What Mickey and Minnie looked like before they became famous...
I made these little mouse ornaments based upon Disney's early "Steamboat Willie" character mice, The video link is included below. Because the design rights to these early mice have now passed into the public domain, I feel less guilty about producing for a family member who collects Disney mice. She particularly collects everything Steamboat Willie and I know she doesn't have ornaments of them yet. The original mice are all in black and white so I added a bit of Christmas 'cherry red' wool to liven them up a bit for her tree.
Many layers of cotton batting and white school glue over simple chenille stem armature.
Supply List:
cotton balls
white school glue
chenille stems
red, gold, and white felt wool scraps
decorative white buttons (2)
acrylic paints (black, green)
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Watch the "Steam Boat Willie" film from YouTube to observe the proportions of Disney's early mice. These are quite different from the Mickey and Minnie our children are familiar with today.
Unwind the cotton balls until you have collected together at least half of a bag in a stack.
Cover seven to eight lengths of standard chenille stems using white school glue and cotton batting.
To get the cotton to stick to the chenille stems, roll the lengths plus a little glue between the palms of your hands.
Bend and twist the wires to make a rudimentary "mouse-like" armature for each figure you wish to make.
Wad together cotton balls with glue for the head and belly of each mouse then glue these on while winding thin layers of cotton around the wire armature and cotton wads.
Form ear shapes and then attach these to each side of the head. Do the same for the noses.
Shape the fingers using wire twisted around the ends of each arm.
Cover the fingers sparingly with cotton batting so that they will not become too plump.
Paint the entire body of each mouse using black except for the faces. Leave these white.
Carefully paint the facial features using a very tiny brush tip and black paint.
Dress each mouse using bits of red wool felt.
Trim Steamboat Willie's pants using white buttons.
Left, and center, the early Mickey who was first called "Steamboat Willie" had a distinctly narrow mussel so unlike the round one he is famous for today. Right, once I painted his body black, I began to glue on his red wool slippers.
Left, and center are his pants to fit his narrow figure once gathered with matching thread. Center and right, see me sewing on his simple costume.
Left and center, I sculpted the two at once, together so that the wire would be cut to the same lengths. Right, Minnie has been painted with acrylics and now she is ready to have her hat and slippers finished. Her shoes were painted and so was the stem on her hat's flower.
Her flower on the hat is shaped from felt and attached with tacky white glue.
More details of Willie, the hole cut-out of his pants for his tail to stick through, the white buttons are attached to his pants at the front.
Now they are ready to sit sweetly on the Christmas tree!
Our gingerbread cookie fort began with the discovery of two, well-loved, clothespin soldiers at the thrift store. These British gentleman had worn looking bear skin hats, chipping paint and funny drawn expressions; they looked as though each had seen many battles in the nursery... I decided to recycle them into something new.
Gingerbread fort guarded by soldier's wearing bearskin hats, holding peppermint lollipops. I added faux "chocolate" chunks to their hats made from scrap brown foam mat.
Supply List:
two wooden clothespins
acrylic paints: brown, red, white, and blue
white braid
permanent black ink marker
two large black pom-poms (if your soldiers are British)
wire and white ribbon for hanging
large, medium and small wooden Popsicle sticks for the gingerbread fort
white school glue
hot glue and hot glue gun
four red chenille stems, three white
colorful Styrofoam beads
narrow white lace trims
novelty Christmas trims (optional)
Step-by-Step Instructions:
With the help of an adult, use the hot glue gun to attach black pom-poms, or ''bearskin'' hats to the heads of two wooden clothespins - that is if you are making guards of the gingerbread fort British. You can make these guards look more like soldiers from your own country, of course.
Paint the upper part of the soldiers red for their icing coats and the lower halves blue for their icing pants.
Cut a red chenille stem down to fit the length of each soldier's arms. Slide the arm piece into a small nail hole on either side of the soldier's shoulders using glue to make the arms stationary. Let dry and set the soldiers aside to make the Popsicle fort.
Glue on rows of Popsicle sticks like those shown below in the photograph, on top of Popsicle cross bars underneath. There should be two that are horizontal to each other. You can see the lower one sticking out under the draw bridge at the bottom of the fortress. Let the first gluing dry.
Next attach the turrets and drawbridge.
Use the permanent ink pen to draw the opening for the draw bridge and windows. Now you are ready for the painting of the fort.
Paint the gingerbread fort entirely brown to begin with. The openings should be a bit darker.
Hot glue the soldiers on either side of the drawbridge.
Wind together red and white chenille stems to make two peppermint lollipops; one for each soldier to hold. (optional candy canes)
Wind together two more small white and red stems to make the candy canes attached to the front gates at the drawbridge.
Using oven-bake clay make the circular candies painted red and white to trim the drawbridge and top of the fort outer-wall.
Now trim the gingerbread with tiny colorful Styrofoam beads to make strands of lights.
Glue on white lace trim to mimic decorative white icing.
Also glue on white braid to trim out the soldier's uniforms to look like icing. Because our soldiers were once trimmed in gold braid, I painted these white for icing during this craft.
Trim out the rest of the gingerbread fort with any other novelties you like.
Hot glue on hook and white ribbon to hang the gingerbread fort on a Christmas tree.
Left, two typical soldiers for Christmas crafts dressed in bear skin hats, British? Center an early log fortress made with Popsicle sticks. Right, the old clothespin soldiers guarding our childlike fort from Rat King most likely...
