Friday, December 1, 2017

Craft Raspberries from Cotton Batting

       These tiny raspberries ornaments are perfect for beginner level crafters to try sculpting from cotton batting. Like the corn on the cob or pea pod from earlier posts, these may be successfully completed with very little time, money, or experience. I hung these tiny delights on my German feather tree this year.

 Supply List:
  • cotton balls (unraveled)
  • white school glue
  • tacky white glue
  • newsprint
  • masking tape
  • wire for hanging
  • green, purple and blue acrylic paints
  • tiny paint brush 
  • transparent glitter (optional
Step-by-Step Instructions:
  1. Crush the newsprint into a small ball shape, approximately 1/2 inch long.
  2. Wrap this newsprint form in masking tape.
  3. Insert a wire for hanging at one end of the ball. Tape and glue in this wire firmly.
  4. Unravel a couple of cotton balls and take a very tiny piece between your finger tips with a small bit of glue and roll this wad into a tiny ball.
  5. Repeat this process until you have made enough tiny balls to cover the newsprint wad completely.
  6. Use the tacky white glue to begin sticking one, two, three tiny balls etc. side by side from the top to the bottom of your raspberry shape. Press these peas together as you go. Take your time and let these dry as you go. It helps to work near a warm light or heater. 
  7. Let your finished raspberry dry overnight.
  8. Twist unravelled cotton batting around the stem using white glue to make it adhere to the wire as you go.
  9. Shape a few tiny petals at the top of each raspberry out of more cotton batting. Let it all dry overnight.
  10. Use your acrylic paints to color the cotton and let this finished ornament dry.
  11. Seal the acrylic raspberries with a acrylic gel (Matt finish) to keep your ornament looking clean over time. 
  12. Store your cotton batting ornaments between white tissues inside a tin box with a tight sealing lid. These boxes are the types used to store butter cookies and sometimes candies.

Thursday, November 30, 2017

Paint Santa's peppermint express for the Christmas tree

Left, The sample wooden flat before it was drawn on, Right, I applied a drawing to the little engine using a soft number 2 pencil.
       The wooden train cut painted here was purchased in 2017 from a local hobby store in my home town. This project is the first of many that I have decided to upload at my Christmas hobby blog. Young students may use my ideas and drawings here to help them think about how they would like to paint a design for either this exact wooden train or any other similar woodcut of a train they may have among their craft supplies.
       I decided to draw Santa as my conductor. I painted the wheels like Christmas peppermint candies and gave the engine a snowy rooftop. The traditional red and green Christmas colors were also used to paint the engine's body parts. 

Here is my design idea for this particular wooden cut-out. You can make one just like it or,
just draw your own engine design for painting.
Left, bend a wire for the back of the ornament. Add a little glue and masking tape to hold it into place.
Center, now draw around the ornament on top of a piece of Christmas wrapping paper.
Cut out your shape and glue it to the backside of the ornament.
Right, papering the backside of your ornament hides the wire and tape.

Mixed Media Strawberry Ornament

My funny strawberry has a face made of clay that must be hardened in the oven before gluing to the masked newsprint shapes.
       The Victorian's loved to sculpt faces on fruits and other inanimate objects. You may have seen something like this idea when viewing blown glass ornaments of fruits and candles? I love the humor of this sweet nostalgic idea. Here you can try sculpting your own versions similar to mine shown above and described below.

Supply List:
The first coat of paint is green because it is the compliment
to red on the color wheel. The stems will remain green and
so will the petals.
  • newsprint
  • masking tape
  • paper mache pulp
  • acrylic paints: green, yellow, red, white and black
  • glitter in green and red
  • acrylic sealer
  • wire for hook
  • cotton balls
  • face mold
  • wood glue
  • Sculpey clay 
  • paint brush
  Step-by-Step Directions:
  1. Wad newsprint into a strawberry shape and then wrap it with masking tape.
  2. Push a bit of Sculpey clay into a small, face mold. Many hobby stores sell these near the oven dry clays, paper clays, craft molds etc... Remove the clay impression and bake it on a glass dish in the oven for ten minutes according to the package instructions. 
  3. After the clay face has cooled. Glue it onto the waded strawberry shape. To make sure it dries properly wait for the mask and glue to harden onto the newsprint form overnight.
  4. Tape down a long wire hook just above the face mold where ever you wish the strawberry stem to be located.
  5. Prepare the paper mache pulp. Read instructions on the package carefully. Smooth the mixed pulp over the remaining surface of the strawberry. Be sure to cover the connection between the taped wire stem and the top of the strawberry head generously with the pulp. Let the paper pulp dry in a warm part of your home or in the sunshine outside.
  6. Use a bit of unrolled cotton ball and white glue to shape the stem and tiny petals around the base of the stem. Let this cotton stem harden before painting the strawberry heads.
  7. Now cover the strawberries with a fast drying acrylic green paint. Because the first coat is green, which is the compliment of red on the color wheel, the strawberries will appear more dimensional after painting.
  8. Now use a small paint brush to dab around the stem and petals where you want the red, fruit flesh to begin.
  9. Add a bit of white to the red and layer another coat of red wash onto the berry, covering the clay parts entirely as well.
  10. Apply some green and red glitter.
  11. Don't forget to paint the black seeds on your strawberry head before using an acrylic sealer to finish off the ornament.
Here are my strawberries prior to painting. The stems and petals are made of molded cotton batting, while the flesh of the strawberries is made of paper pulp and Sculpey clay.
More strawberries for the Christmas tree:

