Smile! Punch Needle Ornament Kit
Another week, another array of Christmas food, toys, and knick knacks at Aldi. The selection ranges from the famous Merry Moments holiday reindeer to the irresistibly cute Squishmallows holiday slippers.
There are also a few craft items at Aldi this week. These include a paint-your-own nutcracker kit and a punch needle ornament kit. I bought the punch needle kit.
The Smile! Punch Needle Ornament Kit is an Aldi Find, meaning each store gets one shipment, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. You can’t buy Aldi products online. It’s $4.99, which is quite the bargain compared to other kits on Walmart or Amazon that go for $25 to $30. Just getting the punch needle tools could run you more than the price of the Aldi kit.
There are 4 kits you can buy, each with two different designs so you can make two ornaments. There is a penguin/bear, ornament/deer, gingerbread man/snow, and rocking horse/snow globe. I got the penguin/bear one.
The kit includes:
- 1 embroidery hoop
- 1 punch needle tool
- 1 punch needle threader
- 2 printed cloths
- 2 adhesive foam backers
- yarn
- 1 needle and thread
- 2 hanging twine
- Items that are needed but not included are:
- Scissors
- Measuring tape
Each design has a bag with the respective yarn needed for each one. So for me, there was one bag with yarn for the penguin, and another with yarn for the bear.
My biggest question was: is the low price going to affect the quality?
Short answer: Yes
I knew I was going to have trouble from the beginning. The first step is to place the chosen design into the embroidery hoop, tightening it before beginning the design. The piece of cloth is so small that there were sides that wouldn’t stay in the hoop, so it was loose.
Threading the punch needle was easy enough, and there were illustrations in the instruction manual showing step by step threading instructions.
The first major problem arose the moment I made the first stitch. There aren’t any illustrations in the manual once you start making stitches, so that made things harder. But also, the wording isn’t clear.
The first step says to insert the punch needle from the front of the fabric and pull the tail yarn through to the back. So I pushed the needle through, grabbed the tail fabric that was brought through, and pulled it all to the back of the fabric.
My design kept unraveling, and I wasn’t sure why, so I went to YouTube. It turns out, you’re not supposed to bring all the tail fabric to the back. The instructions just meant pushing the needle that’s threaded with yarn will push some of the tail fabric to the back, while the rest stays in front.
After figuring that out, I thought things would go more smoothly, but no matter what I did, the yarn wouldn’t make proper stitches. Unraveling was also a recurring problem, no matter how close I kept the needle to the fabric, which is what the instructions said to do.
There was also some discrepancy between the instructions in the manual and what people on YouTube who do punch needle crafts as a hobby say. For example, the instructions have a “pro tip” that says not to insert the needle too far into the cloth, as this will create large loops in the back. However, YouTube tutorials say to insert the needle as far as it will go to ensure a loop is made. But after 30-45 minutes of fiddling with it, I had nothing to show for it but a penguin stenciled cloth with a bunch of holes in it.
I had another family member who dabbles in hand sewing and needle felting give it a go. She got a small part of the penguin’s hat done, but even she struggled, saying that if you really work to put each knot tight, it might work, but more often than not, it would just unravel on her.
Unfortunately, I have not yet finished even one design. Maybe I’ll come back and try the bear later, but I think ultimately, the low price is going to give you cheap fabric, yarn, and needles, hurting what could have been a really cute project.
The Verdict:
The Smile! Punch Needle Kit is $4.99 and an Aldi Find. When I initially got this, I thought the finished projects could make cute gifts for family in the coming weeks, but sadly, that may not be the case. I haven’t given too many bad reviews for Aldi products this year, but sadly, I would tell you to spend the extra $20 somewhere else and get a quality kit that will give you a finished project with less hassle.