Details of fort and soldiers. Left, smiling soldier happy to retire from battle and decorate a Christmas tree instead. Center, turret of the fort trimmed with lace, Styrofoam beaded Christmas lights and a tiny gingerbread star cookie. Right, the drawbridge decorated with oven-bake peppermint candies. (Left-over from this tree tutorial here.)
Below is a favorite friend on rockers. The child's legs can make the rocker go, his hands can grasp, and his arms can push and pull. Attach the rockers using a groove joint. Use the Hobby Horse Plan for the rocker's head.
The rocker graph below measures 1 inch squares.
Wood Supply List:
Rockers - 2 pieces. 1" x 4", 17 1/2"
Back - 1 piece 1" x 4" x 7 1/2"
Seat - 1 piece 1"x 8" x 14"
Head - 1" x 8" x 9"
Dowel for handle bars -1 piece 3/4" x 6"
Corner Brace - 3 pieces 1/2" x 1/2" quarter round or 1" x1" strips
Nails and wood glue
Rocker graph and illustration of how the rocking horse looks when finished.
This is a different way to make a cotton batting ornament. I would not ordinarily begin this craft using Styrofoam but certainly it is an authentic method of working for those of you who are interested in using it. So, I will include several designs on my blog here to get you familiar with how to apply cotton batting to foam elements.
Supply List:
one toothpick
white school blue
two cotton balls
lavender paints
a green wave chenille stem
wire for hanging
1 to 1 1/2 inch Styrofoam ball
transparent glue
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Unravel the cotton balls and set these aside.
Push a wire hook into the top of the foam ball and shape a hook with it to hang the ornament as it dries from layers of glue and batting.
Brush on a bit of white glue onto a tooth pick and push it into the middle of a small Styrofoam ball from the bottom, opposite of the hook.
Apply white glue with your fingertips around the surface of the Styrofoam ball and layer fine cotton over the surface. Smooth down the cotton into the glue with your fingers.
Repeat these steps as many times as you need to cover both the toothpick and the ball entirely with cotton batting to shape a turnip. Just make sure that the cotton batting layer overlaps on every surface area.
Once the cotton veggie is dry, poke a coupe of holed into the top where turnip leave might grow.
Cut and shape leaves from the wave chenille stem pushing the stem ends into those holes with glue.
Once the turnip is dry, paint the middle part with a couple of shades of lavender paint. Let dry.
Swipe on a bit of white glue to the center surface on painted parts. Then sprinkle on some transparent glitter.
These ornaments are very light weight and may be hung for the most delicate of tree branches!
Swans like these are both charming and delicate on miniature trees. I prefer the tiniest pinecones and clothespins I can find for this craft, however, I have seen similar versions made into much larger swans. So, the same technique can be easily used for larger versions if you are decorating a giant tree.
I shaped the wire around the pinecone.
Supply List:
wooden clothespin clamps (As always the size of the clamp dictates the size of the ornament. I used very tiny miniature clamps for these swans.)
Tiny pinecones
hot glue gun and hot glue
transparent glitter
a two to three inch length of chenille stem or wire
one cotton ball for each goose head and neck
white school glue
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Loop a wire in and around the inside of the pinecone to shape the head and neck of an elegant swan sticking out and above the pinecone.
Unwind a few cotton balls and twist these around the wire along with some white school glue. Don't forget to shape the swan's beak, head and neck similar to the proportions shown in the photos below.
Paint the pinecones white. Let dry.
Spread white glue across the body of the swan and sprinkle glitter all over the the pinecone "feathers."
Hot glue the swan to the top of a small clothespin to attach it to a Christmas tree.
You may wish to paint the clothespin green or white depending upon the color of your Christmas tree.
Left the pinecones covered with glitter. Right, the swans now hot glued to the clothespins.
A vintage tinsel-back wire trim ornament surrounds and highlights Santa's face.
Recycling 'scraps,' charms, or clay novelties was common practice among Victorians. They believed that one could never have too much ''bling'' on a Christmas tree, so naturally adding tinsel to any small novelty was appropriate for the season during that era.
Here you see that I have crafted a simple ornament in much the same attitude with tinsel stripped from last year's gift wrapping scraps and a magnet saved from a twenty year old craft stash in the basement.
Wether you wish to admit it or not, I'm sure some of our readers could make one similar to this from several forgotten boxes of rubbish in their own attics and crawl spaces!
Supply List:
wire wrapped tinsel garland (any color)
recycled Christmas refrigerator magnets
hot glue gun and hot glue
wire snips or old scissors
scrap cardboard
scrap decorative paper or old wrapping paper
white tacky glue
Step-by-Step Instructions:
To remove the magnet from the Santa face I soaked the bottom in soapy hot water. This loosened the glue. Then I inserted a butter knife between the glue and resin to pop off the magnet with little effort.
Then I traced around the half head with a pencil on top of a small piece of scrap cardboard.
Around the cardboard cut-out, I shaped a ''teardrop'' using red tinsel wire that ended in a bow.
Around the bow I then twisted white wire into a bow and then wrapped it's remainder around the cardboard cut-out.
Then I hot glued the mask to the wrapped cardboard cut-out.
Next came a little holly and leaf trim attached with glue to the wire bow along with a hook for hanging.
Far left, are a couple of Santa head magnets left over from Christmas decoration for a refrigerator or clipboard. Center, is the tinsel wire wrap to emphasize the festive nature of Santa. Right, even more white tinsel added to highlight Santa's features.
