Something new for our 2024 decorations

Well, it's that time of year!  Time to work on our annual, hand made Christmas decorations.

This is something I've been trying to do every year for quite some time, missing only a few years due to personal circumstances.

This year has been a bit different, in that my challenges are more physical in nature.  Osteoarthritis has set into all the joints of my fingers, making finer motor control more painful.  I'm losing my grip strength, and drop things far more often.

I can still do big stuff, though.  Manual labour, which is something I enjoy doing, is still an option for me.  Mostly, that involves gardening, but also all sorts of other outdoor chores and activities.  Most recently, my big project has been building an isolation shelter for our more feral yard cats that we will have to trap to get spayed.  They will need two weeks of monitoring as they recover.  Using what scrap pieces of lumber and salvaged material we could find around the property, with a few items that needed to be purchased, we now have a two level cat shelter on wheels that we will be able to use to isolate any cats from the colony we are caring for.  It even has a heat lamp, food bowl and heated water bowl set up in it, and the cats are already using in and getting used to it.

The down side of all this is that my hands have become very rough.  I don't crochet much anymore, as most yarns get snagged on my fingers and pull off the hook, or fray.  Some yarns are okay, but few yarns I'd like to use for most of the projects I'd like to be working on.

All of these factors had to be considered as I decided on this year's Christmas decorations.

In the end, it was a Pinterest suggestion that lead me to a new craft I decided to try this year.  Making Singlade balls.

 

This project has a lot of similarities to the temari I've made in the past.

Of course, I use the materials I have on hand, so for this project, I cheated a little.

I had a 6 pack of Styrofoam balls handy, so those are the core of the balls I am making this year.  I had some white yarn left over from another project, and that's what I used to wrap around the foam core, then secure the strands, the same way I wrapped sewing thread around the core of a temari project.

Here, you can see how things are going so far.  Once the cores were wrapped, I found some cotton yarn that I used to divide the balls into 8 sections.  This is also similar to temari, without the need to be so precise.

From there, the sections just needed to be filled using buttonhole stitch (also called blanket stitch).

With these intended for Christmas decorations, I like to include sparkling or reflective elements. I was able to include both.  I had some red yarn with a silver metallic strand in it, plus a bag full of leftover bits of reflective yarn.  

I've finished stitching up two balls so far.  I started one in red and green, but didn't have enough this green yarn to do both halves, so the other half was done in blue.  

I still haven't decided on how I will attach hangers yet.  I also have some miniature Christmas decorations I might use to jazz them up a bit.  For now, I'm just focusing on stitching them up.

This yarn is a lot bulkier than what is used in the video tutorial, so these do work up fairly quickly.  Working with a needle and thread has proven to be easier on my hands, and the yarn doesn't have as much opportunity to snag, compared to crochet.  

I do miss crocheting, though!

I'm happy with how these are turning out so far.  In the future, I can see making some of these using actual scrap bits, like in the video, but with something like a bell and maybe a bit of catnip, inside.  They would make great cat toys!

So that is what we are doing for our Christmas decorations this year! 

How about you?  Are you doing any special crafting for the season?

 

Our 2021 Christmas ornaments

 Oh, my goodness!  I can't believe it's been 2 years since I last posted here!  But then, I think the past 2 years has been a blur for a lot of people, lately.  

Honestly, I haven't been doing much crafting lately.  Since our move to an acreage, 4 years ago, our focus has been elsewhere, and for the past 2 years, my focus has been more towards gardening, on top of other outdoor work.  This has had an unfortunate affect of making my hands very rough, so I can't really handle yarn much.  Especially the fussier or delicate yarns.  I also find I am increasing losing strength and dexterity in my hands.  Arthritis sucks!  Still, I do what I can.

And this year, doing what I can meant cans!

(Warning: this is going to be a very photo heavy post! :-D )

We don't often buy canned goods, but every now and then, we pick up canned chicken at Costco.  These are larger cans than what I see in the local grocery stores, and I really liked their size.

