Woodland Christmas themes often include bird fowl and small furry animals; here are just a few of the owls that I hang on my woodland themed Christmas tree every year.
My little woodland owl ornaments are made of a wide selection of materials. Feathers, cones, seeds twigs crepe paper, mouth blown glass and even carved semi-precious stone are just a few of the materials used by those artists and craft companies that have contributed to my collection. I am particularly fond of owls.
A little woodland squirrel nibbling on an acorn. This little guy is made from cotton batting and dryer lint. He's finished off with a little rabbit fur in back to imitate a tail.
"It is good to know that out there, in a forest in the world, there is a cabin where something is possible, something fairly close to the sheer happiness of being alive." Sylvain Tesson
Above is the entire display for cocoa with friends including: cake, candy, and a cast iron cabin or two to display candle light within.
I'm decorating my dining room cupboard this year using several different themes for parties among friends and family. This decor needn't cost much, just 'shop' your own collections and add a few key pieces to represent the theme for a coffee bar, tea party or in this case - cups of cocoa and a delicious, rich bunt cake for a cozy reunion with old friends. I cut the pine sprigs from bushes on my front lawn and unpacked a plaid blanket from the linen closet to use in this woodland display. My adult children gathered pinecones from a walk in the woods to fill-out the empty spaces between the dishes.
Left, a cup of hot chocolate or cocoa with marshmallows on top. Right, chocolate and peppermint stirring spoons for those who like an extra punch of flavor in their hot drink.
Left, on display is one of two cast iron cabin, candle holders. The bouquet is of cotton plant stems inside of an old, vintage tinware pitcher. Right, are two cut glass apothecary jars filled with chocolates and spice gum drops.
Left decorative lettering spells "Noel" on a sign, dead center of the woodland display in my cupboard. Right, is the chocolate bunt cake on top of a galvanized metal cake stand.
Detailed photo showing apothecary jars with gum drops, marshmallows, peppermint pillows, and candy canes. I've used a old plaid stadium blanket to cover the wooden counter top of the cupboard to protect it from spills.
Left, vintage silver leaves, pine cones and evergreens decorate the top shelf. Right, the middle shelf has enamel white stars that light up in the dark and a Santa pitcher filled with autumn berries.
A close-up photograph of our family sized "cocoa bar." Here I have also included shakers filled with cinnamon and sugar and flavored stirring spoons.
Two versions of the same Christmas pine cone craft. The appearance of this particular ornament may be altered by switching out the materials that you use. School children in American often make this craft using pom poms. However, adults can use the same method to craft a very lovely woodland version of the ornament.
Woodland Pine Cone Christmas Tree Version
Above are detailed photos of the woodland pine cone Christmas tree.
In this version, I used metallic beads to decorate my miniature tree instead
of the traditional pom poms.
Supply List:
pine cones
a tiny acorn cap
metallic beads for the ornaments
hot glue gun
white tacky glue
white school glue
white cotton batting balls
twine for hanging the ornament
glitter (optional)
pliers and scissors
Step-by-Step Directions:
Glue a fluffy white cotton ball to the top of your pine cone and then turn it upside down so that the pine cone resembles a fir tree.
Add a bit more of the white school glue to the snowy looking surface and spread this out with your finger tips. Let dry. You may decide to add glitter to the cotton for a extra bit of glamor.
Unravel a couple of white cotton balls and take these apart to form small amounts of fluff for the tips of your pine cone tree.
Add just a small amount of white glue to each scale and glue white cotton into place.
Now use a hot glue gun to
squirt a bit of the hot glue before gently pushing each metallic bead inside the cone. Work with no more than two squirts of glue and two beads at a time; hot glue dries quickly and will harden before you have had time
to position the beads into place.
Assemble the pine cone angel by taking apart an additional pine cone with pliers. You may need to cut and trim off the inside edge of each scale before gluing these together again.
I used tacky glue to arrange the tiny scales around the tip of my index finger and then glued a piece of cotton batting to the top and inside portion of the skirt to hold everything in place. I then glued an additional teir (or ruffle) to the angel's skirt. (pictured below)
Roll a small amount of white cotton batting into the shape of a tiny head and glue this to the top of the cone shaped angel body.
