So, I get an urgent message from daughter #3 late Wednesday night. Apparently she has just been informed that my grand daughter wants to make an ugly sweater for Friday's festivities at school. That means said sweater has to be made after school on Thursday...except that daughter has meetings back-to-back all day followed by her design business Christmas party that evening. And so, an SOS went out to Nana. I never mind these kind of "challenges"...although being the somewhat organized person that I am, I do prefer to have a bit more lead time...but, I digress.
So, as soon as Presley got home from school on Thursday, I picked her up and back to Nana's we came. She had an idea in her head but just needed Nana's stash of craft goodies. I will say, it really is not easy to make something ugly if it isn't in your nature. She kept trying to add things but they just kept making it cuter. In the end, she stopped where she wanted to stop. Nana had some ideas to "tacky" it up even more but she wasn't having it. I think she was pretty proud of herself...and we just managed to get it done before time for bed! It's amazing how long Creative genius takes to accomplish. Lol
And then, there was this.
Even though I had lots of stuff on the to-do list, it wasn't stuff I wanted "to do". Lol And so, when I saw something on a craft site that I follow, I wanted to give it a try. Don't know why...for some reason it just spoke to me.
Now this site does mostly primitive crafts. For quite a while, I decorated with primitives. My taste has changed since then but I find myself still drawn to rusty, chippy, grungy. Almost everything done on this site uses coffee stained materials. The Mason jar ring sunflowers that I did back in the fall came from here and I did coffee stain that stuff and, I probably would have done it again this time except for the fact that I was impatient...imagine that? I wanted to sit down and get going and not have to wait for stuff to dry. And so, off I went.
This is 16 gauge wire and Warm and Natural cut into 1" strips.
It is actually a little tricky to get the tip of the wire covered without everything slipping so I ended up putting little drops of hot glue every so often. It helps to wrap the cane twice with the batting and it is still a bit inconsistent but, remember, these ARE supposed to be primitive.
Then, wrap it with about a 1/2" strip of red felt. Now remember, in the original, these materials would be coffee stained so a lot darker than they are...and, I think I might have liked that but, too late!
The last step is to cover them with Elmer's glue and sprinkle them with clear glitter. Again, the originals were sprinkled with mica flakes and, I like them so much better. Since that are larger, they tend to fill in the difference in thickness of the the felt but, I can not find them locally and I wasn't about to wait for an on-line order. This will work for now and if I ever find the mica, I can give them another coat.
Since I did have to buy the wire, I decided to just make as many candy canes as the wire permitted...and that turned out to be 9. Of course, once they were done, I really had no idea what I wanted to do with them so I just started sticking them wherever I could. Instead of "Where's Waldo" we will be playing "Where's the Candy Cane" in my house this year Lol Here are some of my ideas but we all know that that is subject to change momentarily!
This is my favorite.
After looking at these pictures, I realize that I must really prefer the candy canes against some greenery because that is about the only places I have put them...so far.
Daughter #3 is on her way over so I will get going for now but I will be back with more of the tour. Stay safe and stay well.
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