Glitter Ornaments

When my husband spent time time celebrating his brother's 65th birthday, I decided to have a two-day Crafters Retreat. My piles of  "next projects" are teetering, so I thought I'd see if I could winnow them down a bit by having some crafting fun.

I started by making glitter ornaments.

I learned about this technique on Facebook and Pinterest. I gathered the plastic globe ornaments, some floor wax, and all the glitter I had on hand. Glitter can be so messy, so I covered my surfaces thoroughly. I also prepared my drying racks.

First, pull off the ornament topper. Pour in some floor wax. Swirl the wax inside the ornament so the entire surface on the inside is covered. Drain the excess liquid.

Carefully pour some glitter inside the ornament. Swirl and shake until the glitter covers the entire inside surface. Turn the ornament upside down and shake out the excess glitter. 

Some tips? 

• Swirl the floor wax around the globe instead of shaking it. Shaking causes bubbles to form.
  
• Fine glitter works somewhat better than big glitter. I used up all my big glitter on this project before trying the fine glitter. The fine glitter coated more thoroughly.
• Don't be stingy with the glitter. Adding a larger-than-needed amount seemed to help coat the inside of the ornament better, even if you end up shaking a lot of the excess back out. The excess can be used on the next ornament. For this ornament, I had to combine three colors of glitter to have enough to cover the inside surface.
  
  

Set the ornaments upside down on the rack until dry.

Add the topper back in. I decided to use a 12 inch length of white satin ribbon to tie a bow around the top of each ornament.

Overall, this was a fairly successful operation. I'll need to dig out some nail polish remover to get rid of some sticky spots on the outside of a couple of the ornaments. I used plastic ornament globes. The blue one got smunched in and I couldn't get the dent out all the way. That one I'll keep for myself. But it's pretty nice to already have the 2025 family Christmas ornaments done!

Shhhhhh! Don't tell anyone these are really 10 months late. I'd originally planned to make them for 2024.

Here's one of the videos I used to help me learn:

One craft complete for the Crafter's Retreat! Now ... which technique to pick next?

Abby's First Christmas

It's a tradition for me to embroider an individualized ornament for each new grandchild. For Melody, I cross-stitched baby feet. For Annie, an owl. Jodie didn't have anything in particular in mind and encouraged me to use my imagination. 

Abby's nursery is decorated with a goat (kid) theme, so I jumped into that idea. I found this adorable image online and used it as my starting point. I chose a slightly different color scheme, and sketched a little Christmas stocking hanging from the goat's mouth instead of the tin can.

I designed the back myself, using an old-fashioned compass to draw the circles. I used my own handwriting for the lettering ... but not until after I spent more than an hour trying to figure out how to do it on the computer and coming up short - and frustrated. I finally decided "done is better than good" and went with the less professional-looking version.

I used some scrap fabric as the ground cloth. I think this might actually be a piece of an old bedsheet. It was quite thin, so before I started stitching on it, I ironed on a piece of fusible interfacing. The interfacing is translucent, so it's a bit hard to see in the photo. But if you look inside those blue lines the edges are visible.

Then I did a floss toss, choosing goat and Christmas colors.

The stitching went quickly, once the designs were transferred onto the fabric. I embellished the back with two tiny red buttons.

I decided to finish the ornament using these "Finishing Forms." They work much like covered buttons. A thin layer of fiberfill/batting is laid over the convex side of the form. The stitching is laid on top of that. The fabric is stretched to the back side of the form and glued in place. 

Then the two stitched pieces are glued together along the edges. Finally, I covered the edge of the ornament with a braided cord, adding a hanging loop at the top.

That's pretty cute!

Front and back.

Oh, Fudge!

Dale and I finished the fudge!

There's one for each of our three closest neighbors.

We gussied up the red platters with some greenery, silver ball ornaments, a statement ornament, and tied it up with a bow. To protect the fudge from the rain during delivery, we wrapped the platters in clear cellophane.

One of our neighbors doesn't celebrate Christmas, so the statement ornament was a winter berry bush rather than an elf.

In case our neighbors have some dietary restrictions that we don't know about, I made a little sign with a list of ingredients.

We also gave them a copy of the recipe that we used in case they like the fudge and want to make some for themselves.

We love the neighborhood we live in. It's fun and heartwarming to share holiday treats with our lovely neighbors this way.

 

Santa's Workshop - Kitchen Edition

What do you get when you combine candy morsels, walnuts, dried cranberries, and pure vanilla extract

with sweetened condensed milk,

some greenery,

some bright red platters and ornamental decorations?

The start of some fudge rings for special people in our lives.

Dale and I make a good team in the kitchen this holiday season.

