Recycled Holiday Ornament Tutorial #2

I know it is almost too late to be making holiday decorations now, but here goes, anyway. Tutorial #2.

Cut a cardboard tube leftover from wrapping paper, toilet paper or paper towels into sections. I used scissors to do this and it did get squashed a little, but I was able to make it round again. You could try using an Exacto knife if you don't want to squash it. I had some leftover from the window project which were painted. You can paint yours or leave it au naturale. Here is what it looks like.

The next step is for an adult to do. Make evenly (somewhat) spaced slots around the edge of the tube in the middle with an Exacto knife. It should look something like this.

Next, I used some big paper clips I had leftover from one of the elementary art lessons I did a few years ago. But you could also try using strips cut from plastic lids or containers, or cardboard strips from food boxes. You just want to make sure it is something a little stiff. Push the paper clips or strips into the slots. You will end up with something like this.

Then I cut some circles to go inside the tube from some food boxes. Some I decoupaged on wrapping paper or magazine pages, but I also left some just the way they were. You will need to cut two circles, one for the front and one for the back (you can trace the inside of the tube to make a template before putting in the paper clips, if you want). If you would like some variety, you can cut shapes out of the circles.

When you have the circles the way you like them, you will put glue on the backs of each and glue them to the paper clips and each other (sandwich the paper clips). I suggest using tacky glue for this as it works well for gluing disparate materials together. This should be enough to hold the paper clips in place, but I also put a little white glue on the outside edge of slots to help reinforce holding the paper clips in.

Below shows the back of one I made where I left the food box just the way it was. My grocery shopping one week was largely based on the color of container. There are quite a few things with red containers or boxes.

After this point, you can glue more things in the center of the circles to spruce it up even more. Some ideas are buttons, bottle caps, stickers, a smaller circle cut out of a different container, beads, etc. I recommend using the tacky glue again, unless it is a sticker or paper item.


The selection of beer for that grocery shopping week was based solely on this very cute polar bear cap.


Tie a string around one of the paper clips, hang and enjoy.  A bunch of these would look great in a window.

Recycled Holiday Ornament Tutorial

I just wanted to give you a quick tutorial on one of the decorations I made for my Winter Window. It's super simple and uses recycled materials.

Start with some plastic lids from yogurt or butter containers (or whatever else you can find). You can also use the bottom of the container if you choose. Cut off the edge of the lid (or cut circle out of bottom of container). Make sure the piece is completely flat. Then cut lines in toward the center, about halfway in, all around the edge. Be sure to cut an even number of lines. You should have something that looks like this.

If you want two layers, do the same for a smaller circle. Then, bend one "arm" forward and one "arm" back, alternating all the way around the lid. You can also cut the "arms" into different shapes to create variety. Now, you should have something that looks like this.

Next, you can put a piece of string, yarn, fabric or pipe cleaner around the lid between the arms. Tie or twist and trim ends. You can also do the same for the smaller circle if you want.

Find different items, such as pieces of old wrapping paper, colorful food boxes, cut felt pieces, etc, to decorate the very center of your ornament. Cut a slit in the center of all the pieces and push a brad through all to hold it together. Punch a hole in one of the "arms", tie string to hang and enjoy your decoration. On the first picture, I used a piece of scrapbook paper for the center.

If you want a two-sided decoration, just put two lids back to back. After placing the brad through (and opening prongs), you can glue something over the prongs to cover. Here are some I did for the window.

Circle Stamps

Here is an idea I think I read somewhere on the internet and decided to give it a try. You can make easy circle stamps with craft foam that looks like marshmallows. I bought a package thinking Anna would like to do it, too.

Here are some of the stamps below. Some things you can do are carve them (image will be positive), draw on them with a pencil (image will be negative), glue stuff on top (I used a craft foam sticker for the flower or try to impress something in it (I used a spiral paper clip that worked pretty well.) You can also do both ends of the marshmallow to have two designs.



Anna couldn't figure out what to do on the circle format and abandoned the project, but I had lots of fun playing with designs and used up my 12 marshmallows very quickly. They work fine with regular ink, but the design lines are so fine when using the pencil that I'm not sure they would work with paint on fabric. I'll have to try sometime. I guess if you had a bunch of real marshmallows that were stale you could try using those.

Blackbird

Here is a bird I made yesterday for a coworker who likes blackbirds. It is made from pieces of wool sweaters and a blazer. I used this pattern. It is the first 3D bird I have made and I didn't really intend for it to be a funny bird, but that is how it turned out. Now Anna wants me to make one for her (probably so all her stuffed cats can eat it!).

Wool Bird

Halloween is over and I'm ready to move on. It seemed like it dragged out over a long period of time this year. Anyway, here is a little wool bird ornament I made from fabric from an old coat. The shape was from the new Quilting Arts Gifts guide. But, of course, I did it a bit different than they did.

Forest for the Trees

I finally got around to making some of these trees which I saw here. Of course, I can't make things easy on myself. I had to make some modifications. While zigzaging the edges, I used my couching foot on my machine and added the funky yarns around the edge. I didn't do the zigzag stitch on the straight edge. I used fray check instead.