Glue on a halo made from an acorn cap.
Glue a metallic wire to the inside of the pine cone for hanging.
Here you can see me assemble the skirt of the angel tree topper from pine cone scales and a bit of cotton batting. The head is also made from cotton batting. The halo of my angel is made from an acorn cap.
I have glued two pine cone scales together with tacky glue and a wad of cotton batting. After these wings dry, you can then attach them with glue to the back shoulder blades of your angel. You will need to hold them in position until the glue hardens a bit.
Pine Cone Christmas Tree Version with Red Pom Poms
Above, I have included detailed photographs of the red pom pom variation of
this pine cone Christmas tree ornament. This version is also topped off with a
tiny turned wooden Santa figure.
Supply List:
pine cones
hot glue gun
wooden spool
paints and/or decorative paper
twine for hanging the ornament
A tiny ornament or star for the "tree topper"
Step-by-Step Directions:
First you will need to decorate your wooden spool. I painted the edges of the one pictured above and then cut a piece of polka dot paper and glued this to the inside of the spool. This step speeds up the process of decorating the ornament.
Next, hot glue a pine cone with the top of the spool. The top of the pine cone should be the end that you glue to the spool base so that the pine cone will suggest the triangular shape of a Christmas pine tree.
Hot glue your pom poms to the tips of the pine cone scales. If you've turned the pine cone upside down and glued it to the spool correctly, there should be a natural "lip" for the pom pom to nestle inside. This is where you will squirt a bit of the hot glue before gently pushing each pom pom inside the cone. Work with no more than two squirts of glue and two pom poms at a time; hot glue dries quickly and will harden before you have had time to position the pom poms.
Now hot glue a tiny "tree topper" to the tip of your pine cone tree if you wish.
I've have always loved Christmas trees that are inspired by nature. This lovely, natural Christmas tree and display is staged at the old Watkins Family Farm, in Lawson Missouri. All of the buildings on the farm were dedicated as historic landmarks in 1966. I took a family walk at the mill during a Christmas holiday in 2011.
A "woodland" Christmas tree was on display
at Watkins Mill, 2011. It features different types of fowl
indigenous to Missouri.
The bird's nests are real and I assume these were collected after the birds
abandoned them for the season. The staff also trimmed the tree with bird
feathers, cotton, and pine cones.
I believe the birds to be actual taxidermy. Many folks do not
know that taxidermy is not made using the "actual"
skeleton and internal organs of a dead animal. Taxidermy
is formed around a plastic or resin mold, using the
feathers or furs of an animal. This can make a difference
to those people who are a bit squeemish around
objects they believe to be intact specimens. These
birds are intended for educational purposes, not just
decorative ones.
The completed baby owls stare out from their cozy candy
container. These are adorable on a woodland inspired
Christmas tree or a cotton batting themed Christmas tree.
This woodland inspired ornament craft includes both natural materials and traditional cotton batting applications. It is made from a hollow cardboard tube so that Santa's elves may insert small toys or candy inside of it on Christmas morning.
In order to complete this ornament with success, I am presuming that visitors here have been working with cotton batting for a while. If you are new to my blog and have never tried crafting with these materials I will include links to simpler cotton batting projects where I describe the techniques in greater detail within the text of the step-by-step directions.
Supply List:
cardboard tube
white school glue
masking tape
acrylic paints: yellow, white and black
tiny paint brush
cotton balls
dryer lint
wire for hanging
extra cardboard
one walnut, cut in half
black thread
scissors
Step-by-Step Directions:
This tube was not masked properly, but I have
included the picture for you to see how the
walnuts look when glued in place.
Select a cardboard tube and cut it to the size you prefer. Mask all of it's surfaces with tape.
Use the sharp end of your scissors to puncture two holes on opposite sides of each other at the top of your cardboard tube in order to thread a wire for hanging.
