Recycled Crayon Christmas Bulbs

I've had a box of clear Christmas bulbs floating around my craft room for years, just waiting for me to figure out what to do with them. In years past I used acrylic paint to make swirling designs inside my clear bulbs, but it is very time consuming, messy, and takes up a lot of space in my kitchen for far too long. A while back I read about an idea where you use old crayons to do much the same thing, using a hair dryer to melt the wax. I decided to give it a shot!

I already had a bunch of old crayons that I had been collecting for my "Crayon Candles" blog post. After becoming somewhat frustrated with the candle idea, I had put it on the back burner for a while. This means that I had plenty of crayons to choose from!

So, when you are making your Christmas bulbs, choose 4 colors for each bulb. Unwrap the 4 crayons and cut some small chunks off.

The chunks you cut should be about the size of a pencil eraser.

Here are the combos I chose for my bulbs. Please note that there is a fourth bulb, my tester!

Once you've got the four little nubbins of wax in your bulb, bust out the hairdryer and set about melting! The bulbs will get fairly hot, so unless your hands are made of asbestos, you will need some kind of protection. I used a pair of cotton gloves I found in the makeup/manicure section of my local super store, and those worked just fine for me!

Keep heating and swirling until the entire interior of the bulb has been coated, then turn it upside down and allow the excess wax to drip out.


















Here are the four bulbs that I made. You may notice that the green bulb is not quite up to par.











I discovered with this green bulb that mixing wax from different brands of crayons just doesn't work out. Don't do it, mmmkay?










Once my bulbs were cooled and the hangers replaced, I used correspondingly colored ribbon to make hanging loops. I think they're super cute!

Felt Mitten Ornament

I was going through some of my craft stuff, and I came across my stash of felt. It reminded me of a felt mitten Christmas ornament I had seen in one of the rooms at the nursing home where I work. I decided to make a felt mitten ornament of my own!

First I fashioned a mitten pattern out of some scrap paper.

Next I cut two matching mitten shapes out of felt.

I cut some scraps of quilt batting to use as edging on the wrists, and glued them into place. You could also use cotton balls for this, or some scraps of ribbon or felt. White glue or craft glue should work fine for this portion, just let it dry thoroughly.

Next, apply glue to the wrist portion of the wrong side of one of your mitten shapes. I know it shows white glue in the photo, but, believe me, hot glue will work best. Stick some ribbon, thread, string, yarn, or pipe cleaners to the wrist to act as your hanger. Now you can apply glue to the edges and stick your two mitten halves together.

Allow the glue to dry and cool, an then you can add some decoration if you would like.

I just added a button on the wrist of this mitten, but you could use all sorts of things to decorate. Glitter glue, fancy stitches with embroidery floss, sequins, ribbon, rick rack... the sky's the limit! Have fun and happy crafting!

Brazil Nut Reindeer Ornament

I remember having a few of these little fellows on our Christmas tree growing up. While I was making some Christmas tree ornaments for my sister I happened upon some leftover Brazil nuts I had been saving for making reindeer, so I figured that I'd better get to it!

So, for every Brazil nut you intend to use you will need two eyeballs, a short length of ribbon to use as a hanger, a small pompom for a nose, and half a chenille stem (tan works best, but white would be fine as well.) You will also need a hot glue gun and glue sticks to put it all together.

First cut your chenille stems in half. Each half will be a set of antlers for a reindeer.Fold your section of chenille stem in half, then use that fold to make a"w" shape. Fold the long bits into a zigzag formation, taking care that the two sides match. The "w" will sit on the reindeer's head.

The Brazil nut has three sides to it. The bottom is narrow, and the two sides are wide. The two sides come together at the top in a fairly sharp ridge. This ridge is where your antlers will sit. The back is fairly rounded, while the front is pointed where the three sides join up. The point at the front is where you will glue your pompom nose. You can use black, dark brown, or red for the nose. I used one black and one red. 

Next glue your eyeballs on. One on either side of the head. Make sure that they are symmetrical.

Now you can glue the antlers on. The "w" should sit on the ridge at the top of the nut. 

Just behind the antlers is where you should attach your ribbon hanger. Tie a knot or a bow at the top to close it off. 

