what are you putting on your tree, those of you who are doing a tree? some suggestions, from ours: paper bead garland: make as many paper beads as you can. (if you have kids this will keep them busy for an afternoon or 2) string them on a long piece of hemp twine, maybe alternating with plastic, glass or fimo beads. knot the hemp every 5 or 10 beads, so that if the twine breaks, the entire garland won't come unstrung. put a loop at each end, and wrap it around your tree. baker's clay ornaments: this recipe is from the book published in 1976 by butterick, the kitchen craft workshop, by ruth b. roufberg. my mom used to use this book to keep my brother and i out of her hair. mix in a large bowl 4 cups flour (don't sift, just scoop), and 1 cup salt. add, while stirring, 1 1/2 (+/-) cups water, and 1 tablespoon cooking oil. continue to stir with a fork until all the water is absorbed, then squeeze the mixture with your hands to distribute the water evenly & knead for 5 minutes. if you want add food coloring or coffee crystals or spinach or beet powder or tumeric for colored dough. roll out to about cookie-width and cut with cookie cutters. poke a hole in the top with a straw, and bake on a cookie sheet about 20 minutes to half an hour in a 300 degree oven. you can paint with acrylic paints, and varnish with dura-clear or clear nail polish. for a ginger-bread look, color the dough with coffee or cocoa to a slightly darker brown. cut with cookie cutters, bake, cool, and use "slick" white fabric paint in a squeeze bottle to imitate "icing". these look absolutely charming. hippy holidays hemp "icicles" make these like you would keychains or zipper-pulls. use clear and siliver beads for an "icicle" look, or wood, or any color you like. put a hook at the top loop. beaded wreathes a good craft for very small children. i give the kids the scraps of hemp left over from making the icicles, and have them string them with multi-colored beads. then i simply tie an overhand knot to form a loop of beads, and hang them like mini-wreathes on the tree. i suppose you could add a bow if you want. mini sachets make little circles of holiday fabric. fill with lavender, cider mulling spices, or potpouri, and tie with contrasting ribbon. if you want to get more elaborate, sew lace edging around the circles before filling. pomanders the same lemon or orange pomanders you put in your closets can be hung on your tree. stud lemons or oranges with whole cloves, roll in orris root powder or powdered spices and tie up in tulle. hang to dry several weeks. these need to age a bit, but keep well. when the pomanders have shrunk as small as they're going to get, tie ribbon or lace around them to hang. wrapped crystal icicles check craft stores or new age shops for large, attractive natural quartz crystal points. wrap them in silver wire, or green floral wire, and hang them on the tree as "icicles" recycled fabric garland don't buy those plastic choking hazards! this is a project we're starting this year; it may take awhile to finish it. start with a long piece of hemp twine. cut fabric scraps saved throughout the year from sewing and craft projects, and old t-shirts and clothes into strips no thicker than 1/2" or 1" and about 4" long. you'll need a LOT of strips! this is a project you may want to work on months ahead, or throughout the year. tie the strips of fabric to the hemp twine, and push them together tightly, to form a fringed garland. you can also use ribbon or lace scraps cut to 4" lengths. a similar project can be made with strips of recycled plastic bags. when my brother & i were kids, my mother used to bend coat-hangers into a circle, snip off the hooks (or not) and help us to make fluffy white wreathes for us to give to our teachers as gifts, from the little plastic bags they'd put frozen foods in at the grocery. apple doll tree-topper this is another project we should have started earlier. my son has a nature crafts book with instructions in it, but we can't find it so we might make a papier-mache sun tree-topper instead. but basically you peel, carve, and dry an apple and affix it onto a "clothed" cardboard cone "body" with pipe-cleaner arms and felt hands. you can make a wig and beard out of fiberfill, wool, or doll hair. you can make an old-fashioned father winter or santa claus, or make an old woman with a broomstick for the italian befana. i want to make a tom bombadil tree topper, because that's the kind of nerd i am, but i think the children might rebell at this. oh well, there's always next year... share your crafty ornament ideas! i'd love to hear some ideas for ornaments that can be made by children.
Oh Lizzie! I want to see your tree! You should get Dave over to take a digital picture of it so you can post it--it sounds so neat! Heh, heh, heh, I LOVE the idea of paper bead garlands. And the baker's clay ornaments--especially the ginger bread men. My first year in Binghamton, was the first time out of my parents home, so I got a fake 6' tree (I live in a 2nd floor apartment, and didn't want to deal with pine needles up and down stairs). Shortly before Christmas, my ex and I still hadn't gotten a tree topper, so I said to heck with it and made my own. I went to the neighborhood CVS and got a tub of cookie cutters, and used the star one to make my own tree topper. I cut two stars out of gold Sculpey and using some crumpled foil as a spacer I put the two together and made a 3D star. It's not exactly perfect, and it IS pretty damn heavy even WITH the foil inside (instead of being solid), but it's mine. I don't think my ex was crazy about it, but, he had his chance to buy one, so, piss on him. I LIKE IT, so THERE! ;p
homemade decor is the best!! so much love was put into it!! i love to make beabed garland.. i have so many misc. beads, i just string them all together.. so cute!