I covered a wire with cotton before looping it through these two holes at the top. (wrapping wire with cotton)
Use the sharp end of your scissors to poke two holes into the side of the tube where you will glue the walnut shells into place. These will become your baby owl's heads. Do not make the holes too big! When gluing in the walnut halves, you want a little resistance from the cardboard tube. These shells should be nestled into the tube with both glue and the firm application of dryer lint surrounding them. Saturate the dryer lint into place under the edges of the nut shells with glue and then let the tube dry over night. You need to make sure that your walnuts are set firmly into the tube before continuing with your process. The tube may take on a warped shape after drying but this will lend a natural appearance to the tree trunk idea.
Cut from extra cardboard a circular shape to fit and seal off the bottom
of the tube tree trunk. You can do this by setting the tube on top of a piece of cardboard and drawing around it's circumference with a pencil or pen. Cut the shape out and tape it firmly to the bottom of your tree trunk.
Now apply with white glue and your finger tip, the dryer lint to the opening of the trunk.
Unravel your cotton balls and glue down a first layer of faux, white bark to the remaining sections of the tree trunk.
The snow lies thick upon the ground, The leaves have dropped from off the trees; Of woodland songs we hear no sound, For ice-cold is the bitter breeze.
The singing birds are silent now, With mournful look and drooping wing; Starving of cold and hunger, how Can they with mirthful music sing?
But winter has its charms for those Who live in happy homes. Our boys Our girls, who know nor grief nor woes, Ah! winter has for them its joys:
Its happy Christmas holidays, When home, so dear, seems dearer yet; With mother's kiss and father's praise, Ah! who such joys can e'er forget?
And then the Christmas visit paid To Granddad in his country home; Where many a merry boy and maid Will cry, 'Granddad, we've come, we've come!'
Dear youthful days, how bright they seem To happy-hearted girl and boy! In after years they're but a dream, But still, a dream of love and joy.
Even though the veiled lady mushroom is not common to Missouri, I thought it an unusual addition to my woodland Christmas ornament collection. It grows in Asian climates primarily; read more about it at Wikipedia.
Spray painting an onion sack.
Supply List:
paper mache pulp
white school glue
newsprint
onion bag
white spray paint
grey drier lint
white cotton balls
newspapers
Step-by-Step Directions:
Clip off the ends of an onion sack, stretch it out on top of newspapers or cardboard and spray paint it white to mimic the indusium "skirt" of the veiled lady mushroom.
Chop up a clean paper egg carton. Trim and keep the bell cap shapes for the tops of your mushrooms.
Insert a small wire up through the tops of the caps for hangers. Tape these firmly into place.
Crush the newsprint into stalks and glue these to the inside of the bell cap shapes.
Add a small amount of water to paper mache pulp to spread on top of the caps and also the underside of where the stalks and caps meet. Let these dry completely before continuing the project.
Glue the onion sack along the outer edge of the cap. Layer more paper mache on top of the netting that you do not wish to be seen. Let the dry.
Unravel the white cotton balls.
Alternate the white glue and cotton batting in fine layers over the stalks and underneath the bell caps.
Layer the glue and dryer lint on top of the cap until you are pleased with the patterning.
Apply the white glue over the entire surface of the veiled lady, excluding the indusium, until you are satisfied with the mushroom.
I made this pine cone Belznickle many years ago. He is a family favorite and is usually displayed near the top and front part of our largest Christmas tree.
At first glance, this ornament looks complicated but it is much simpler to craft than many people believe. It is a very traditional craft. Back in the 1920s, folk artists in the Appalachia mountains made entire Santa/Belznickle figures from pine cones that they had collected from some of the surrounding pine trees. Most of the Appalachia woodlands are made up of deciduous trees but there are also some fine pines and firs mixed into the woods as well.
Victorians, 1837-1903, also crafted Belznickle figures from giant pine cones. Originals of these are rare and highly prized by collectors!
I crafted this Santa head using fur trim and a bit of silk Christmas holly. I simply hot-glued these two decorative elements to the top of my pine cone and painted the lower half with snowy white paint, glued on a bit of glitter and varnished the cone. I chose a cone that was missing some of it's pattern near the top so that I could blend into the cone a face of my own making. I sculpted this face using CelluClay. I repeated the lumpy pattern found on the cone in the shape of cheeks, closed eye lids and the nose with the paper pulp mixture. Then I let the head dry for a few days until I could paint and varnish Santa's features with acrylic paints.