Bead Ornaments

Last Sunday my eldest came by for a crafternoon.

Jeanne suggested we make up a couple beaded icicle ornament kits. The first six ornaments have a cage of pearl and clear faceted beads at the top 

with a large teardrop bead at the bottom. Jeanne takes the lead in the process and I get to follow along.

The second set of beads looks much like some we made in 2022. 

They have two sizes of clear faceted beads

with a swish of tiny pearl seed beads.

It's been months since we shared a crafternoon. We had such an enjoyable time that we hope to make it a regular monthly get-together.

Two Dozen Hearts

I got a bee in my bonnet to make some more quilted hearts to leave around town and give strangers a smile. Months and months ago I cut these 24 hearts from old placemats. Pre-quilted! Then they sat.

While looking through my kitted-up projects, these floated to the top of the pile. I had an ah-ha! moment when I remembered that "Done is better thang good," and instead of making each heart a unique piece of "art," I could make a big batch of very similar hearts. 

I started by finding red, pink and white heart-shaped buttons.

I gathered lace

cording

ribbons

I cut pieces to size and did a rough layout

Then I got to work. First using my sewing machine, I sewed a strip of lace along one of the pre-quilted lines. Then I sewed around the edge of the heart, trapping a piece of cording to the top as the ornament hanger.

I used this YouTube video to learn how to use a fork to tie tiny bows. Some of my ribbon pieces were quite short, so that proved to be a challenge.

Gradually, each heart had its components. Then was my favorite part, the hand stitching.

No two of the 24 hearts are exactly alike. I varied the size and color of the buttons along with the size and color of the cording and ribbon bows.

I sewed this label to the back of each heart.

Such a pile of potential happiness!

Finally, I packaged them up to send to my granddaughters in Idaho. I wrote them a letter to describe what the hearts are for -- to spread love and kindness. I gave them some ideas of where they can be placed. I told them it's OK to give one to a special person, too -- especially if that person is having a hard day.

I'm looking forward to hearing about their experience of doing these random acts of kindness.

3-D Paper Butterflies

This is the first in what I hope is a new series I'll call DIYoutube.  As in ... Do It Yourself - YouTube style. 

For the last several years, I've been saving up crafty ideas I found on YouTube that I thought I might want to try one day. Today's that first day. My hope is that these will be little crafts or techniques that will only take an hour or two to learn and execute. And so I present my 3-D Paper Butterflies.

They use some origami techniques, but also includes some cutting. So this is closer to kirigami:

a variation of origami, the Japanese art of folding paper. In kirigami,

the paper is cut as well as being folded, resulting in a three-dimensional design

that stands away from the page. Kirigami typically does not use glue.

This butterfly does use some hot glue, though, to hold the folds of the wings together and to attach the antenna and body. This yellow-orange print butterfly was my first attempt.

Then I made a plain blue butterfly from slightly thicker paper.

Then a plain pink. I learned it's best to use paper that is the same color/design on both sides. The white side of the paper can be seen in my first attempt.

I'm not sure if or how I'll use these little beauties. They remind me of Spring, though, and the bright colors I chose evoke happiness in me. Perhaps I can use them as ornaments on my lighted Spring tree. Here I've taped it onto my hoodie like a broach.

This is the tutorial I used:

It's fun! Give it a try.

The Entryway

 Christmas preparations continued over the last couple days. Decorations in our home's entryway are complete.

I display the Christmas cards we receive on a wire wreath. Each day new arrivals are clipped to the wreath frame with ribbon-covered mini clothespins.

Guarding the front door is Morty, my six-foot giraffe. He's sporting a stripey scarf, a bright bow, and sparkling reindeer antlers. Behind him is Twill, the sewing elf I stitched in 2002.

Across the hall, Grace takes her place on the table's bottom shelf sporting her new ribbon tie. She always adds a bit of serenity to the scene.

Decorations on the table are complete. Three gnomes sit beneath the candy cane tree. Melted wax wafts  a spicy scent throughout the house.

Overhead is the Candy Cane Swag I made a couple evenings ago. The plastic canes are about three feet long. I found them at Dollar Tree along with the large silver and red bells. They're all tied together with three red ribbons I had in my stash. I'm super pleased with the way this turned out!

At the stairs is my all-time favorite Christmas decoration. Jodie (and I) made this when she was tiny ... maybe three or four years old. She did all the stitching herself. I had her sit in my lap. I sewed the four pieces together.

This year, Jodie's Snowman got a couple new bows to match our Candy Cane theme.

I managed to decorate the Christmas tree, too (but the photos didn't come out well. I may try again). It's all white lights, red ribbons, and "crystal" beaded ornaments. Very simple and sweet.