Harry Potter Wands

Let's have a break from all this Christmas talk for a moment and have a look at a selection of Harry Potter style wands I have been creating shall we?!

These have been so much fun to make and are going to be sold to raise funds for the Friends of Braiswick Primary next week. They are made from chopsticks, air-drying clay, melting glue (I preferred using my cool melt glue gun but hot glue would be fine) and a selection of acrylic paints. Cheap as chips and utterly fabulous results. This won't be the last time I make these!

Snow Globe Baubles

So, this is what we did with our Christmas tree and snowman figures from yesterday. We glued them to the base of fillable baubles and added a scoop of artificial snow and glitter to create fabulous little snow globe baubles.

We also used a miniature gold bottle-brush tree to do the same thing, which will look stunning on our tree but has far less charm and character than our entirely homemade ones above!

Introducing Fimo

My word, Jessica enjoyed crafting with Fimo this afternoon. I had picked up a Fimo Soft Christmas Kit when it was on offer a few weeks ago so we had some good colours to play with and a moulding tray to try out but we quickly went rogue and decided to try making candy-canes. Jessica was so good at making them; I was so impressed! The ones pictured above are all her own work and I love them all! The bigger ones, at least, are definitely destined for my Christmas tree.

It is such a long time since I last dabbled with polymer clay (we're talking a couple of decades here!) and I'd forgotten just how good it is. It's wonderfully simple and very satisfying. As well as the candy-canes and a few little things from the moulding tray we made this snowman and Christmas tree together. I have a feeling we'll be making more before the festive season is through! Just wait until you see what we did with these figures later in the day...

Beaded Snowflake Decorations

This weekend I've been creating incredibly fiddly decorations for my own tree. I love these snowflakes but I am a little concerned that they'll get a bit lost once the whole tree is up. Only time will tell I suppose. There is something incredibly satisfying in the process of working with wire and beads. It takes patience, attention to detail and a steady hand. My crafting pliers are my best friend and my final pieces twinkle and shine!

Fingerprint Tree Ornaments

Jessica and I had a load of air drying clay left lying around, slowly drying out without use so I thought I'd try out something new. We rolled it out reasonably thin and used a cookie cutter to cut out trees. The hole was punched using a straw and then they were left to dry for a few days. Unfortunately they seem to have a tendency to curl up slightly and whilst this adds to the charm it does also make them more vulnerable to breaking when decorating. 

Once completely dry, we tried a couple of different ideas for decorating them but this one is my favourite, Jessica used ink pads to decorate the tree with her fingerprints. It's vibrant and beautiful and I'm excited to hang it up when Christmas finally arrives.