The only way to visit old Salem of the old South is with a child's heart for luggage. Otherwise this old town in the middle of North Carolina may lie before your eyes actual enough, with its old streets, its old houses, its old Square, its old Home Church as its inmost core, and Salem may welcome you with the gentle, unobtrusive courtesy pecularily its own, but unless you have learned the wisdom that knows how to put away grown-up things, you cannot really enter the Christmas city.
In Salem of all places I have ever seen, it is easiest to drop from one's shoulders the crippling pack of maturity and become once again a little child stepping along a Christmas road. Of all places it is easiest in Salem to forget the jangle of faiths and of no-faiths that have deadened our ears, to slip away from the clamor of an age proud and fevered as ancient Rome, and to listen to the confidence of old carols ringing along moonlit dreamy streets, mysterious with the black of magnolia and of boxwood, or to hear floating down from the church belfry high up under the stars the silver melody of the ancient horns which, better than any other instruments, express the soul of the Moravian church. A most musical religion it must seem to every visitor who yields his spirit to the spirit of Moravian Salem. Not only the church liturgy but also the everyday life of the community is keyed to old tunes that date back, some of them, to the Bohemia of five centuries ago, and were familiar in Moravian households in the days when John Huss was martyred for the beauty of his faith. There is a spell on southern Salem, the spell not of a dead past but of a living one, constantly revitalized, so that as one walks these uneven red-brick pavements, one is haunted by memories of long-past Christmases, thoughts of those far times, when in secrecy and fear, the Hidden Seed kept its feast of candles and of anthems, thoughts of happier festivals in Saxony where young Count Zinzendorf offered the heretics the refuge city of Herrnhut, thoughts of brave long-ago love-feasts right here, when a tiny, intrepid band of colonists sang its Christmas chorales in the midst of endless miles of wilderness, while wolves nosed and howled at the cabin door. Along with these Moravian memories come thronging recollections of one's own childhood Christmases in all their unforgotten wizardry, so that here in Christmas Salem, I seem to be walking again the midnight aisle which leads through a great wood of fir trees looming black beneath high stars.
Just as at five years old, I am aware again of mystery and danger and bewilderment lurking far off in the forest, but along the Christmas roadway, there is no fear, only joy and magic, for it lies straight as a shaft of silver through the black wood, and along it troops of youngsters go dancing onward. At the instant that the children pass, each dark, bordering fir tree becomes bright with tinsel and candles, and along the spicy twigs gay little bells stir and tinkle. From time to time there come snatches of happy chants echoed among the tall dim trunks. Since the wayfarers are children, they know that the soft, unearthly radiance upon the road before them is the long beam from a star not yet seen because it hangs so low above a stable cave, and they know, too, that their silver path is leading all child feet toward that star. Small difference for children between that spirit-light of Bethlehem and the merry twinkle of Christmas-tree candles. For them, readily enough, their own carol-singing mingles with the voices of herald angels, and even Santa Claus, himself, all ruddy and kind, may steal to the stable door and gaze in on a divine baby. Even so is Christmas faith and Christmas fancy interwoven in old Salem, where white-headed men and women still have their Christmas trees, and still with their own hands construct beneath the green boughs, the wonderful Christmas " putzes," for while we who are visitors must retread in stumbling unfamiliarity the Christmas path, the Moravians of old Salem have always kept straight and clear within their hearts the child-road toward the star.
When, a few days before Christmas, I arrived in Salem, people told me I had missed what for Moravians is always the opening key to the Yuletide season. For unnumbered years there has always been sung on the Sunday before Christmas the anthem of " The Morning Star," written in the latter seventeenth century, and set to music in the nineteenth. Although I never heard choir and congregation unite in its mighty joy, I seemed, during my two weeks' visit, always to be catching itsechoes, as if the strains of Christmas minstrels had come floating back to me where, unseen in the distance, they had passed on before along the silver-lit highway, so that the words and the music of "The Morning Star " voice for me the innermost spirit of a Moravian Christmas.