Then, instead of gluing the cones together, I used a pipe cleaner. I put a loop at one end of the pipe cleaner. Threaded that through the bottom cone. Then since I wanted more space between the sections, I wrapped the pipe cleaner around a pencil to give it a spiral shape. Next, I put on the second section and continued in the same manner until I reached the top. I had some star paper clips. So I folded the remaining pipe cleaner around the star to keep it on top. They look a bit Suessian and they kind of boing around when you move them. Now I just have to make the placemats to go with them and then I can line them up down the middle of my dining room table. I love this fabric. It is by Moda and the green is more like chartreuse.


Here I had to include another picture of Anna. Since she was requested to open some presents earlier (by someone who shall remain nameless), I wanted you to see the result. One of the presents was a gift card to Build-a-Bear Workshop. Of course there was no waiting until after Christmas to use it! So we went one day after school. She purchased the polar bear and pink leopard and the Santa dress.

Advent calendar tip: Use a timer for your outside lights so they aren't lit all night and you can save energy and money.

Homemade ornaments

We purchased our live cut tree this past weekend from a non-profit organization and it is now all decorated. If you have some bare spots on your tree, think about making your own ornaments.

After I graduated from college, I made ornaments for my college housemates every year for about 5- 10 years. After that, I figured they had enough to get them started. When Anna was born, I tried to make an ornament every year for her. As she got old enough we made ornaments together. I think we missed last year. But it is fun and she loves to remember when we get them out. Below are some of our homemade ornaments.

Here is a link for some cool looking paper ornaments. I also just found this link to make ornaments from photos (or you could use fancy paper). Go here to see some really cute denim tree ornaments. Other ideas include origami ornaments.




I love these button ornaments. It's just buttons and beads threaded on wire. So easy and I love the way they look on the tree. And you can do lots of different combinations. We also did some in silver and blue.

These pinwheels are easy to make using scrap fabrics fused together.

Just in the St. Nick of Time!

I managed to finish the advent calendar. I sewed on all the buttons that Anna arranged and the letters by hand last night. Filled the pockets this morning before I went to work. As you can see on some of them, they are bulging. The pockets ended up a little small. Everything I had fit, but one. Anna will have to do a little treasure hunt to get that prize.

I also thought I would do an advent blog calendar. I think Christmas has become too much about consumerism and marketing. So, my blog advent calendar will concentrate on environmentally friendly ideas. I will put these thoughts, ideas, suggestions in red or green and any regular blog fodder in the usual black. I hope to be able to do every day until Christmas. Starts tomorrow.

It's starting to look like ...

something fun!


For about the past five years, we have gotten Anna a Playmobil advent calendar for December. The calendar had people and pieces that went with a scene. Anna loved them and used them to make her stop-motion animated videos (you can view here). Every year the last piece would be a Santa Claus. We have about five of them now. This year the Playmobil company changed the format. They have a calendar for girls and and calendar for boys and they are not Christmas themed. (I think this is smart to have two different ones if you had two kids.) Seeing as how Anna is not really into the fairy-tale princess, pink unicorn thing, I wasn't sure about getting it. I asked her if she would like that (or the boy knight themed version) but she seemed hesitant. I said maybe we could find something else or I could make a calendar. We saw a Littlest Pet Shop calendar but it had only three of the pets and Anna already had some of them.

So, above you see the start of her calendar, along with a new, huge tree skirt and some postcards I've started. The numbered pocket idea came from the "AllSorts" blog by Jenny Harris (you can see it here). She also has a pattern for the pocket. Her pockets were on a string, but I didn't know where I would put a string. Therefore, I sewed them onto felt with the stiff Pellon interfacing attached. I just did that tonight and now I need to add some more decorations. Anna asked me if I had stuff to put in the pockets. I said, "Oh, you put stuff in the pockets?" Of course I have stuff to put in the pockets!

Boxes and Bags

I know it is the day before Thanksgiving and here I am going to mention Christmas. I don't usually like that, but it is somewhat of a necessity here. We live in Idaho and the rest of our family lives east of Missouri. To avoid the mail rush, I like to try to have presents wrapped, packed and shipped before or just after Thanksgiving. I managed to do that today (take note family boxes are headed your way!). Some of the boxes contain bags like these below.

At one of our local quilt shops, they had an example of a gift bag that was very cute and very similar to these. I asked to look at the book which had the pattern. I think it is called Strippin' Time. I would have bought it if there had been any other projects in it that I was interested in, but there was not. I was pretty sure I could figure it out on my own (I'm pretty good at that). Mine are a little different but basically the same idea.

I did the piecing and quilting as I went along. I had not done that before but I understood the concept - put the pieces on top of the batting and backing and sew them together while you are also quilting. The seam lines are the quilting lines. And since I wanted to make these fast, I did not do extra quilting. I also was using up some fusible batting which made them a little stiffer than if you use regular batting. I made them specifically to fit the gifts they hold, but I might make some more to have on hand. I was trying to use up some old Christmas fabrics I've had for a while (I've made Christmas fabric envelopes and fabric buckets in the past).

I like using these because the recipient can re-use them to give to someone else next year. Or after I looked at these, they could be stuffed with something and used as little decorative pillows!