A toy soldier, sailboat and wooden zebra will make an adorable menagerie on my Christmas tree this year!
A flocked cat with bright green eyes plays with a
ball on top of the letter K alphabet block.
There are so many tiny toys that small chubby hands have stuffed into drawers here and there throughout my home. These little creatures are too charming to throw away and yet they are of little to no use to anyone since our children have grown. So, I decided to glue them to a set of children's alphabet blocks I purchased for pennies from a resale shop.
I used a tacky white glue to adhere the toys to the wooden surfaces. I will wire them on the bottom so that I can attach them to branches differently from hanging ornaments. I like to have several attachment options when it comes to decorating my Christmas trees.
These papier-mâché ornaments look much older than they
really are.
Supply List:
silver foil spray paint
acrylic paints: red, green, black, blue, white, flesh tone and brown
masking tape
paper pulp (Celluclay)
newspaper, newsprint
permanent ink marker
Acrylic varnish
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Crush newsprint into the rough shapes of standing figures. You needn't add any detail as of yet. The details are made with the Celluclay after the newsprint has been covered completely with masking tape.
Mask with tape the entire figure.
Now take a permanent ink pin and roughly mark on your figures where the face, arms, tree and hoods should be. You can also rough in the features of your Belznickle.
Add a wire hook to the backside of each figure with glue and masking tape. Make sure this sticks out a bit after you have added pulp around it.
Mix together the Celluclay with a bit of warm water. If the mixture is too loose add more pulp; if the mixture is too dry add more water.
Add a couple of Tablespoons of glue to the mixture to make it extra tacky.
Shape the features of your Belznickle with the Celluclay. It will stick to the surface of the masking tape quite easily. You will need to let the front side of your Belznickle dry in a warm place for a few days before sculpting on the backside of the figures. As you may have guessed these ornaments are best made during the warmer times of the year.
After the Belznickles have dried, you may spray paint them with silver foil paint. Do this in a well ventilated area, like a garage. Also put the figures inside of a large box while you spray. This will prevent the paint from floating onto the surface of something that you do not intend to cover with silver foil paint.
When these little guys have dried, paint them with acrylic paints. Let them dry again.
Varnish the figures with acrylic varnish and string them with a wire or ribbon for hanging.
This is what Celluclay looks like before and after you mix it with water and a bit of glue.
Cut a hexagon from a then piece of sturdy cardboard. Use a pencil to draw a smaller hexagon on the inside of the shape in the exact center of the cardboard.
Cut out the smaller interior hexagon carefully.
Now carefully wrap green chenille stems around the cardboard shaped wreath. You may choose to use a little white glue to help the chenille adhere to the cardboard surface as you work.
Let the wreath dry.
Glue on tiny red pom poms to both sides.
Tie on a lovely green silk ribbon to hang your ornament on the tree.
Hexagonal shaped wreath ornament. Left, paper template. Center, cardboard cut-out. Right, shape wrapped in chenille stems.
I used left over scrap wool for this Christmas ornament project. Little girls used to practice their sewing skills making decorative penny rugs during the mid 1800s for their homes. These little "rugs" as they called them were used to protect the surfaces of trunks, tables and dressers from scratches.
Traditional penny rugs use only round wool felt clippings for their designs but modern crafters often incorporate these simple shapes with more complicated motifs in their rug designs.
I made these penny peppermints using two stitches: the straight stitch and a blanket stitch. However, you may use the embroidery stitches that you prefer to make similar versions.
Supply List:
red and white threads
red and white wool scraps
circle template or coins to trace around
plastic sandwich bags
white glue
wire hooks for hanging
scissors
needle
Step-by-Step
Instructions:
Draw circular shapes to layer
on top of each other by tracing around objects like coins or use a circle
template if you like.
Then alternate red and white
penny shaped wool scraps to suggest peppermint candies.
Knot the red thread and work
from the back to the front all around the wool felt shapes.Sew using a
straight stitch the first four layers of penny shapes together.
Then blanket stitch the fourth
layer on top of the fifth using white thread.
Cut two more white felt circles
to sandwich between two identical finished penny peppermints to give the
wool candies thickness. Blanket stitch around the outside of these layers
with red thread.
Cut the sandwich bags into
rectangles. Wrap the wool peppermints by twisting either end together just
like real peppermint candies are packaged. I wound white thread and added
a bit of white glue to the threads in order to hold the plastic in place.
