Salaric

I made these about three years ago, so apologies for them looking a bit battered! I thought people might find how I made them useful, even if I do not have step by step photographs. 🙁

The Christmas Wreath

This is currently hanging on our front door!

What I did was use a piece of metal wire I found at my uncle’s car garage/workshop place. It was basically a perfect circle and I knew instantly what it would be useful for – however, I doubt this would happen if you were looking!

So its probably best to bend a wire coathanger into a circle, or if you are feeling adventurous, use some willow whipping canes! You can also buy twig circles and stuff for this sort of thing from lots of haberdashery shops and craft shops, not to mention flower arranging places (both sick flowers and floristry).

I had two nice bunches of silk flower poinsettias, which I had picked up in a pound shop along with some nice gold and glitter acorns and twirly bits and flowers (plastic) picked up in Romford market.

I had also picked up some pine cones earlier in the year (they may even have been from the year before!) which I attached some floristry wire to.

I then took four of the poinsettias and, envisioning a square inside the circle of wire, positioned them at what would be the four corners. I twisted their wire stalks around the wire circle, then discovering I had no florestry tape, I raided our electronics book and selected the red electrical insulating tape. This I found worked really well, though only if you aren’t going to be seeing the result! I wrapped it round the wire and stalks, fixing them in place.

I then raided my mum’s leftover materials box and found some red satin back material. It had some frayed edges which I folded behind it and stuck down with more electrical tape (mum was not impressed, but then I don’t do sewing. I would advise that if you have the time and skill that you do sew it, as it will last longer!).

This was for the banner across the middle. I laid it out flat, and making sure that there was plenty of room at each end, painted ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS’ onto it. I used a gold, glittery fabric paint that I had picked up in WH Smith’s of all places!

This had to dry – it took forever!

I got impatient though and put it on the wreath – hence one of the letters is smudged! I placed the piece of material so that it was cutting the square in half, then I folded the ends over and secured them with a mix of stitching and yet more electrical tape.

I then got two of the golden glittery things with acorns and attached them either side of the banner in a similair fashion to the poinsettias. Then I attatched the pine cones in the spaces – not all of these have survived! Place them where you think it will look good. I had two between the bottom poinsettias, one between the poinsettia and golden arrangement, each side etc…

One I had all of this on, I wrapped green and red tinsel around it all and was quite chuffed with the result. I originally had a piece of wire wrapped round the top for hanging it up, but unfortunately this rusted through and it’s now just tied up on a mangy old piece of string.

The Matching Centrepiece

We have a gold pillar candle in a gold dish type of candle holder and I decided to make it Christmasy when I realised that I hadn’t even touched the second bunch of poinsettias. These ones had gold petals in the middle.

First of all, I made a metal hoop – I think this was out of some wire I pinched from the electronics bench. I bent it into shape using pliers, making sure it would fit over the candle. The making of this was pretty similiar to the wreath. I just wrapped four poinsettia flowers onto it – though I did have to trim the stalks a bit! The old electrical tape came into play!

Then between two of the flowers I put the gold acorn arrangement and then some pine cones in the other gaps. Then I wrapped silver tinsel around it.

I did find, however, that I needed to alter the postion of some of the pine cones slightly – mainly becuase they were lifting the candle holder and candle off the flate surface – never good when you think of a lighted candle!

These were quite rushed and I’m sure that time and care could make this sort of thing look professional!

I’m posting these becuase a) I’m a proud parent and b) I think some of the ideas are cool and plan to nick them for the Beavers and Cubs next year!

My baby is called Jean and is almost 16 months, so I think that she was heavily helped with these projects!

Photo rotation and spelling correction soon to follow!

This is shiny green card with Jean’s footprint as the reindeer’s face, which then has a red, glittery bobble on, stuck on as the nose, and two goggly eyes. The antlers are Jean’s handprints in gold metallic paint (I assume non-toxic!) attached with metallic, green pipe cleaners and liberal use of sellotape!

This appears to be two foam sheets cut into a bauble shape and stuck together around the green ribbon. They then stuck lots of glitter and smaller Christmas foam shapes on it – on one side an artist’s use of milk bottle tops has been made!

This is a snowman card shape with a hole punched hole and a bit of cotton that she has splashed some white and green paint on to. I think the green was an accident but you never know!

Snowflake shape cut from paper – then covered in glue and glitter.

Card bauble shape covered in glue then glitter.