For this year's decorations, I decided to create little scenes inside the cans.  This turned out to be a collaborative effort with my daughter, who started things for me by using her gold spray paint on the cans.

This job took several days and several coats of paint.  Normally, this would have been done outdoors, which she tried with the first coat, but it's just too cold out right now.  The paint doesn't like the cold!  Thankfully, she found a way to finish it indoors.

For the scenes, I rifled through my craft supplies and got other things at a dollar store.  A family member had gifted me with a box of wooden items, and I finally got to use some!

I started off by wood burning details on some of the wooden pieces, which I then passed on to my daughter for painting with her acrylics.

I got glitter paper in gold and silver, and used the cans to mark out circles to fit inside them, as backing for 4 of the cans.

I had some metallic card stock and used a can to mark off the dimensions to create a platform to set scenes on.

I used what adhesives I had to fix the backing paper to the cans, and the platforms to the backs.  The main thing was to have the adhesive dry clear. 

The first platform fit perfectly, so I used it as a template to make three more.  

Having a scoring tool to create the folds made things much nicer.

One of the easiest decorations to make was the car.  Among the wooden items I was gifted with were several of these cars, and it fit just perfectly!

I'd picked up packages with strips of mixed ribbon and cord at the dollar store, in gold or silver, with a few that had both.  After choosing a ribbon and cutting it to size, I hot glued it in place.

For a final touch, some fake snow was glued on as well.

This one was done very quickly!

The next ones used the pieces my daughter painted for me.

Don't these little books look fantastic?  I love the metallic gold details.  Just gorgeous!

They were hot glued together to fit into the can.

Then they got hot glued onto the platform.  After this, they got a ribbon around the edge, and this one was done.

The next one was not quite so easy! :-D

I found some floral wire made to look like sprigs of pine and used them to create little trees.  They were positioned so that the larger ones would be behind the church, and the little one in front of it.  The stems were punched through the paper, bent and glued in place, before fitting the whole thing into the can.  It needed some time to dry before I could continue!

I just love the tiny details my daughter put on the church!

I added some fake snow to the church...

... as well as onto the trees.

The church was almost too tall to fit into it!  

Once the church was hot glued in place, I spread white glue around the platform and added more fake snow.  A rather messy job! :-D  Once that was done, instead of a ribbon around the edge, I added more of the decorative floral wire that I used to make the trees.

In one of the cans that did not get a backing or platform, I glued fake snow to the back and a bit on the sides, then added moss as a nest on the bottom.  One bird was glued in place, then the ribbon added before the second was glued in place.  Another quick and easy one!

The last one with a platform ended up taking a couple of days, to allow glue to dry.  I used the same floral wire the trees were made of, to make a tiny wreath.

I had decorative gems that were way too big, but my daughter happened to have these absolutely miniscule ones!  

I could not have done this without craft tweezers, and even then some of those gems were so small, I could barely handle them!

The rest was much, much easier!  

For the last can, I added some fake snow on the background.  I then had to drill a hole, so I went ahead and did all of them.

Where the holes for the hangers were drilled was determined by where things were inside, and their weights.  I used a carving bit on my Dremel to make the holes, as that was the only thing that worked.  The curved metal was a bit of a challenge to work on!

The third hole in the one can was to hang bells inside.

I used more of the decorative floral wire to create a loop to hold the bells on the inside, pulling it tight before bending it at the top to hold it in place.

I'd added fake snow to the bells before hanging them, then more fake snow was added to the bottom and a bit up the sides after the bells were in place.

I selected an extra wide ribbon to go around the can, so it would also serve to hold the wire in place.

The final touch was to thread the hanging cords through the holes. With some of them, I had to use craft tweezers to manipulate the cords inside the cans.  The church one had very little room to work in! :-D

Here they are, all done and ready for hanging!

I am very happy with how these turned out.  

I just had to take a flash picture to show how shiny they are!  I think the gold details on the books are my favourite.  

