sewed my ribbon to the collar using my sewing machine, but I have also done it by hand before, it just takes longer. I used black thread so it is easier for me to unpick later on if I need to.

Because Trixie is still a puppy this collar is far too big for her, but I didn't want to cut the webbing in case I want to sell it or use it on a bigger dog. So I made a couple of those elastic collar keepers I showed you previously for the cats collars.

Now it is ready for the poor little puppy to wear next weekend!

You can easily do the same thing for cat collars as well. It saves dogs and cats getting their tags caught and losing them all the time.