Weee!!! It's sooooo easy to do! You can recycle magazines and use the pages from them to make the beads. Just find some pages you like the colors on and tear 'em out. You'll also need some round toothpicks, glue, scissors, paper towels and I find a small hunk of clay quite useful (for sticking your toothpicks into while your beads are drying). Cut you magazine page into long skinny triangular strips--I usually have the "base" edge (that'll be the short edge of your long triangle) of my beads at 1" wide. Take your strip and wrap the base edge around a toothpick once or twice, and then squeeze out a line of glue along the length of the strip and roll the bad boy up. Once you've got it rolled, and the excess glue wiped off, stick the toothpick in your clay blob to let the bead dry. It is VERY important NOT to put glue on the base edge of your strip before you put in on the toothpick, or else it'll be stuck to the toothpick forever and you'll have to toss it! After letting the beads dry sufficiently, work them off of the toothpick. Now check your beads. Sometimes the ends are uneven, if so, trim them up so they're nice and even (I think it helps them not to get ratty looking so quickly). Also, don't be alarmed if your bead starts to unroll a little when drying, all it means is that you either didn't have enough glue on when you rolled it up, or the paper was too stiff. Either way, it's a problem easily solved by putting more glue on and rolling it back up and letting it dry again. Once your beads are dried and trimmed, you can either decorate them with glitters or whatnot, or just jump straight ahead to sealing them. I use nail polish to coat the outside of the beads. It helps protect them against the elements some and to keep the beads looking nicer. To seal them, put your trimmed beads back onto the toothpicks and coat them. Let them dry thoroughly before removing from the toothpicks. And then! Oh joy! You're ready for some real fun! Grab some hemp, elastic plastic string, jewerly making wire, whatever you want to string your beads on, and go wild. I love mixing glass beads with the paper ones (when making jewelry). It's so much fun! Hope this helps and makes sense to you. Good luck!
Here's some more ideas for y'all (these are things we're doing for our tree) Beeswax Ornaments~ Melt some beeswax and pour into heat resistant candy molds (i found some neat star ones in the craft section at walmart) Pour it into the molds to just below the rim.. when it cools a bit stick the ends of a string into the back of the top of the ornament to make a loop using a toothpick. we used hemp for the string. Orange peel cutouts~~ get some oranges and cut the peels off in quarters, then using mini cookie cutters or a sharp knife or scissors cut out your designs... we made hearts, stars, and gingerbread men. put holes in them with a leather punch or something around that order to hang them or i made a couple with ribbon weaved around the outside... you can also use them for garland~~interchange them with cinnamon sticks strung through on ribbon... Oh yeah you have to dry them for about 3 days on a cookie tray away from direct sunlight, and keep flipping them over when they start to curl up Cinnamon Ornaments~~ I'm not sure of the exact recipe of this, we did this at my bf's aunt's house. You mix up applesauce, a lot of cinnamon, glue, and any other spices you might want till you get a thick somewhat dry mixture that will spread out w/a rolling pin w/o cracking too bad. Then just roll it out and cut out your shapes and if ya want decorate them with cloves, star anise, or any other spices ya got layin around... then lay them out to dry on racks for a coupla days Cinnamon sticks~~ just tie these onto the tree w/ pretty ribbon or raffia or something Good ol Popcorn and cranberry strands~~~ we're in the process of making these for our trees if we could just stop eating the popcorn long enough for it to go stale Ginger wreaths~~ slice fresh ginger into 1/8" thick slices~~ put onto crafter's wire spaced a lil bit apart, hang to dry for a few days. Then when its dried push all the pieces together and shape into a wreath... decorate with cranberries or orange peel cutouts or whatever you'd like Pipe cleaner candy canes~~ really simple one for kids-just twist red and white pipe cleaners into the shape of a candy cane or just use real candy canes (we can't cuz my son Elijah is a sugar fiend) For the Birds~~ Cut shapes out of bread with cookie cutters, dry in the oven at low heat for awhile, i forget how long~~ spread peanut butter on em, decorate them with birdseed and cranberry halves put a ribbon thru em and hang em out for your winged friends I'm still lookin for an idea for a tree topper that i'd like to try, if any of ya'll have any ideas lemme know
