Monthly Archives: December 2012

Felt Christmas Tree ornament

Ornament Advent: Day 7 Felt Tree and Wreath

Advent Ornament Countdown, Christmas Ornaments, craft, Crafts from the Past, Creativity, DIY, Homemade, How to, , , , , ,

Today’s ornament was a massive lesson in frustration. Or rather, the ornament that you don’t see was. My original idea for an ornament failed spectacularly. My craft table is covered with parts, bits, and pieces. Around 10:00pm I realized that it was never going to work. Then began the frantic search. I dug through all of my supplies in the hope for a lightning strike. I didn’t get one until I was texting my sister that I was ready to give up. Right after I hit send, it hit me.

Felt Christmas Tree ornament

I love felt and I had a lot of fun last year with the pins and sequins ornament I made, so why not combine the two. The base of this ornament is a ball I made for temari. Temari is a Japanese art form that I played with a few years ago and kept all my supplies (go figure). You make the ball by taking a very large handful of stuffing and wrapping it with thread (one way to make the ball anyway). A lot of thread. You keep winding the thread around and around and around the stuffing until you get a round ball. This particular ball was my attempt to create a flattened ball to showcase a design on the front and back. I never did get around to completing the temari, but it gave me an excellent form to create my Christmas ornament.

Felt wreath side of the ornament

Next, I cut strips of felt around 1/2″ to 3/4″ wide and started cutting these strips into triangle pieces. Then I took my piles of pins and sequins and pinned the triangles to the ball to make the images of the wreath and tree. I used some fuzzy white thread to make a sort of frame to separate the two images by sewing it around and around the ball. I made a quick hook and voila! I was finished.

Side view of Christmas ornament
Here you can see the fuzzy white thread.

I really like the effect of the multiple colors of green for the Christmas tree and the stars in the wreath really make it pop. You could use anything for the form of the ornament, Styrofoam would be very easy. I imagine a Santa Claus/reindeer ornament would be very cute. Anyone want to try it? Send us your picture and we will post it! I would love to see someone else’s version.

Christmas tree side of ornament

Just goes to show that necessity really is the mother of invention.

Happy Crafting!

Kristin

Ornament Advent Day 6: Sunday Comics Christmas Ball

Advent Ornament Countdown, Christmas Ornaments, craft, Creativity, DIY, How to, , , , , , , , , , ,

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Cheri: I love comics, funnies, and cartoons. And I really love using comics for craft projects. This one is a favorite of mine. I hope you like it.

Supplies:

Sunday Funnies

Circle template (cup, glass, anything circular and in whatever size you would like, my circles were about 2 ½ inches in diameter).

Glue (any kind is fine).

Cardstock, (just a small circle is needed).

6 inches of ribbon

Instructions:

Fold the Sunday paper up so you can cut as many circles at once as possible. Then cut all of the circles in half. When you roll the paper, you want the circular edge to be the outer rim of the cone. Make about 45 cones and lay them aside.

Cut a smaller circle from the cardstock, this is just for a base to glue to.

Lay your cones around the cardstock circle, with the points touching, when you like how it looks, put a small amount of glue on each one and glue down. Place the next row of cones, try to put these in the little valleys created by the first row. You will be using a few less. Finally, glue one straight into the center, there should be a small spot for it. Do the same on the other side of the circle of cardstock.

Look at your ornament, and if you notice any thin spots just glue another cone into the spot. If you would like, you can glue more cones inside of the first cones. This gives the ornament a rose bud look.

What a fun project to make with the funnies, just make sure you read them first.

Merry Christmas

funnypapercones

 

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Ornament Advent: Day 5 Tiny Paper Stars

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Loryn — I see a lot of ornaments made the way these are – just glue three or more circles together – but I thought they would be really fun made with a star paper punch. They make tiny ornaments, just a few inches tall, and they’re perfect for a miniature tree.

tinystars

My paper punch is from Martha Stewart crafts. I cut a few stars from different colored scrapbooking papers, then folded each one down the middle. Glue three together around a piece of embroidery floss, then put beads on the bottom.

tinystarsfin

I like the single bead better than the one with two beads. Bells would be fun, too. They need some weight to make them hang right. The ornaments take just a few minutes to make, so you could decorate a mini tree in no time!

— Loryn

tinystarsgawk

Ornament Advent: Day 4 Pop Up Sticky Notes

Advent Ornament Countdown, Christmas Ornaments, craft, Creativity, DIY, Homemade, How to, , , , , , , ,

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Lynne: I was surfing the web hoping to find an idea for our Advent Countdown when I came upon this great video from EepyBird. I fell in love with the sticky note pinwheels and started to think how I could modify one into an ornament. I needed a pad of pop up sticky notes, a glue stick, a darning needle, monofilament fishing line, micro glitter, spray adhesive and two buttons.

EepyBird.com counts out twelve pairs of pop up sticky notes and then glues the endnotes of the stack to each other. The structure is rotated three times to make the pinwheel. I must admit that I had to watch the video several times before I understood how the turns were done. If I watched where the doubled edges were each time the figure was turned, I could manage the proper sequence. Their excellent tutorial video is here.

The resulting structure holds its shape enough to roll down an incline, but not well enough to hang on a tree. I decided to gather the fins (the doubled edges) to prevent the pinwheel from coming apart. I used a large-eyed darning needle (sharp enough to go through the paper) with about 20 inches of fishing line. I used fishing line since it is invisible and I had a spool in my craft drawer. Using the needle to punch a hole about 1/8 inch from the edge (see photo below), draw the thread of fishing line through each fin until all the fins are gathered in a circle. Pull the line tight and knot the ends. Don’t cut the thread.

I used the two buttons to cover the hole in the middle of the pinwheel. Thread one of the buttons onto your fishing line and then push the needle through to the other side of the pinwheel. Gather these fins the same way, add the other button and tie a knot to keep everything together.

I used spray adhesive and micro glitter to add some holiday sparkle. For the hanger, I made a loop with the fishing line and attached it to two fins (see photo below) for the best balance.

I really like how the pinwheel looks and was especially pleased to make something with such an unusual material.

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Gold ring Christmas ornament

Christmas Ornament Advent: Day 3 Gold Rings

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So, I make jewelry. In my collection of jewelry supplies are all sorts of materials and findings for really old projects that I just cannot get rid of. I guess you could call me a supply hoarder (I don’t feel too bad about this as I think Cheri has a bigger collection). Ask anyone in my family and they will tell you that I am a museum for clothes and supplies (I still have some beads from my very first Fire Mountain order around 20 years ago, and crap did I just make myself feel old). Anyway, the gold rings I used in this Christmas ornament have been in a drawer for years. I made a pair of earrings for my M-I-L out of them and of course, I did my usual M.O. and bought way too many supplies and was stuck with a bag full of various sizes of gold jump-rings.

For this project, I laid down some wax paper and pulled out my bottle of bead glue (super glue). I used some tweezers to place the rings where I wanted them and glued the whole piece together. I like the project so much that I think I am going to make a set of earrings with a similar shape for the holiday season. The ornament is around 3 inches top to bottom and side to side, not including the hook.

Gold ring Christmas ornament

This is a very simple project and looks great on a Christmas tree. The jump-rings are available at most craft stores in the jewelry supply section.

Happy crafting!

Kristin