These are too big to fit on our Christmas tree.  With so many cats in the house, we have a smaller tree hanging against a wall, out of their reach, so these are now hanging with some lights and garlands we have hanging near the ceiling between our living and dining rooms.

These were a lot of fun to make!

2015 Christmas How-to: Terra Cotta Essential Oil Diffusing Ornaments

After way too long of a hiatus, I was able to do our annual Christmas ornament this year.

The usual prerequisites I try to meet on these; fast, easy and inexpensive, but without looking like it! LOL

This year, I was inspired by some essential oil diffuser pendants I'd seen on Pinterest.  The premise is basic.  Make an object from a clay that will absorb the oil, then slowly release the scent over time.  After a few days, more oil can be added.  This is one of those crafts that can be kept simple, or more elaborate, with only a few minor changes.

Materials needed:

Terra Cotta air dry clay
cookie cutters
stamps or textural items.
essential oil

Tools:

rolling pin
skewer or straw
vinyl sheet
craft knife
craft brush
course and fine grit sand paper

The main thing, of course, is the air dry clay.  After doing a bit of research, I chose to use terra cotta clay, as it seems to have some of the best properties to act as a diffuser.

This is one of those areas where you get what you paid for!  I tested out a dollar store brand of air dry clay someone had donated to our church's Bible school art supplies, and it was just horrid stuff.  You defininely don't want to skimp on quality here!  Take the time to knead the clay before starting, and keep some water and a damp cloth handy.

For the cookie cutters, you can go with seasonal shapes, but I chose to go with basic shapes.  As long as the cutter leaves a surface large enough to fit your stamps, if that's what you want to use.

For decorating the surface, I chose seasonal stamps, however you can use anything that will give a texture to the surface.  For example, a crocheted doily, leaves, sprigs, or even some of those textured rollers you can get in the cake decorating supplies.

Start by covering your surface with a sheet of vinyl - it'll make moving things around a lot easier, later on - then rolling to about 1/4 inch thick, and roughly rectangular.

Smooth the surface with a damp cloth or paper towel, if you wish.

If you wish to use an all-over texture for your ornaments, this would be the time to add them.  Place your leaves, twigs, doilies, or whatever you are using on your clay and gently press.

The clay is rolled out fairly thick because the shapes I chose are quite large; the largest of the sets I bought.

Choose your shapes and start cutting out the clay.

If you've used an all-over texture on your clay, position your cutters selectively to get the texture where you want it on the shape.  Otherwise, just fit in as many as you can.

Remove the excess clay and put it into an air tight container or cover with a damp cloth to keep it from drying out while you work.

Choose your stamps to add texture, if you haven't already.

I wanted my squares to be oriented as diamonds, so I placed the stamps at a 45 degree angle.

Take care when pressing the stamps in to keep them even.  You want a nice, deep impression without accidentally including the outline of the rubber stamp.











For the round shape, I tried using a button to add texture.  In the end, I was unhappy with it and re-used the clay in my next batch of ornaments.












Because of the larger size of these ornaments, I used a straw to cut out holes for the hangers.  The skewer still came in handy to push the little plugs of clay out of the straw.

For smaller ornaments or pendants, I'd use the skewer or even a large needle for a smaller hole.








This next part was a first for me.  I had aquired a food dehydrator recently, and decided to try it out to dry the ornaments.

This is where working on a piece of vinyl really helps out.  It makes it SO much easier to move the pieces onto the drying racks.  There was still a bit of flopping and shape distortion.  If that is an issue, you may wish to leave your shapes to dry for a few minutes before moving them.








On to the next batch; this time I used completely different stamps.  They were a bit more difficult to press evenly into the surface compared to the wooden stamps, but I like the designs better.

One of them didn't work out at all and the clay got re-used later.

I used an Xacto knife to cut the shapes out, completely forgetting to leave a space for the hanger hole.

I decided to keep them, anyhow.