The anthem has both the quaintness of old Germany and the vigorous confidence of the new world, so that the old words and the new are equally expressive of the unchanging faith of present-day Salem, while the music vibrates with the sheer child-gladness of its praise.
" Morgenstern auf finstre Nacht, Der die Welt voll Freude macht.
Jesulein, O komm herein, Leucht in meines Hertzens Shrein."
When in stanza two, music and words swell out into grandeur it is as if, out of the black forest mystery of life, some hidden joyous congregation suddenly pealed forth a psalm to the mounting Christmas dawn:
" Morning star, thy glory bright Far exceeds the sun's clear light ; Jesus be, constantly. More than thousand suns to me."
For the holiday guest there slowly emerges upon that glamorous woodland roadway of his child memories a silver-lighted city, gradually shaping into the everyday reality of actual Salem. As I look out from the window of the little gray cottage that harbors me, there become sharply etched against the mistiness of dreams the tall water-oaks of the old red-brick Square, the domes of boxwood against old walls of buff stucco or of brick, the stretching flat white rows of gravestones holly-trimmed, the white belfry of the Home Church, where in Christmas week I heard little boys, high up there in the soft December sunshine, sound the trombone announcement of death. So unobtrusive and yet so sweet were those strains out of the sky, so blent with the Christmas air, that I listened to them for some time, supposing them merely carol-singing floating out from some home where the family had regathered for Christmas.
On one side the little cottage looks forth on the sunny graveyard where Moravians keep their dead too close to life for any sadness, and on the other it nestles to the prouder, taller buildings ofthe Square, laid out in the seventeen-sixties by founders who established Salem as the central city of their Wachovian grant of seventy thousand acres, to be built and to be kept a city meet for their faith. The solid eighteenth century houses still remain, skilfully adapted to modern usage, or unobtrusively altered. Half of Salem traces its ancestry back to those earlier days, and all of Salem keeps alive, both in family life and in public, the traditions and the customs of its unforgotten builders.
Perhaps it is only in our own South that so gentle and half-romantic a faith could have found so gracious a flowering as is typified in the Easter and the Christmas customs of this Salem of North Carolina. There is a blending of native warmth and glow and kindliness in the spirit of this Southern Province of the Moravian Church. The first colonists came seeking a mild climate and friendly neighbors, and found both. For a hundred and fifty years Salem has been true to its first purpose. Long ago it was a little refuge city of peace in the wilderness, and still, today, it offers its benediction for all who seek to penetrate beyond the mere externals of a locality into the inner sanctities of tradition.
Long ago a brave little band kept to their secure daily round of work and worship amid perils of Indian attack and the backwash of Continental armies, and freely gave their hospitality to everyone that asked it, and today the mind of those first settlers still dominates and molds the life of the city. Yesterday and now the people of Salem have possessed both the art of shrewd adjustment to the contemporary and the power to withdraw from all its fever and conflict into the peace of a child-faith. With quaint literalness those early founders looked upon themselves as all members of one family, and today one of the strongest impressions of any visitor is that of a great household, close-bound in sympathy, and all turning toward the old Home Church as to a central hearthside, while up and down the worn old streets there moves the form of one still young at eighty, who in himself is host and shepherd and father of all the city.
One wonders if the inhabitants of Salem fully realize their high privilege of living in a community which both expresses their religion and preserves the finest traditions of their ancestors. In these bewildering days it is the lot of most idealists to live in a solitude, unable, amid the surrounding mists, to distinguish the shapes of their fellow believers. But in Salem people have the sacred advantage of dwelling with those who constantly share and reinforce each other's faith as naturally as they have shared each other's childhood and each other's memories of the old Infant School. Probably Moravians do not dream with what strange nostalgia a visitor listens to persons who treat God conversationally, who talk of Him as spontaneously as a little boy speaks of that splendid comrade he calls Daddy. Normally enough, naturally enough, has the Moravian spirit been able to strike deep roots in our own South, for in our South religion is still a custom unquestioned, and leisure can still be found for an obsolete, old-world culture, and intellect still bows in reverence before the soul. In old Salem of the old South there can be no blur upon the radiant confidence of the Christmas story, no smirch upon the silver purity of that far-lit path toward Bethlehem's cave.
