I'M STILL MAKING ORNIES

I'm still spending most of each day working on ornaments and have had some successes and some failures and some saves. A save is when you think something is scrap and then you look at it differently and see something that gives you an idea for something else entirely.

I made that other batch of salt dough that I told you about and had mixed results. Several of the "cookies" turned out just the way I'd pictured them while others were total failures. I had ones that puffed up but with some of the shapes like the stars I liked the puffed look.

There were 10 of the gingerbread men that I thought were going to end up in the trash but after looking at them again I saw something else. Here's how I wanted them to look.

See, all flat and cookie looking. I also included two of the stars to show how cute they look puffed.  I ended up with 21 of the flat cookie men and have them completed right down to the hanging cord.

When I gave the puffed cookie men a second look here's what came to mind.

and this.....

These are the first three of ten. Don't they look like they're stuffed? Some have split at the seams and a couple have holes in the back. I stuck a bit of cotton wool in the holes to look like stuffing showing. I know, I'm a bit weird but I've always been this way.  Painting the 10 rejects  should be time consuming don't you think? I should have just tossed them but if there's one thing I really enjoy doing it is salvaging just about anything.

I also made three more Santa heads with the pmc and have them painted. These three are about an inch longer and a bit wider than the other ones I showed on my last post.

I don't plan on showing you every ornament I make but I thought you might enjoy seeing a few more and since I have a busy week ahead of me like many of you I might not do another post for awhile.

How many of you start your Christmas decorating the weekend after Thanksgiving? That's when I start and I keep adding to it all of the way up until Christmas day.

As always, thanks for stopping by. Have a great week and I'll be back as soon as I get caught up with things.

CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS

I have this habit of waiting until the very last minute to finish a project and sometimes I wait until it's almost too late to start one.

Case in point, I've decided to decorate the living room Christmas tree with nothing but hand made ornaments, and although it's a wonderful idea and I really am glad I thought of it, why did I wait until last week to start?

I associate gingerbread men cookies with Christmas and figured they would be fun to make so those went on the to-do list. Salt dough seemed like a logical choice for making them so I went on line and did some research and found a recipe I thought might work well. Okay, here's where I tell you that I've never made salt dough before and haven't played with play dough for many many years so I had no idea of what to expect as far as what the final results would be.

I wasn't really crazy with the way the "cookies" made with the dough came out but went ahead and decorated them and they'll get put on the tree as I'm running short of time and need all the ornaments I can make so the tree doesn't look too bare. Once the first 6 gingerbread men were cut out I cut out 6 Santa cookies. Here's a sampling of both styles.

Part of the reason I wasn't really thrilled with the salt dough is I didn't expect it to puff up as it did on some of the pieces or warp as it did on others. I've got another recipe that I'm going to make today and hopefully it will work better than this last one did.

The next ornies I'm going to show you I made with paper mache clay. I had some pmc left in the container that wasn't enough to start one of the larger pieces and I nearly dumped it when I decided to play around and see what I could make with it. The following three ornaments were so much fun that I've made more that I'm waiting for them to dry so I can paint them.

They're not quite finished as I've got to add a cord loop for hanging them. These Santa heads are about 5" long and 1" wide. The next ones are a bit larger.

Even though I'm getting a late start on making my ornaments I hope to get enough finished by the time I start decorating the tree so it's not too skimpy. Besides the cookies and Santa heads I'm hoping to get a few stitched ornaments finished.

I'm really not too concerned though as I've got plenty of help painting. Here are a few of my helpers.

Okay gang, break time is over, back to work. Don't forget to put your paint smocks back on before you start painting.

As always, thanks for stopping by.