Twist on a wire hook at one end
to hang your wool peppermint candies on the tree.
Left, Steps for layering the peppermint penny ornaments. Right the finished result before wrapping these in plastic candy wrappers.
Penny rug sample
In the 1800s, starting around the time of the Civil War, thrifty homemakers would use scraps of wool
or felted wool from old clothing, blankets and hats to create designs
for mats or rugs. Using coins as templates, they created circles and
each piece was then stitched in blanket stitch
fashion. (Thus, the name "penny" rug). Sometimes, the mats or rugs were
backed with old burlap bags or feed sacks. Sometimes a penny was
stitched inside the mat to make it lie flat.
Penny rugs are not actual rugs for the floor, but decorative
coverings for beds, tables and dressers and mantles. Sometimes they are
used as wall hangings or pillows. Most designs include circles and some
include images from everyday life such as cats, flowers, birds and
shapes such as stars and hearts.
Penny rugs are made by selecting good quality 100% wool. It must not
be too thick. It may be hand-dyed or overdyed to give the piece
dimension. The wool is felted then circles are cut from the wool in
varying sizes and then stitched together concentrically using
complementary colors. The circles are stitched to a wool backing in a
pleasing design. When finished the entire piece should have a backing to
cover the stitches and to protect it. The backing may be wool, linen or
burlap. More Penny Rug Inspired Christmas Ornaments:
Cut and shape the two toilet paper rolls or any paper tubes to resemble a cut log. I choose to make this birch log shape a little narrower than the original circumference of an average toilet paper roll. I cut my two rolls length wise and curled them tighter before masking them with tape.
I cut down the size of one of the rolls and added a bit of glue to it's edge, then used masking tape to firmly attach the appendage to one end of my log.
Mask the entire form with tape before gluing on the dryer lint and cotton batting.
Unravel your cotton balls several at a time so that you can work quickly.
Apply white glue to sections of the log's surface as you layer the lint and cotton onto the cardboard tubes.
Give your Yule log time to dry between applications. I also layered dryer lint on the end interior surfaces of my log. I left parts of the log open however, in order to insert a letter or small money gift into the ornament later.
Once the log looks the way you wish it to, wrap black thread around it randomly to enhance the total realistic look of Birch bark.
Use the tip of your scissors to poke a hole in either end of your finished log and insert a cotton covered wire to shape a handle for the ornament.
I also wrapped a few vintage wired holly leaves/berries around this handle.
Glue on a little prefabricated mushroom bird to the top of your Yule log ornament too.
Now add a final thin coat of white glue to the finished piece and you are finished.
Left, finished Christmas tree. Center, backside of construction paper tree. See the different colors of tissue paper pasted over each hole. Right, the finished heart-shaped, Christmas tree craft.
The tree before tissues added.
Here is a simple little Christmas craft that any young child may enjoy making on a snowy Winter's day. You will need the following supplies: colored tissue papers, brown and green construction paper, scissors, white glue and round objects to use as stencils.
Cut out one very large heart from dark green construction paper. Turn this upside down and glue a large brown square to the backside of the heart leaving a few inches of it showing beneath the heart to represent the tree's trunk. Then cut a slightly smaller heart using a lighter shade of green construction paper and glue this on top of the larger heart shape. Continue cutting and gluing additional hearts in the same fashion. Look above at the photos to see the placement of these heart shapes.
Next use round objects or stencils to trace Christmas baubles on top of each section of your construction paper tree. Poke through each circle with the point of a pair of scissors and carefully cut away the circular shapes. Turn your Christmas tree over to it's backside and then paste small squares of tissue to cover each hole entirely. Let the surface dry.
Now you are ready to hang your decorated, construction paper tree on to any window. The light shining through each circular shape will look like stained glass.
I used a grey felt, silver and crystal seed beads and a simple
scene depicting a snowman to create this small stocking that
now hangs on my youngest child's Christmas tree every year.
When my mother-in-law passed away many years ago, I was given a few pieces of her costume jewelry. I did not frequently wear rhinestones nor did my little ones at that time, for they were quite young.
I did, however, have a mind to use these vintage pins in some way so that my children could have some sentimental memory associated with them. So I incorporated this glittery costume jewelry into a couple of beaded Christmas stockings. Then I gifted these to my girls on the Christmas following their grandmother's death.