Once your glue has set you will have some cute little reindeer eyeballing you from your Christmas tree! I love these little guys. It's a really neat use for your leftover holiday nuts. 

Countdown to Christmas 2015

Last year I had a countdown to Christmas with things you can make to give. You can find it here: Counting Down with Gifts for Christmas. I had so much fun with it that I decided to do another countdown this year! Remember that as I publish my posts, this page will be the index. Here's what you have to look forward to:

Scrap Fabric Christmas Cards

Paint and Button Christmas Cards

Recycled Christmas Card Gift Tags

Recycled Christmas Card Gift Boxes

Brazil Nut Reindeer Ornament

Felt Mitten Ornament

Recycled Crayon Christmas Bulbs

Seashell Christmas Ornaments

These ornaments are super cute! I decided one Christmas many years ago that I would make Christmas ornaments to sell to my co-workers to make extra money. I invented these seashell ornaments as part of my stock to sell. I never made any real money, but everyone loved my seashell ornaments! Since I already had a bunch of seashells on hand, this was a fairly cheap project to complete. You will need some seashells that are large enough and thick enough to endure having holes filed in them, a drill, a small drill bit (I think the one I used here was 3/32), small glass or wooden beads with holes large enough for your thread to be drawn through (I found tiny pre-drilled shells in my bead box and decided to use those,) a small crochet hook (I used a size 10) and some crochet thread.



First off, find some interesting looking shells that are thick enough, and have openings large enough, to drill some holes in.
















Make your holes as close as possible to the edge of the shell, without breaking it.











Locate the beads that you would like to crochet into the hangers, or, in my case, the tiny shells. Put your beads into a bowl or dish so they are easy to pick up as you are crocheting.









Make a slipknot in your crochet thread and pass your hook through the thread, and then through the hole in your shell. Yarn over and draw through the slipknot to form a stitch around your shell. Draw the thread tight around the shell, but be very careful and pull gently to prevent your thread from being cut by the edge of your shell.

Decide how far apart you would like your beads to be, and count out how many times you chain so that you can space the beads evenly around the hanger. I chained five, then attached my tiny shell. Make a stitch around your bead just as you did to attach your thread to the shell in the beginning. The stitch to attach your bead, and the following chain do not count in your spacing, they are just to lock the bead into place. So, stitch once through the bead, chain once to lock it, then start counting your chain stitches for spacing. Continue until your hanger is long enough to slip over a branch on your tree, then, after your last set of spacing chains, slip stitch to beginning stitch (the one that you used to attach your thread to the shell.) Fasten off and tie the tail from your beginning stitch to the tail on your ending stitch.

Use your crochet hook to weave in your tails, I wove them in just up to the first bead, and trim off excess.












There you have it! Put it on your tree! I like to make a set of 5 or 6, using different colors and shapes of shells.

Braided Christmas Card Display

I got my first Christmas card of the season the other day, and excitedly tore through my remaining Christmas decor in order to find my display I made several years ago. Unfortunately for me I couldn't find it. Fortunately for you I will show you how to make another one. All you will need is some Christmas-y colors of yarn, and some pin-style clothes pins.

Start out by measuring out nine strands of yarn, a few yards of each. Two yards is probably pretty good. I measured out closer to four, and ended up using around three.

Hold the ends of all your yarn strands together and tie a knot to hold them all together. Divide your yarn into three groups of three strands. You make the three groups out of three strands of each color or mix the colors together like I have here.

Begin braiding the strands together. It is helpful if you stand during the first part of braiding, as it will help you work the tangles out to the end where they are more easily dealt with. Please note that at the beginning of the braiding, you will need to stop frequently to work out the tangles. If you don't take care of them frequently you will end up with a terrible mess!

When you reach the end of your yarn, or your desired length, you will need to tie another knot.

Wrap the yarn around your two fingers, just above the end of the braiding, and pass the loose end through to form a knot.

Trim the ends of the yarn so that they are even.

Tack your braid up on the wall and, using the clothes pins, attach your Christmas cards. The braid should be just the right size to hold your card firmly in the slot of the clothes pin.