christmas decoration idea

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just thought i would share a nifty and cheap idea for you christmas tree decorations. get styrofoam balls from wal mart or other craft store. the size is your preference. make a paste of warm water and flour. make it a little runnier than yogurt. get newspaper and cut into strips and dip in flour mix.then wrap the paper around the ball and keep doing that till the ball is completly covered, dont smooth the paper, down too much, you want it to be a little bumpy.let dry overnight. spray paint balls gold or silver and hot glue plastic holly leaves to ball. insert pipecleaner and hang. these are rally beautiful and you can use them for years. have fun. cody

-- cody (urbusted@alltel.net), November 30, 2001

Answers

Thanks Cody for a neat idea. I make lots of homemade ornaments. You can take the same styrofoam ball with the homemade paste, then roll it in potpourri. They smell really nice. I buy the cheap potpourri at the dollar store and get a big bag for like $1.50 or something. Also saw in a magazine that you take those sweet gumball pods,glue round toothpicks in the holes, and spray paint them. I would rather have a tree full of homemade ornaments that anything else.

-- Ria in Ky (MinMin45@aol.com), November 30, 2001.

Walmart also has little ceramic ornaments in the craft section for 33 cents each, which are great fun for the children to paint. Have them top it with a coat of sparkle glaze and even the little ones' painting looks nice;).

-- mary (mlg@aol.com), November 30, 2001.

You can do the same thing with scrap fabrics. It uses the really small pieces. You can either leave the edges straight or trim them with your pinking shears. It looks like a quilted ball. If you really want a quilted effect don't glue the fabric but take a butter knife and push the edge of the fabric into the styrofoam. You can use squares, rectangles, etc of fabric. The fabric gets the effect of having batting under it. You can also make garland from scrap fabric. Either cut it in rectagles about 1x4 or 5 inches. Tie it around a piece of twine. Again you can vary the edges of the fabric. This garland takes a while to make but gives a lovely country look. This is my "next year's" project. I will buy Christmas remnant closer to christmas when it on sale and work on it through out the year.

-- Chris in PA (CLMngs@aol.com), November 30, 2001.

Cody, last weekend my granddaughter came home from school with a neat idea. Take wheel shaped pasta and glue them together in the shape of various kinds of snowflakes. They painted these white then glittered them with white glitter. Very pretty. BTW, I love the idea of the quilt look ball on the previous post. I will try that too. This is such fun..I am such a kid at heart.

-- Ria in Ky (MinMin45@aol.com), November 30, 2001.

Does any one remember making paper chains for their trees? Last summer in an antique store I saw a chain but it was made out of velvet with buttons on it. It was gorgeous but had a pretty hefty price tag on it and was only about 18" long. Mine will be made out of fabric scraps and any length I want.

-- Billie Sowell (bbsowell@earthlink.net), November 30, 2001.


Check out hgtv.com they have some great ideas on their website. The trash to treasure and treasure makers are great.

-- PJC (zpjc5_@hotmail.com), December 04, 2001.

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