Monday, November 20, 2017

Craft A Miniature Sweetgum Ball Wreath

A tiny sweetgum ball wreath on a iron lattice
       Decorate a Fall twig tree with a set of sweetgum ball wreaths like this one or leave the ribbon off and slip these tiny wreaths over a brass candle stick or two to place at the center of your Thanksgiving table. Either way will look festive and be inexpensive for holiday decorating.

Supply List:
  • hot glue gun
  • ribbons in fall colors
  • hook for hanging
  • kernels from dried Indian corn
Step-by-Step Instructions:
  1. Clean six sweetgum balls free of dirt and insects.
  2. Hot glue these into the shape of a small wreath. 
  3. Pull off dried kernels from a piece of Indian corn. These kernels come in a wide variety of colors: russet, yellow, white and brown.
  4. Fill random whole of the sweetgum balls with glue and quickly push the dried kernels into those holes.
  5. Wrap a wire around the wreath for hanging and cover this with the ribbon.
Left, Sweetgum ball wreath and ribbon. Right, Close up photo of the dried kernels
glued randomly inside the gumballs to add a bit if color and different textures.

 More Crafts Using Sweetgum Balls:
 Recycle Sweetgum Balls:

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Refinishing a small carpenter's workbench

Above is a repainted workbench and play tools perfect for any three to four year old toddler.
       Above is a small wooden workbench that I purchased for only $6.00 in a resale store. All I needed to do was repaint a few select parts: drawers, trim and workbench top. I also glued a ruler to the top counter as well.
I'm amazed at how often I find children's toys or furnishings tossed out by parents simply because they are
unwilling to apply a little paint to freshen their surfaces.
       Here you can see the workbench prior to the refinishing. Someone thought that a bit of messy paint would ruin this perfectly sturdy carpenter's cart/workbench. I sanded the counter top, removed a few useless attachments and filled a few holes with wood putty. The painting took only a few hours after carefully masking off the areas that I chose to leave unfinished.
I left many of the surfaces unfinished. All I need to do is seal the surfaces with a clear lacquer to finish this project.
A side view of the wooden workbench, with the drawers open.
Build a Child's Workbench:

Saturday, October 7, 2017

Take a Peek Inside The Grimm Playroom

Just one wall of children's furniture in the Grimm family playroom. The rug beneath the cradles and highchair is braided in burgundy, red, ivory, grey and Colonial blue colors. I have recently striped, sanded and repainted the cradle you see in the far lower left hand corner. Soon I will add a bit of folk painting to it and post the design on this blog.
       Last March I posted a DIY Play Kitchen Stove Top & Oven project featuring my latest addition to a child's kitchen. Here I have photographed the oldest child furnishings built by my husband's great grandfather. Carpentry was a hobby for him I believe. I refinished his two pieces, a pantry on the far left and a dining cupboard on the far right. My husband's mother and aunt played with these when they were very young and so did my children.
      The pantry was painted yellow and converted into a doll closet and the cupboard was covered with decals, applied by a very precocious, blond toddler. So after the last group of young family members grew out of the furnishings, I decided to refurbish the lot. I did a bit of research at the internet archive and discovered adult furnishings similar to these in catalogues dating from 1910. To my surprise I found my furnishings to be exact replicas of a pantry and cupboard kitchen combination! So I decided to refinish the doll closet, now a pantry, and the child sized cupboard as a matched kitchen set in Colonial blue, one of my favorite colors. I left the counter top of the cupboard with it's original stain to match a few other pieces of stained doll furnishings that I have collected over the past five years. 
       The center dry sink pictured above is a flee market find.  I paid only $8.00 for it. I had to refinish the sink with grey enamel paint because it had rusted and I thought this would be unsafe for future play. I painted the cabinets below with the same Colonial blue as my older pieces. You can see there is a missing trim piece just behind the sink. Eventually, I will cut a new one to match (probably this winter) and then stain it.