Now every year I see these charming little socks hanging on their trees and think of her. She would have liked for her granddaughter's to remember her most at Christmas, for she was quite the Christmas fanatic herself. It was one of the happiest common interests that we shared together before her passing.
The pins can also be removed for wearing should my daughters care to use them for that purpose some day.
I will also post photos of my older girl's version as soon as she unpacks her ornaments for the season.
My appliqued snowman is made from white wool and he
sports a wooly scrap scarf as well.
Photographed here is one of the little rhinestone twig pins
that once belonged to my mother-in-law.
I finished the top edge of these stockings with wire and glass
seed beads. The sides of the stockings are finished with
embroidery floss using the blanket stitch.
You don't need much money to craft Thanksgiving heirloom treasures from recycled egg cartons and cotton batting. All it takes is a bit of imagination, glue and confidence to shape and paste cotton batting pumpkins like these. My miniature pumpkin ornaments are also hollow so that I can include a small token, scripture or money gift inside of each of them for my guests and family members.
From October through November I decorate my Blessing Tree with small delicate ornaments like these little cotton batting pumpkins.
Left, a finished cotton batting pumpkin. It's hollow so that I may add a message.
Right, Here you can see it hanging from a very delicate branch. Cotton batting
ornaments are very light weight!
Supply List:
egg cartons
white cotton balls
white school glue
thin wire
scissors
pencil
acrylic paints: red, orange, yellow, white, gold and green
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Cut dome shapes from paper egg cartons to use in this Thanksgiving Tree craft. You will need two dome shapes per pumpkin.
Glue the two halves together to shape a round pumpkin. Use tacky glue for this process and also add a bit of white cotton around the seam to give it strength. Brush the surface again with white glue and then let these forms dry over night.
Cut out a shape at the top of each pumpkin with a small pair of very sharp scissors. I cut out a cross shape at the top of my pumpkins.
Now you will need to roll in the palms of your hands some log-like shapes from your cotton batting in order to form the ribs of your pumpkins. Pinch down on either side of the log shapes to taper off the ribs at both the top and the bottom of the pumpkin. Glue these to the sides of your egg carton shapes. Let them dry.
Now brush on a layer of white glue and let this dry.
Pull of more cotton from your cotton balls and gently add this with another coat of glue to the surface of your pumpkin in order to shape a final layer of the batting. Let this dry.
Add a final coat of white glue and stick a pencil into the bottom half of your pumpkin. Pushing and twisting gently in order to give the pumpkin a more organic shape.
Glue a whole clove into this indention and let the pumpkin dry.
Now you may paint the surface of your pumpkin using gold, orange and red acrylic paints. I mix these together roughly while applying paint to the surface of my ornament. Paint the crevices with darker shades and the ribs with lighter ones.
Take your sharp scissor points and make two small hole on either side of the opening at the top of the pumpkin.
Insert a cotton coated wire and shape a handle. Paint this handle green to mimic a "vine."
I will insert a scripture in each of my hollow pumpkins for every guest I treat this year. I've listed a few popular blessing scriptures below.
Egg cartons make excellent craft material.
Left, I've cut out the cup shapes of an egg carton in order to shape my miniature pumpkins. Middle, Glue two of the egg cups together to form a hollow pumpkin shell. Cut a hole at the top so that you can insert a little treat, gift or message inside the pumpkin shell. Right, Glue a thin layer of cotton batting around the seam to conceal it and make your ornament stronger.
In these photos you can see how I shaped the cotton batting to form an organic looking pumpkin. A small clove is glued to the bottom of each miniature shell where the blossom end would normally be on a real pumpkin.
Here I have added handles to each pumpkin so that these may be hung from my Blessing Tree.
I used acrylic paints to color these old fashioned, hand sculpted ornaments.
Just a Few Blessing Scriptures to Include Inside The Pumpkin Ornaments: NIV versions
Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the
contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you
may inherit a blessing. 1 Peter 3:9
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called
children of God. Matthew 5:9
Whoever gives
heed to instruction prospers, and blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord. Proverbs: 16:20
A good man
brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man
brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks
what the heart is full of. Luke 6:45
Blessed are
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6
But to you
who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Luke 6:27-28
Taste and
see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Psalms 34:8
Worship the
Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take
away sickness from among you. Exodus 23:25
When my kids were very young, my husband and I lived in San Francisco. On weekends we would go to the beach for long walks and then splurge on a few hot ciders at a local market in Half Moon Bay. Occasionally I would find an interesting piece of driftwood on the beach and if it was small enough, I'd take it home and make good use of it.
