I just posted a Christmas present that I came up with. I didn't get the idea from anywhere in particular, just worked with what I had on hand. This is the finished product:
Forgive the messy background but at least you can see the beads! This is actually a really simple project and doesn't really take all that long.
Here are my supplies:
Ok, so the plastic bag is the blocking mat for the snowflake. It's a piece of cardboard with a six pointed stencil drawn on it and then put in a ziploc.
Stiffy fabric stiffener.
The snowflake pattern book.
A couple of short Christmas ornament hangers and a clear plastic ornament. I got mine at the Christmas Tree Shoppe for $1 and you can open it up and take out that tinsel.
The ornament is about 12" around and originally I was going to make multiple motifs to wrap around it. Well, that didn't work out so well. However, I did think that the one motif that I made would fit inside the ball. The snowflake pattern I picked out was 3 1/2" across. The beads were an add-on idea and is not described in the book at all. I used size 10 crochet cotton and a size 7 steel hook.
Once the snowflake is done, and you've woven in all your ends, you'll want to soak it with water. Wring it out and drop in a solution of 1 part water, 3 parts fabric stiffener. If you used full strength, the finished snowflake wouldn't really be pliable and you might crease it rather than just bend it. Pin this to dry overnight on your blocking mat, aligning the points of the snowflake with the points of the stencil.
Once dry, go ahead and open up your ornament and discard that tinsel (who invented that crap anyway). Now, this is a little tricky, carefully, and gently roll up your snowflake so that you can get it through the opening at the top. Don't worry about losing it, it's only going inside the ball and you can easily reach it with your fingers. Let it drop inside, breathe, then get to flattening it out again. This is easily done by putting your fingers in there and pressing the snowflake against the sides of the ball.
After you've gotten the snowflake flattened back out again, use the short Christmas ornament hooks to hang it from the plastic at the top. Seen here in this picture is how I put the two hooks through the same whole but in different directions to get the snowflake to hang freely:
Now that the snowflake is hanging freely inside your ornament, pop the cover back on and voila! A beautiful ornament as a present or for your own tree!!
Let me know if you have questions and feel free to spread this around as much as you'd like!
Thanks for stopping by and Happy Holidays!
<3 kobuu="" p="">
No comments:
Post a Comment