Left, the refinished doll closet is now a Colonial blue, kitchen pantry. As of yet, I need to add shelving behind the long, narrow door.
Today it houses a black furry hobby horse, child fishing poles, and car mats. I use the drawers to store the girl's plastic animal toys for now.
This blue eyed, red headed, toddler doll sits with her soup in a very old doll high chair. What I love most about this piece ...
someone attached the tray to the chair with old dresser drawer knobs.
Above left is the cupboard that once was decorated with decals. Center, it is now used to store tiny tea sets,
figurines and silver plated tea/server sets. All of these small things were purchased for mere pennies at second hand stores.
I wonderful $8 dollar purchase from a local flee market. It looks like it was built at the same time as the two pieces that flank either side of it,
but it is a much newer furnishing. The tea pot on the sideboard is made of tin, there is an old wire basket for eggs and an old-fashioned
 toy telephone next to the sink as well.
We call this little doll our kitchen mother. I love her stripped skirt,
 gauzy apron and pale pink shawl. She watches over all the babies
in the Grimm nursery and efficiently tucks in their covers at
 night so that they will sleep soundly.
A needlepoint that once belonged to my husband's mother.
She finished it for her mother but had tucked it away inside
 her sewing basket for years. I stretched it carefully and put
 it into an old walnut frame to match the children's furnish-
ings. Text, "Bless This House O Lord We Pray." She would
 be pleased to know that someone small can appreciate it now.
More Old-Fashioned Playrooms:

Saturday, September 23, 2017

The Dreamer

THE DREAMER
BY M. E. CROCKER

If in the greenwood of a dream
I sit as still
As still may be, and hold my breath
And listen, till

Soft rustlings of a leaf I hear,
A whispering bough;
Catch a swift, guarded glance that darts
From a branch - now

If in that greenwood wild and sweet
I stay so still
As if a breath would wreck the world.
If I wait, till

I hear a soft, soft sound that seems
Scarce sound, but more
The thinking of a bird that first
Is murmuring lore

Half-way remembered by his throat -
Catching a note
Before he flings to melody,
Be-starred, remote -

There in that woodland, while I stay
Unmoving, come.
If I am grown into the moss.
Things that were dumb.

Songs of remembered, unchanged dreams
Float close to me;
Souls that were hid slip out from flowers,
Leap from each tree.

But when I move to snatch, to trap
A song, a soul -
With the first finger's-breadth I stir.
Lost is the whole!

The Christmas Road of Salem

       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 its echoes, 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 of the 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 elaborate process 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
Bethabara Moravian Church Christmas Lovefeast in Winston Salem. 

Thursday, August 31, 2017

Capturing the veiled lady in cotton...

Cotton batting veiled lady mushrooms.
       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:
  1.  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.
  2. Chop up a clean paper egg carton. Trim and keep the bell cap shapes for the tops of your mushrooms.
  3. Insert a small wire up through the tops of the caps for hangers. Tape these firmly into place.
  4. Crush the newsprint into stalks and glue these to the inside of the bell cap shapes. 
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Unravel the white cotton balls. 
  8. Alternate the white glue and cotton batting in fine layers over the stalks and underneath the bell caps. 
  9. Layer the glue and dryer lint on top of the cap until you are pleased with the patterning.
  10. Apply the white glue over the entire surface of the veiled lady, excluding the indusium, until you are satisfied with the mushroom.
From egg carton to recycled mushroom forms.
Slow motion of the veiled lady growing
 with strange alien music.

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Grandpa's Wooden Morels

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:
  1.  Make sure your mushroom blanks are clean, free of dust and dirt.
  2. 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.
  3. Layer random washes of a reddish tan water color over the surface. Let dry
  4. Paint the bottoms of the stems burnt umber. 
  5. Paint the underside of the caps burnt umber.
  6. 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.
  7. Brush the surface with a thin coat of wood varnish and let the wooden fungi dry overnight.
  8. 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.
Purchase Wooden Mushrooms:
Left, the unfinished balsa wood mushroom blanks. Right, the first coat of paint.

Friday, August 25, 2017

An assortment of blocks for coloring


Description of Coloring Page: wooden blocks for play, wooden wagon for storing blocks

Don't forget to drag the png. or jpg into a Word Document and enlarge the image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.