In Salem I feel myself to be sometimes in Cranford, sometimes in Barchester, while all reminiscence of those two familiar home-towns of the fancy is touched by an atmosphere sacred to Salem. From one window of my room I can gaze up the long, silent avenue, forbidden to all vehicles, that skirts the high ivy-hung picket fence of the graveyard. Even in December the graveyard grass is vivid in the sunshine. I am so near that I can almost see the crimson berries of the holly wreaths laid on the little flat marble slabs. Cedar Avenue lies as a white path at the heart of Salem. On one side of it are gateways whose sunny arches, blazoned with texts of hope, stand bright against the shadowy spruce and cedar massed beyond the triumphant marching lines of the little gravestones. Along Cedar Avenue I have watched a funeral procession move with confident tread, while the trombone strains floated forth delicate and clear upon the New Year's morning.
Another window of my room looks toward the old Square, toward the Bishop's home beside the Bishop's church, toward the aging buildings that still bear names witnessing to the deep Moravian reverence for the family as a holy entity, - the Sisters' House, the House of the Single Brethren, the Widows' House. In the cavernous cellar of the most venerable of all these buildings I was shown, one afternoon, the mysteries of the Christmas candle-making. In those great, white-washed catacombs one peers into dark, haunted corridors through wall arches three feet deep. The floor has the stone flagging that was laid a hundred and fifty years ago. In the long kitchen of the Single Brethren the great, hooded fireplace with its built-in Dutch oven stands intact.
Here, in precisely the same molds and with precisely the same methods through unbroken generations, have been made the famous Christmas candles of Salem. The molds hold, some of them, six candles, some a dozen. Into the manufacture last year went two hundred pounds of beeswax and fifty pounds of tallow. From the first melting to the final polishing each candle requires an elaborateprocess of handwork. It took two women six weeks to make the candles, achieving, as they did, six thousand five hundred of the slender wisps of green wax familiar to everyone who has ever known a Salem Christmas. The decorating of the candles, as well as the dipping, is a matter of far tradition. According to methods of cutting and of pasting long in use, each candle is encircled by an outstanding fringe of scarlet paper before it is at last stuck in its hole in one of the long trays and borne off to be kept for the love-feast of Christmas Eve. To visitors and to Moravians take the preparation of the candles is symbolic; when Salem trusts to alien hands the making and the decorating of its Christmas candles, Salem will not be Salem any more.
A simple, vital reverence for tradition is as characteristic of each individual home as it is of the larger home life of the church congregation. In the tiny cottage that offers me hospitality there is a little wooden rocking chair carefully treasured. One turns it up to find on the bottom, in a handwriting too alive ever to be forgotten, these words, "This rocker was used by mother to rock all her nine babies to sleep from 1828-1844. Keep it in the family." There lies on this little chair a touch of that personal, homey immortality that the home-going dead must value, - and yet it is only a little wooden rocker, tawny drab, and finely lined like an old parchment - or an old face. It has no arms, therefore had no bumps for little heads. It has spreading legs and rockers, and on each rocker is painted a bunch of fading wild roses.
All the little home is gentle with old memories. Each morning at the close of breakfast I listen first to the daily reading from the Moravian Textbook for the year, the custom of the Text-book dating back to Count Zinzendorf, and after the Text-book comes the reading from birthday and memory books. As I listen, a kindly past made up of small family events becomes vital for me, the guest. Yet the little cottage is alive to the present as well as to the past. The neighbor children blow in and out all ruddy with ball-playing. The Moravian is a children's church, its services crowded with jolly youngsters, seated as happily beside their parents as seedlings grow around a tree. To Moravian children the story of a children's Friend is no dead tale. The rosy seven-year-old Harold who comes flying so often to our door has a hearty affection for Santa Claus, but with that Other he is even more familiar. A few weeks before this last Christmas a little playmate died. Harold was puzzled by the sorrow of the grown-ups and protested, "But Louise has gone to Jesus, and she will be there for His birthday." Winifred Kirkland, 1924
This feathered, pudgy bird would sit perfectly on a pine bough or hang easily from the most delicate branches of a fir tree, for it is as light as a feather! I chose to use undyed feathers in a variety of browns for my project because I have a woodland themed ornament collection. However, this little bird would look just as sweet with brightly colored feathers in blues, reds, or yellows sitting inside of a white Christmas tree or hanging from a fragile twig tree if you prefer.
