Winter Wonderland Book......

He's ready for the snow.........are you?

The base of this piece is a book!  I painted an old hard covered book light blue, glued the pages together and printed out a title for the spine and glued it on.  The snowman's face has been hand sculpted out of paperclay and painted.  I made the hat and scarf from a scrap of felt.

As I was glueing the pages together I tucked glittery snowflakes between the pages here and there to peek out.   I secured a hanger on the back and he's ready to hang on the wall!

Chicken Wire Basket Tutorial

Hey it's time for a little tute! Since it's time to do some serious Christmas crafting let's get down to it.......

You need a piece of Chicken wire about 18 inches long and 2 feet high.  Put a dish towel down so you don't scratch your table or counter top.

 I use these big tin snips to cut the wire.....

You will need  a bowl that measures 6 inches across and is 4 inches or more deep.

Flip the bowl upside down and place the chicken wire over it.

Start to form the wire around the begin to mold it around the bowl working your way around the bowl.

 Grab the wire and the bowl and flip it over so that wire is still molded around the bowl.

Now you are going to use your wire cutters and trim about 2 inches from the edge of the top of the bowl the whole way around and discard the wire you cut off.

It should look like this.......

Now for the scratchy part.  Start to form the edge of the wire around the edge of the bowl. Press firmly.

Time for a trim job again!  Trim the wire flush to the top of the bowl. Remove the bowl.

Now take a small pair of pliers ( used round nose) and bend the wire over so it won't poke you.

Your bowl should look like this......

I took three, 16 inch pieces of 18 gauge wire and roughly twisted them around to make a handle.

I put a piece of burlap in the bottom, filled it Spanish moss, glittered up a dollar store bird, added a hat and stuck him in a peat pot filled with tinsel.  I also attached a cotton batting and cream felt flower to the handle.  The whole assemblage was then glued to a glass candle holder base.

What would you put in your chicken wire basket?

Would you like more Christmas ornament inspiration?  Then click on over to see what fabulous ornaments Tracey has made at Glitterbug Studios.