Block Related Crafts and Activities:

 

 Can you draw a stocking? It's easy to try; just follow the simple steps below and fill it with the toys you would like for Santa to bring to you!

Left, "Now Tommy was'nt very tall; in fact he was quite short and small." Center, "But he hung up his biggest sock, in hopes that Santa Claus might stop." Right, "And fill it up with presents fine, so Tom could have a jolly time."

Color the wind in his beard...

 
Description of Coloring Page: St. Nickolas, snow, wind, holly frame

        Don't forget to drag the png. or jpg into a Word Document and enlarge the image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.
 

       Once you have colored Santa and the holly wreath for fun, why not try drawing a wreath all by yourself? 
Left, "A circle is an artist's friend, you lat it on the desk and then."
Center, "You draw another one inside, some ribbon lines that flare out wide,"
Right, "Some holly leaves with edges fine, and here's a wreath for Christmas time!"

More Links to Christmas Wreaths:

A toy rocking horse coloring page


Description of Coloring Page: pretend horse, large enough to ride, safe enough to tumble from, stuffed pony, child sized saddle

Don't forget to drag the png. or jpg into a Word Document and enlarge the image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.
 

 The following illustrated Christmas toys may be duplicated larger, smaller, or the same size by the use of a grid drawing system. Read about Enlarging and Reducing Pictures Here. After learning this method you can use these pictures as patterns for ornaments, artwork or for making a picture with them. Illustrations include: a child hanging up her stocking, a pine tree, Santa climbing down the chimney, a sled and a small girl rolling a giant snowball.
 
Learn to draw using a grid system.

Color and Craft Christmas Dolls


Description of Coloring Page: St. Nickolas, armful of dolls, stuffed animals, sailor boy, bunny, monkey, china dolls too

Don't forget to drag the png. or jpg into a Word Document and enlarge the image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.
 
 
       The foundation for this doll is a lollipop. The head may be traced on a piece of cardboard and painted with acrylics. Miss Lollipop's cap is white crepe paper gathered with a thread and needle. The back view shows the adjustment. The head is pasted to a piece of white around the upper edge to xx, leaving room for the top of the lollipop. Paste and use needle and thread to fasten on clothes. Follow this order in dressing: cap, underskirt, over-skirt, cape, tie. The cap edge should have a frill. All is white except the violet over-skirt and tie. For a Christmas doll replace the over-skirt and tie with red or green colors.
 
Steps for lollipop doll illustrated.


Paper cut silhouette pattern of a Belsnickle and two reindeer.

Christmas Doll Coloring, Poems and Drawing

A Christmas Doll's Plans 
I'm a Christmas dolly,
As you can see;
I was bought and hung
On a Christmas tree.

My mistress is named
Miss Janey Lou;
And I'll tell you right now
What I'm going to do.

In the mornings I'll rise 
And rush all about,
Tidying the house,
Inside and out.

I'll dust and I'll sweep,
I'll bake and I'll stew,
All for my mistress,
Miss Janey Lou.

Then after our breakfast
We'll go for a walk;
We'll sit in the park,
And together we'll talk.

Oh, we'll be just the happiest
Pair in the town,
I-Christmas Dolly,
And Janey Lou Brown.



 
Description of Coloring Page: Victorian child cradles her Christmas doll, old-fashioned costume

Don't forget to drag the png. or jpg into a Word Document and enlarge the image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.
 

 Now you many try to draw a doll of your very own. All it takes is paper, a pencil and your favorite crayons for coloring the doll in.
Left, "A circle and an oval, too, will do so many things for you." Center, "This time we put in face and hair, add legs and arms on her and there." Right, "A sweet rag doll with a happy smile is ready now for some small child."

The toy piano coloring page


 
Description of Coloring Page: portrait of St. Nickolas, toy piano, doll, wicker cradle, smiling twins, holly

Don't forget to drag the png. or jpg into a Word Document and enlarge the image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.
 

 Christmas Eve by Christopher Moreley

Our hearts to-night are open wide,
The grudge, the grief are laid aside;
The path and porch are swept of snow,
The doors unlatched; the hearthstones
glow-
No visitor can be denied.

All tender human homes must hide
Some wistfulness beneath their pride;
Compassionate and humble grow
Our hearts to-night.
 
 
Below is a word scramble of Santa's 5 Favorite Christmas Tunes. Can you unscramble the letters and fill in the correct words for the blanks provided?
 
Look up favorite children's Christmas songs on the web to figure out this puzzle quickly!