Not entirely sure this Jean Angel doesn’t freak me out! It’s a cone of orange card (you make these generally by cutting out a circle and cutting a radial line, ie a cut that if a line was drawn would be the radius). Then you can slide one bit of the circle under another bit of it – fix with glue, tape or staple and you have a cone. The wings are again handprints in gold paint that are stuck on, and then a little photo of her face has been cut out to be the head. It’s sort of cut and sort of freaky – it would scare me but as I am her mother I have to think it’s sweet!

I thought up this project for the Cub pack my husband runs!

Corrected spelling soon to follow!

Needed:

1) At least one loo roll innard (you know the cardboard tube bit) per child, uncrushed or falling to bits etc…

2) Some A4 sheets of coloured paper – we used paper that was closer to sugar paper (the stuff schools use for mounting artwork and poems!) than printing or drawing paper. Again you will need at least one sheet per child.

3) Christmas stickers, ie the type for labelling presents – we got a big sheet of these from our local pound shop!

4) PVA glue

5) Paint brushes/glue applicators

6) Old yoghurt pots or equivalent for the glue – we use empty mini trifle pots

7) Ribbon or coloured cord – we used metallic parcel string from Tesco’s that I bought years ago

8) Scissors – preferably crinkle cut or the like

9) Sellotape

10) Decorations – we got some Christmas table sprinkles which included nice metallic Christmas trees and snowflakes, and I used some of the paper shapes I had punched myself!

11) Cracker pulls (not sure what the correct term is – these can be tricky to get when it’s not December but I will try and list a supplier at some point for you all). We didn’t use these as I didnt have time to go to the shops – some parents can also be a bit iffy about their little darlings being near explosives etc…. The kids made the crackers as a present/decoration instead of as functioning cracker.

For inside the cracker:

We made some bead bracelets with them but we were planning to print some jokes, and if there had been time we would have got them to make hats etc… The scope is endless!

Step 1:

Get things ready – we poured the glue into its pots and had a conveyor belt type system for the kids with separate tables for bracelet-making and paper cutting and gluing etc…

Cut a template piece of ribbon or cord – make sure that it will be long enough for little fingers to be able to tie a bow in!

Step 2:

Get the child to choose which colour they want – then to cut some sort of fancy border on the short sides of the paper, ie if it was in portrait then the top and bottom of the sheet of paper should be cut. We did wavy, zigzag or they can just use crinkle cut scissors!

Step 3:

Lay the loo roll on the sheet of paper with the long axis aligned to the long axis of the paper, ie lay the paper lengthways/landscape with the loo roll running lengthways on it. Cut a piece of sellotape and wrap it back on itself, making a sticky loop. Alternatively, just buy some double-sided tape.

Roll the loo roll innard up in the paper sheet and secure the sheet with the tape. You do this by putting the tape loop onto the underside of the bit of the paper that ends up on top.

You should now (if you can follow my dodgy instructions!) have a loo roll innard inside of a larger tube made of the coloured paper.

Step 4:

Put a Christmas sticker on the join and make sure the loo roll innard is in the centre of the cracker. If you are putting a snapper in, this is when to do it! Cut two lengths of ribbon, then gather the overhanging paper at one end of the loo roll innard and tie ribbon or cord around it. You can now put the goodies such as jokes etc… in the cracker!

Step 5:

Gather the remaining end up and tie ribbon or cord around it.

Step 6:

Release the children with the glue and glitter and other decorations! Make sure you leave adequate time for the glue to dry before they have to take them anywhere!

I realise that this is not the clearest set of instructions ever – but I will at some point in the future get around to creating a set of laminated instruction cards (hopefully before next year!).

Hopefully this blog will act as a repository for all the art and craft and any other crazy projects we get up to. I hope too that the documented projects which will also have photos attached will be a good resource for other people.

I am still learning mainly new techniques and styles; my favourites though are probably my polymer clay projects and our metalwork projects. I probably paint more than anything at the moment but promise not to bore you all too much with that!

By training I am a scientist and not an artist and I feel this definitely comes through in my work – hopefully in a good way!

I have found myself at several points in my life organising craft activities for children or adolescents. I am currently in one of these positions with our local Beavers, Cubs and Scouts, so there will probably be lots of childrens’ projects on here too. This section I feel will only grow as I have a small baby/toddler who already scribbles with crayons and will no doubt be a continual source of inspiration!

I will also cross link to my mother’s sewing blog from time to time and maybe a few other sites to build this blog into a valuable resource for anyone interested in art and handicrafts.

Ps my spelling etc… isn’t too crash hot but I feel that the site should have a high standard so please let me know of anything too glaring. 🙂