In the next batch, I remembered to space them so I could cut out an area for the hanger hole.

A definite bonus to using the dehydrator is the ability to use layers.  Talk about saving space!  The trays are easy to move around as needed.  I was really looking forward to seeing how well this worked.

I also experimented a bit with other shapes, and this is one I ended up keeping.  I used the largest flower shape for the outside, then the smallest for the inside.  I then found a button with a texture I liked and used a skewer through the shank to apply even pressure into the clay.

Here are all of the finished shapes after an hour or two in the dehydrator.

The little heart was something I made using clay that was rolled out thinner, and I used a heart shaped stamp with an all-over texture to it, then cut the heart shape out manually.

The dehydrator fan was noisy, but not too bad.










The shapes are not completely dried through, but I decided to turn off the dehydrator at this point.
















While not as much of an issue with the smaller pieces, the larger pieces started to curl a bit from drying too quickly.  You can also see that the damp clay had started to sink into the mesh of the drying racks.

I've noticed that there are different meshes available for different types of foods to dry, including no mesh at all for fruit leathers.  I think this worked out well enough that I might invest in different drying surfaces for future use.





Here are all the shapes removed from the dehydrator and left to finish drying on a paper towel.

In the future, I think I would sitll use the dehydrator, but leaving it on for a shorter time.  At least if I'm making something that's thinner, like the little heart, or larger, like the squares and flower.  The rectangles had almost no warping at all.

After letting them all dry overnight, it was time for the finishing touches.

For sanding, I find I like these sponges.  They are available in a variety of grits, including the 60 and 220 I have here.  I really ought to have a medium grit, too, but I just don't happen to right now.

Here's a closer look at the fully dried shapes.  You can really see how much the larger pieces have warped from drying too quickly, as well as how rough the edges are.













This is after using the course grit sanding pad, and part of it has been done with fine grit.

I used course grit only to do the backs of the ornaments, while the fronts got a final touch up with fine grit.  I did want to keep a bit of the roughness, so I didn't do too much sanding  Mostly, it was to get rid of the sharper edges.








Clay dust will build up in the grit.  Most of it can be knocked out fairly well, but I found using a stiff bristled brush also helped clean the dust out.  When I was done, I washed the dust out with plain water.

Working over paper towel made clean up much easier!

Here, all of the shapes have been sanded.






For the hangers, I just used some quarter inch satin ribbon I happened to have.

For these, I chose to stop here and not ad any more to the decorations.  Some of the things I considered was using fancier ribbons, hot gluing seasonal foliage to the tops, at the base of the ribbon, or adding something to frame the edges.  I also considered adding colour.  In the end, I decided to just keep it simple for these and experiment with the others.





 Here is one experiment; adding glow in the dark glitter glue around the edges of the rectangles without hanging holes.
















 With the heart, I experimented with adding colour using metallic markers.  I was quite pleased with how well teh colour stood out.

I then added the essential oil to the shapes; I chose Rose for the scent this time.

Because of how large the pieces are, rather than putting on a drop or two and leaving it, I used the stiff bristled brush to spread the oil across the surfaces.

I then reminded myself that, if I'm going to use a brush like that, I really ought to wait until the glitter glue dried, first.

Thankfully, I was able to fix the mess. LOL





Here they all are, fully dry.

And yes, they work quite well as diffusers.  My office smelled like roses for days!

Also, that glow in the dark glitter glue works really, really well.

Our tree now has quite a lot of scented ornaments.  The cinnamon and applesauce dough ornaments have held their scent for many years, and the more recent ornaments with spices decorating them have also maintained their scent quite well.  Even the sachets with drops of essential oil in the stuffing still let off a faint scent.  Now, we have roses, as well.

And here is how some of our new ornaments look on the tree!

Now that I've made these as ornaments, I am looking to make oil diffusers as pendents.  I am also looking into trying a white home made clay recipe.

If I'm happy with how they turn out, expect to see some in my etsy shop!