Holiday Crafty

                  

Every year prior, I've worked right up until Christmas - weekends packed with holiday shoots, and weekdays busy with editing pics for people's photo gifts and cards. And every year I think about making ornaments, baking cookies... doing fun crafty holiday things. This year, I prioritized holiday fun for myself and my family starting early December. And what resulted from this time dedicated to Xmas cheer? Felt Pine Cones. Yes, I'd been contemplating felt pine cones for a few years now.

Incredibly work intensive though not requiring of much brain power. I started by making circle stencils out of cardboard. Lacking a drawing compass, I hunted around the apartment for lids (mostly from plastic drug bottles) to trace circles of 7 varying sizes. Chalked the circle shapes onto felt, cut them out, stacked them up and adjusted number of circles so that the proportions of the stack resembled a pine cone. Unstacked them and cut the edges (my husband enquired "why do you have all those cogs?"), and skewered them with an embroidery needle. Anchored the bottom with a button knotted on the end, and loop at the top. Tedious but quite simple, really. Helps if you have a fondness for felt, which Oh Yes I do! More Felt Please!
But not for sale - I'd have to charge $50 for each 4" tall pine cone for the time and labor.

 

Also attempted was my first batch of iced sugar cookies. Rolling dough and cookie cutter cutting sounded easy enough; I was more interested in the icing challenge. I wanted to learn how to make cookies look like they do in bakeries (those cookies that cost $5 a pop) - perfectly smooth coverage, even edges and perhaps an artistic drip over the edge here and there. My icing recipe required a little adjustment to be the right consistency, and voila. I'm eager to up the complexity in icing art. Stay tuned.