snow globe ornaments

To go along with the Paul Bunyan towelendars and some other things (to be discussed in my next post), I made these cute snow globe ornaments with tiny bottle brush trees and a ton of glitter (both opalescent and silver). I inserted the trees with long tweezers and attached them with hot glue.

I found the bottle brush trees and clear ornaments at Ben Franklin Crafts here locally, which turned out to have ample supplies of both after the other chain stores sold out (also better pricing than JoAnn).

I tried this with both plastic and glass ornaments, and each had some pros and cons.

Mainly, I had more problems with hot glue strings sticking all over the inside of the plastic bulbs, but this also meant that the trees were more secure once they were stuck in place.

The glass bulbs didn't have as many problems with glue strings sticking, but I also had more trees come loose from the bottoms of the bulbs. In addition, I had one glass ball break, so buy one or two extra if you have a set number of people on your gift list.

Again in the pro column (for me) is that the glitter is statically attracted to the inside of the glass, so there's a bit more of a "falling snow" effect on the sides of the glass ornaments than inside the plastic ornaments.

I finished these off with baker's twine loops and tags cut from wood veneer. I purchased a large piece (2 x 5 feet) of wood veneer at the recycled building store for $3, and it cut easily with kitchen scissors. To prevent ink from running in the grain, I drew the year on with pencil. As a bonus, it has a nice handmade look to it.

I'll link you here to my inspiration for this project, last year's Prep & Landing snow globe project from Disney's Family Fun Magazine. I ended up foregoing the bases and using bottle brush trees after seeing a few similar projects on Pinterest, and was happy with the decision. I think my additions of the twine and wood veneer tags are what make them really stand out as a nice tie-in to the Paul Bunyan tales though.

Did you put together any fun Christmas ornaments this year?

Thanks for reading!

p.s. Did I mention that you can make these photos larger just by clicking on  them? You probably already knew that, but I thought I'd mention it.

p.p.s. Did I also mention that I cut our cedar Christmas tree out of our yard this year, Clark W. Griswold style? Yeah, that totally happened.

recycled coffee bean sack tree skirt

Hey, here's a project you can make with all those pretty coffee sacks over in my Etsy "supplies" shop (you can also check out a past project here).

A reversible coffee bean sack Christmas tree skirt! It's not too tough, just a little cut and sew.

I started with a vintage sheet with a vaguely woodgrain-ish pattern for the flip side. A twin size will do.

You'll need two standard coffee sacks for this project. When you get them, take out the stitching to make two large panels.

I used a permanent marker tied to a two-foot length of string as a compass to trace semi-circles on each panel. You'll want to zig-zag or serge the edge of each panel.

You'll probably find you're happier if you treat the sheet the same way, cutting two semi-circles instead of one big circle. It's easier to handle the compass when you're not trying for an entire circle, and it leaves you the right amount of seam allowance at the slit.

Cut out the centers and zig-zag the new edge.

After stitching the two burlap halves together on one center seam only, do the same for the backing.

(Please excuse the lack of photographs for this next part; it's exactly like sewing a pillow case.) With right sides together, stitch the burlap and sheeting together around all edges with a 1/4-inch seam allowance, leaving an eight-to-twelve-inch space to turn it all inside out.

Turn it inside out, pin and press flat, and reinforce by stitching all edges.

Depending on the sheet you use for the flip side, you can get really Christmas-y, or leave it more neutral so that BOTH sides can be used with any color scheme.

You could dress this project up with rickrack, ribbon, or trim. I'll leave that to you. This one, I kept simple.

Of course, if you'd rather buy than make this close to Christmas, you can always jump over to my Etsy shop and snap this one up! Or start collecting supplies now; this project is pretty quick (maybe three hours, total) so you totally have time to order your coffee sacks and still get it stitched up weeks before Christmas. Use the code "CAFECHRISTMAS" at checkout to get a 25% discount on all coffee sacks in my supplies shop between now and December 25th.

But enough about me; what are you working on for the holidays? Any big projects you're trying to tackle?

Thanks for reading!

p.s. you can make these photos larger just by clicking on them, but you probably already knew that.

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