One Christmas I painted a small piece of driftwood like a Belznickle and wrapped it up for my husband. Although it was a strange ornament it didn't look out of place on our tree, which was decked out entirely with Belznickes.
My younger child absconded it for her own collected memories and she now hangs him on her tree every year.
Driftwood is wood that has been washed onto a shore or beach of a
sea, lake, or river by the action of winds, tides or waves. It is a form
of marine debris or tidewrack. Above you can view the front, up close
and back of my hand painted driftwood Santa.
"A fun DIY video, how to build a driftwood Christmas tree . . I will post the full step by step tutorial on my blog (tomorrow Dec 16th) with more details and a link to buying the tree we made for this video. visit, http:// debisdesigndiary.com..If you enjoyed this video subscribe to my youtube channel for more DIY tutorials, I post new videos regularly to youtube!
You can also find me on Facebook Facebook.com/debisdesigndiary" Here is the video DIY of the cute beach ball ornament Debi made.
I painted these faux stained glass baubles approximately ten years ago. I used some specialized products to achieve this unusual stained glass effect. The Gallery Glass® products have been around for a long time. If you can not find them in a shop near you, you can visit the company online and order the supplies yourself. I've included a link to their website below with one of their videos.
Supply list:
A colorful selection of Gallery Glass® Window Color: pearly white, red and blue
I used Gallery Glass Redi-Lead Strips (thin black)
acrylic silver paint
large clear glass baubles
a china marker or grease pencil
X Acto knife
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Clean the surfaces of your glass baubles to insure maximum contact with the Redi-Lead Strips. Use Windex or vinegar and let the glass ornament dry.
Draw a design on your glass bauble using a china marker or grease pencil. You won't see these marks because your going to cover them up with the Redi-Lead Strips.
Apply the Redi-Lead Strips on top of your lines made with the china marker to create a simple pattern. These strips stick but can be moved around for a few seconds before the tacky surface dries. I cut my strips into clean, precise angles using an X Acto knife as I laid them onto the glass surface.
You may choose to use Gallery Glass Liquid instead. This liquid version of "leading" is more difficult to use on baubles, however.
Use Gallery Glass® Window Colors to fill in the spaces between your designs.
I painted the lead stripping using a silver acrylic paint on my glass baubles, but you can leave the black color if you wish.
Sequin ornaments like this little snare drum are becoming very popular among ornament collectors. I often find them tossed into plastic baggies and sold in bunches at garage sales. If you aren't lucky enough to find the real vintage ones, you can make them yourself. I've included directions below for those of you who can manage to purchase the polystyrene or Styrofoam drum shapes on the web. This little drum shape is not as easy to find in hobby or craft shops anymore.
Supply List:
2 inch diameter and 1 1/2 inch tall Polystyrene shaped drums or Drum-shaped Styrofoam pieces
8mm diameter cup sequins: red, green and white
red, green and white seed beads
star sequins
flat head pins
tacky white glue
white pipe cleaner or chenille stem
gold beads
1/2 yard of gold ribbon for trim
thin gold twine
Step-by-Step Directions:
Before pinning your drum, you will need to mark diagonal lines with a soft pencil on the side of your Styrofoam drum. Also leave a strip of space at both the top and the bottom of the side edges unpinned. The width of these strips should be the same as the gold ribbon you will be using to trim the edges of your drum.
Thread one seed bead onto your pin and then also a sequin of the same color. Touch the tip of each pin with a bit of white glue as you pin to hold your work in place after the glue dries.
Next pin four rows of red sequins following the diagonal pencil marks. Follow these four rows with four rows of white, then green sequins.
Use a bit of tacky glue to adhere the gold ribbon around the top and bottom edges of the drum's sides.
Pin gold beads through the gold trim allowing approximately 1/2 inch between each bead.
Twist the gold twine gently around each gold bead, there should be ten of these at the top and ten at the bottom. Look at the photos above and below to visualize this chris-cross pattern made by the twine.
Cut and pin a little loop for one end of the drum to hang a hook from.
Bend a white pipe cleaner 2 1/2 inches long in half and pin this down on top of the drum with a small piece of gold trim. Glue on a gold bead to each end of this pipe cleaner. This stem mimics the drum sticks for your sequin snare drum.