Supply List:
hot glue and hot glue gun
paper mache pulp or a bit of air dry paper clay
one styrofoam ball
a bag of feathers (your choice in color and texture)
acrylic paints ( I used black, white, grey and yellow)
an ordinary pencil
white tacky glue as well
scrap tissue paper
masking tape
wire for hanging
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Crumple the tissue and form a second "half" ball on top of the styrofoam ball. Tape this down with masking tape, covering all of the tissue paper with the masking tape.
With either paper mache pulp (water added according to directions on the wrapper) or with air dry paper clay, shape the eyeballs, eyelids and beak and attach to the masked head with hot glue.
Take your sharpened pencil and push into the lower styrofoam ball approximately half an inch and remove it from the tail area of the bird.
Now fill this cavity with white glue, plus the feathers that you have selected for the tail of your bird. Prop this tailside up against a couple of books on a table and let it dry for a while to keep the glue from running.
Now layer and glue feathers to the lower half of the bird's body.
Paint the eyes and beak of the bird using acrylic paints and let the painted clay or mache parts dry. If you use paper mache for these features, you will need to wait for them to dry solid before painting them.
Glue the head feathers of the bird on last, smoothing them down a bit with white glue away from the eyes and beak.
Push a wire into the head of your bird along with a bit of white glue, to create a loop for hanging it from the tree.
This little clothespin, doll ornament is decked out in left-over candy wrappers and gold tinsel that I saved during the holiday festivities. I guess you could say that I'm "old school" meaning that I am always looking to recycle the little bits of trim and foils that most people just toss away these days. This is not to say that I can't go out to a hobby shop and purchase 1.00 sheets of fancy paper; I just can't bear to throw away cute candy wrappers and so these eventually are used for decorating the tree somehow.
This little jester is just one of many clothespin dolls that I have crafted over the years. His face and hands were made with Cernit Oven-Bake Modeling Clay pressed into Polyform molds. Sculpey makes many small press molds of detailed doll parts for crafts like the one pictured below. You can find all kinds of these molds in your local craft and hobby stores.
I use wood glue to apply foil trims with. Usually I have to clamp the tinsel temporarily while the glue dries but it is worth the extra trouble in order to avoid messier hot glue application. Also, tinsel heats up when it is applied with a hot glue and you are more likely to burn yourself during the process if you're not careful.
I wrapped his pointed hat, body and arms in foil then wrapped his neck with a bushy tinsel collar. Then I painted his features with a white acrylic paint to imitate "clown white" or "grease paint." Lastly I added a few bright features: a yellow smile and red rosy cheeks and outlined these with a permanent felt tipped marker.
The above pictures illustrate a jester clothespin doll as it looks from four different angles.
See additional examples of clothespin/spool dolls:
Full view of my Welsh cupboard set up for hot chocolate and company.
My Welsh cupboard is all arranged for company and service of hot chocolate. I've included the classics here, marshmallows, candy spoons, candy canes, cinnamon and sugar condiments. To the right is one of our many Advent calendars. On the left is a basket of small gifts for company. The galvanized village is lighted up and a hand-painted, snowflake sign welcomes visitors with "Have A Cup of Cheer!"
Left, gifts wrapped and ready for the season. Lovely puzzle by artist, Angela Harding. Right, chocolate and peppermint stirring spoons and candy canes.
Left, Squashes in deep green and harvest gold colors displayed next to our spice grinder. Right, galvanized houses for candlelight.
Left, colorful berries tucked between our pottery. Center a giant lantern displays Christmas baubles next to the Welsh cupboard. Right, delicate laser-cut snowflakes illuminate the cupboard at night with fairy lights.
A tree shaped Advent calendar with tiny woodland graphics on every drawer.
How I made the chalkboard sign for my "Hot Chocolate Station."
