Crafting 101

by Tammy Stanard

Winter is here and I always enjoy decorating my home for winter and the holidays. This crafting article features homemade ornaments that can be modified for any holiday or decor for the winter season.

I love to use the same materials across multiple crafts. If you have supplies on hand, take a stab at modifying the ornament projects here by using your materials.

I will list the supplies you will need to make all the ornaments here and will break down the supplies you will need to make each ornament before listing out the steps by specific project.

Supplies for all ornaments:

- A glue gun and an extra glue stick or two- Scissors

- Tan yarn – At least 10 yards. How much you need depends on how many ornaments you are making

- Wiggly eyes- Chenille pipe cleaners

- Red ribbon of some sort – I used ¾”, if you have 3/8” that should work too

- One length of string - I used red

- Small pom poms – I used black or you can change it up with multiple colors

- Black or gray craft paint- Small paint brushes- White paint marker- Wooden stars – Michaels sells these in a package of 5

- Red and/or green glitter (I know it is messy – but I use it anyway)

- Mod Podge- Tiny little bells - or any other tiny items you may have

- Krylon Workable Fixative (This is not necessary, but if you already have some I suggest using it.)

Snowflake Ornament

Supplies you’ll need:

- DIY Wood Ornament- Black or Gray Craft Paint- Small Paint Brushes- White Paint Marker- Ribbon ¾”

1) I think a round wood piece is perfect for this ornament. I used a stencil brush, because that is what I had and it worked just fine. First, paint one side of the ornament black or gray depending on what color paint you chose. If you are doing this with children, you may want to paint the wood beforehand to limit the mess.

2) Once the paint is completely dry, emphasis on completely, use the paint pen to start drawing a snowflake. I searched for snowflakes in Google, picked the image I liked and started drawing.

3) I kept the jute the wood came with to use as a hanger and I tied a red ribbon to the jute hanger to spruce it up. Use any type of ribbon you like, and any color depending on the holiday you celebrate or the décor in your room. And your ornament is completed!

Reindeer Yarn Ornaments

Supplies you’ll need:

- A glue gun and an extra glue stick- Scissors- Tan yarn - Buy a whole skein to make sure you have enough- Wiggly eyes- Chenille pipe cleaners

- Red ribbon of some sort – I used ¾”for the bow and smaller red string for the center

- Small pom poms – I used black or you can get multi-color and change it up.

1) First make the pom pom. Start by placing a small piece of yarn between your index and ring fingers and lay across the ring finger and pinkie. See photo of the red yarn on my hand. This piece will be used as the hanger. I used red yarn so it stands out and makes the next steps a little less challenging, but you can also use ribbon.

2) Wrap the tan yarn around your fingers 50 times.

3) Gently slide the yarn off your hand so it doesn’t move from the circle you wrapped it in. Take the red yarn between your fingers and tie the yarn circle in the middle as tight as possible (the tighter you tie, the fluffier the pom pom will be).

4) Now cut the loops on both ends of the red yarn. Now you have a pom pom that you have to cut and shape into a smaller ball. Personally, I think my ‘reindeer’ look like dogs with curly ears so you may want to trim the pom poms much more than I did. Dogs or reindeer, make whatever suits you.

5) Plug in your glue gun and let it heat up. While the glue gun heats up, cut the pipe cleaners to an acceptable length for the antlers and wrap them around your pinkie finger to shape. Glue on the pipe cleaners at the top near the red yarn hanger.

6) Now glue on the eyes and the nose. Be creative, I also bought brown pipe cleaners to use as antlers. And maybe try a pink or red small pom pom for the nose. I added one bow just below the antlers on one of the ornaments to give it a feminine look. I tied the bow around the hanger and added some glue to hold it in place.

Glitter Star Ornament

Supplies you’ll need:

- A glue gun and an extra glue stick

- Scissors

- Wooden Stars

- Red and/or Green Glitter

- Mod Podge

- Tiny little Bells - tiny pom poms would work too, but they would have to be really small

- Krylon Workable Fixative (This is not necessary, but if you already have some I suggest using it.)

I used stars for these ornaments because they are non-denominational. Use any color materials for these ornaments. As you’ll see I used the pipe cleaners from the Reindeer Ornament on this craft too.

1) Coat the stars with Mod Podge. Pour glitter over the entire star and let it sit until it dries completely, emphasis on completely.

2) Once the stars have dried, tilt them to remove the glitter that hasn’t set in.

3) I had these tiny bells in my craft supplies so I glued them to form the word JOY. These bells are probably for sale in any craft store. You can glue on any tiny item, so get creative.

4) I created two Glitter Star Ornaments, so for the second I used leftover pipe cleaner from the Reindeer Ornament to spell out LOVE. I cut the pipe cleaner and molded the smaller pieces into letters and glued the letters to the ornament.

5) To make the hanger, take a ribbon and glue it to the back of the star in the point that is at the top. Then bend the ribbon and glue ribbon to ribbon, in an effort to make the ribbon sturdy. This hanger can be tied around any door knob or tree, so make it as long or short as you’d like.

6) I sprayed these ornaments with Krylon Workable Fixatif that I had on hand. The spray doesn’t indicate that it is effective with glitter, but I used it as instructed and found that more glitter did not come off the ornaments.

Now take a glance at your work and enjoy! Hopefully these ideas will get your creative juices flowing. Happy crafting!