Pin a few seed beads plus starry sequins to both the top and the bottom of your Styrofoam drum and add a wire for hanging this little vintage drum.
Different angles of a small sequin snare drum made in the 1950s or 1960s for the Christmas tree.
I pasted cotton batting balls to the top of my chenille stem figures and then
added a variety of tiny trims to finish my Santa and snowman ornaments: a tiny
bottle brush wreath, red ribbon, a small cotton batting top hat and a few
red winter berries.
Traditional chenille stem figures were wrapped with Bump Chenille stems. Each stem had and still does have four "bumps" per wire. You can make one character with one piece of Bumpy Chenille just like the vintage ones sold in old catalogs or on ebay. Most craft or hobby shops carry Bump Chenille but if you can not find it in a shop, search the internet and order it ahead of time for this easy old-fashioned, vintage craft.
Step-by-Step photos of twisting a chenille stem figure.
Directions:
Cut one bumpy piece of chenille stem with two bumps and a second piece with only one. The two bumps will be the legs of your tiny armature and the single bump with be the arms.
Position the single bump in the center of the double cut bump wire and then twist the double cut bump wire around the arms to shape the body. (shown above)
Now your ready to paste on a tiny bead or picture for a head.
Twist the tips of your arms where the hands of your figure would obviously be to hold tiny bottle brush trees, a miniature sack of toys, a tiny candy cane etc...
These light weight ornaments are perfectly suited to hang for a feather tree or you can even decorate a package with them.
These tiny Bump Chenille stem figures will be hung from my feather tree for Christmas.
My strawberry millinery fruits are ready hang on the Christmas tree.
This Fruity Turban, 1917
Millinery fruits have always been popular ornamentation on both ladies hats and on Christmas trees. The word millinery refers to the designing and manufacture of hats.
Millinery is sold to women, men and children, though some definitions limit the term to women's hats.
Historically, milliners, typically female shopkeepers, produced or
imported an inventory of garments for men, women, and children,
including hats, shirts, cloaks, shifts, caps, neckerchiefs, and
undergarments, and sold these garments in their millinery shop.
The origin of the term is likely the Middle English milener, an inhabitant of Milan or one who deals in items from this Italian city known for its fashion and clothing.
Decorating with fruit themes during Christmas was quite typical of Early American Colonists. You can learn how the colonists decorated with pyramids or fruit cones for their Christmas dinner parties at history.org as well.
Several years ago I purchased some inexpensive milliner fruits to "upcycle" into something special for my Christmas tree.
I will have a collection of fruit themed ornaments on the tree nearest to my dinning room this year. You may use any fruit you like for the simple ornament craft below but I have elected to make clusters of strawberries for my tree. This is not only because of their red color but also because the strawberry is somewhat reminiscent of German glass, mouth-blown, strawberry ornaments of which I have always been fond of.
Left, a couple of plastic canisters of inexpensive millinery strawberries. Center, I have wrapped the stems of two or three strawberries together with wire and tape. Then is wrapped the wire "stems" with cotton batting. Right, I have shaped the wire into hooks for hanging the millinery fruit clusters on my Christmas tree.
Supply List:
millinery fruits, your choice
wire for wrapping the stems into hooks
cotton balls
green acrylic paint
white glue
glitter, your favorite
permanent black felt pen
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Purchase millinery fruits from your local resale shops or hobby stores.
I chose to wire two or three strawberries together to create a cluster of berries to hang from the branches of my Christmas tree.
Then I covered the wired stems with white glue and cotton and painted these green. Let the stems dry thoroughly.
Make sure the surfaces of the fruits are clean before adding painted or inked details. I used a permanent black felt pen to draw seeds onto the surfaces of my strawberries.
Dab on a generous application of white glue with the tip of your finger or a brush.
I then rolled the millinery fruit in the glitter and allowed these surfaces to dry before hanging them on the tree.
More Millinery Inspired Ornaments for The Christmas Tree:
Carmen Miranda wore millinery fruit like no one else! She was in fact, a milliner by trade before being discovered by Josue de Barros. She eventually became a successful samba singer, dancer and Broadway actress during the 1930s -1950s.
Hot glue a wooden bead to the top of a Rigatoni piece of pasta. The Rigatoni will act as the torso of the angel, the wooden bead will be her head.
Glue one piece of macaroni to each side of the torso to act as arms.