Left, I purchased a wooden snowflake to paint. Center, smearing the chalk on the back of a print-out. Right, see my print out of "Have a cup of Cheer" (included below)
Left, I drew on top of the printed text with a ball point pin to transfer the chalked letters. Center, I took a wax white pencil and delicately drew on top of the chalk dust text. Right, The last step was to paint the text again with acrylics so that the effect would be stabilized and brighter.
Left, I then added swirls and berries free-hand. Right, I colored the berries with a bit of red paint.
Free text for your own Hot Chocolate Station craft.
The finished painted morels rest on a mossy bed
just outside my kitchen door.
Grandpa took a trip to Kentucky this last weekend. He visited the Shaker Village, The Kentucky Folk Art Center , Noah's ark, The Creation Museum, and quaint restaurants etc... He brought back these three hand-carved, wooden mushrooms for me to paint. He wanted them to be painted as morels and to display them under a Christmas tree, of course!
Supply List:
tiny soft paint brush
acrylic paints: burnt umber, a redish tan, and creamy white
wood varnish
eye hooks (if you plan to hang them on a tree)
a soft sponge or soft rag
Step-by-Step Instructions:
Make sure your mushroom blanks are clean, free of dust and dirt.
Select the burnt umber acrylic to paint the deeper pits and ridges of the morel cap. Load the small brush with paint at the tip only and randomly place the ridges over the entire surface of the cap only. Let the caps dry.
Layer random washes of a reddish tan water color over the surface. Let dry
Paint the bottoms of the stems burnt umber.
Paint the underside of the caps burnt umber.
Water down the creamy white acrylic and brush this over the surface of the wooden morels. Rub some of the paint off quickly with a soft sponge or soft rag. Let the morels dry.
Brush the surface with a thin coat of wood varnish and let the wooden fungi dry overnight.
Screw in the eye hooks to hang these natural looking ornaments on the tree or leave them without hooks and put them in a woodland display underneath your Christmas tree.
Pastillage ornaments: horse, rooster, cherries, Santa
These handmade Christmas tree ornaments were crafted by Eugene Frohse from St. Louis Mo. He was born in Russia in 1873; he immigrated to the United States when he was 17 years old. Because he died in 1976 at 102 years of age, I'm assuming that the ornaments I have were crafted sometime in the 1950s or 60s. The color of the pastillage is amazingly vivid after all these years!
I purchased this collection from an estate sale and only one of the ornaments was broken. The original price tag, the description and recipe were included on the box. You can see more of his work online.
One of many Christmas spiders that hang on our trees during the holidays. This one is made from wire and cotton batting and a tiny bit of paint. The face is modeled from Sculpey pressed into a factory made mold. I'm not sure whether or not one of these may be found just anywhere... So crafters may need to paint a small wooden bead and attach it to their spider's body for a head.
This cotton batting spider hangs on a white Christmas tree ordinarily, however, this year she has been hung on a woodland themed tree in our study.
Supply List:
Sculpey (oven-bake clay)
thin wire or chenille stems
acrylic paint
white cotton balls
white school glue
hot glue and hot glue gun
white thread
transparent glitter.
Step-by-Step Instructions:
First, cut long lengths of a thin wire or chenille stems to wrap with cotton batting. If you are using chenille stems, trim off excess fuzz, before wrapping these stems.
Unravel several white cotton balls and dap on the glue to the surface of the wire.
Twist the cotton fuzz around the sticky surface of the wire. You can roll the wire between the palms of your hands to get the cotton to adhere evenly.
Now shape the spider's web twisting and trimming off ends as you go. Hang the web and let dry.
To make the spider, cut eight short legs for the arachnid and wrap or glue these to a oval shaped bead.
Glue on a head, I molded one from Sculpey.
Cover the surfaces of the spider with a bit more cotton batting and glue and then attach the spider to the web using thread or hot glue.
Paint on a few details if you like. I painted stripes on this spider and highlighted eye-brows.
Brush more white glue on the entire surface of the spider and web to sprinkle on transparent glitter.
Left, the spider prior to painting. Right, the painted version.
The spider get a shower of glitter after painting.