Now hot glue the inverted tack on top of the angels arms to act as the candle in a holder.
Next, glue on a Bow Tie pasta piece between the angel's shoulder blades on the back side of her torso; this pasta is her wings.
The last gluing step involves adding enough glue to the top and sides of the wooden bead to make the hair. Use some tiny shapes of Minute Pasta or white rice for this step.
Let the tiny Pasta figures dry and snip off any stray glue strands that are not attractive. Hot glue leaves some of these while you work.
Choose a warm dry place to work so that the painted pasta angels will dry quickly between coats of spray painting. Make sure that this environment is well ventilated. Read the instructions on the label of spray can carefully. Wear a disposable paper mask while you are working to limit the amount of fumes that you inhale while working.
Line the bottom of the box where you will be spray painting the angels with wax paper or tin foil so that the painted pasta ornaments do not stick the surface in which they are lying on as they dry.
It is important to spray paint within the interior of a box so that the spray paint does not land upon other surfaces that you do not intend to paint during the process.
Turn the pasta angels and spray them lightly in layers as they dry.
Hot glue a fancy ribbon to the tip of the angel's head or to the back of your angel's wings.
Here are some simple acorn ornaments for Thanksgiving displays. These ornaments are made from homespun cotton batting, a little paint plus glitter and they don't take long to shape. Young children will also enjoy collecting acorn caps from the woods in order to help craft these charming little decorations. Leave the nuts behind for the wildlife folks.
My little pilgrim decoration along with acorns.
Supply List:
white cotton balls
acrylic paints: red, orange, yellow, gold and brown
acorn caps
white glue
transparent glitter
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Pull apart several white cotton balls so that you can work quickly.
Add a bit of white glue to the center of a wad of cotton and roll this between the palms of your hands to form a small cotton ball.
Hold this ball up next to your acorn cap to determine how much bigger the ball needs to get in order to fit into the inside of the acorn cap. Add additional glue and cotton as needed.
Pinch off one end of the cotton ball to create the tip of your acorn.
Glue the ball to the acorn cap and let it dry overnight.
Paint your acorns in what ever color you desire and let the cotton batting ornament dry.
Apply a bit more glue with your finger tip and roll the acorn in glitter.
I twisted a fine copper wire around the stems of some of my acorns so that I may be able to hang these from my Blessing tree. I scattered some of the acorns throughout my Fall displays around my home.
Left, Acorn caps a plentiful where I live. Center, Here you can see my cotton batting acorns unpainted. Right, I've painted the acorns and have also rolled them in transparent glitter.
Left, A close-up of one of the cotton batting acorns hanging from the delicate branches of my Blessing tree. Center, A little pilgrim and a few scattered acorn decorations at the base of my Blessing tree. Right, These acorns have attached caps.
The answer is yes folks; that's the law sometimes. If you are reading my blog in a different country than where it originates here in the U.S., Blogger may need to alter what you are viewing. That's o.k. by me; better something than nothing I always say. So, my Belzsnickle Blog (Belsnickle) for the Canadian audience is listed as http://belsnickle.blogspot.ca and it is a shorter version than the original. Sorry for the confusion.
Who doesn't like to go for a walk in the fall leaves? For this project you will need to do so, however, I've included just a few samples of leaves you may print out that were found not far from my own home just below.
Take your little ones for a stroll through the park or neighborhood to collect some lovely fall leaves. Spread these face down on your printer's screen and close the lid, scan, and print in full color. Cut them out and back these with a bit of glue and a few nice fall themed papers. Insert a wire between the layers while you are pasting. I used a cotton covered wire and then painted my stems with brown and gold acrylic paints to mimic the real stems of leaves. These little delicate beauties may be hung from the very tips of a fragile Blessing tree; their colors will not fade for a few years nor will they shrink, crack or fall from your own indoor tree.
Left, xerox prints of my Fall leaf collection. Middle, cotton batting covered wire. Right, My leaf stems are ready for painting as soon as the paper ornaments have dried.
Because my blessing tree is so very delicate, so must my ornaments be.
Leaves are by their very nature light weight and so are the my leaf
ornament versions for this year's tree.
I collected these beautiful Fall leaves in my neighborhood for my Blessing Tree.
You can capture their color and shapes with a scanning bed, no problem!
There are many yellow leaves in our little community as well.
You should see the magnificent Maple tree this one came from!
