twiggy reindeer

inspired by about four different pins on pinterest, a suggestion from the ever-fabulous lisa, and a lot of sticks that blew down in our recent storm, i decided to make some little twiggy reindeer. we're holding a christmas hygge event at the library in december and have promised to make nature-inspired crafts with the kids (and adults for that matter) who come. i thought i'd try this out to see if they're a good solution for the event. i think they are, tho' i have yet to solve the glue gun issue - i think you can see my glue a little too much, but regular glue didn't really work so well, as it takes too long to dry and be stuck and let's face it, i lack the patience for that. maybe i just need to be more careful with the glue gun and not use too much.

all you need to make them are some fetching twigs, a branch with plenty of y-shaped bits for the legs, some little bitty pine (or aspen) cones, bits of ribbon or string and felt and a glue gun.

snazzing up your headphones

a little how-to, since i've not done one in ages. i pinned this on pinterest and was inspired to adjust the idea a bit. we have loads of perler (beads) lying around and sabin doesn't really use them that much anymore, so we decided they'd be perfect for decorating and protecting our iPhone headphones.

so here's what we did - we sorted into the colors that wanted and placed what we thought was approximately the right amount into small bowls.

then we took a sharp, small knife and carefully made a cut on one side of each bead. we tried to do it with nail scissors, but found that our thumb and forefinger quickly became too sore for that. a knife and a small cutting board were much better.

you can see the slice in this one - it takes a little bit to get the hang of it and not accidentally slice both sides, but you'll quickly catch on.

sabin did almost all of hers, prying the cut bead apart with her fingernails - that also became painful after awhile and there were tears and a temper tantrum. i told her sometimes you have to suffer for your art. but then she hit upon the idea of holding the bead open with a bobby pin so that it could be slipped onto the cord much more easily. ingenius, i tell you.

what takes the longest is sorting and cutting each bead - with the bobby pin technique, it only took about half an hour to actually put them all on the cord. it looks cool, protects the cord and makes it much harder for it to tangle up. plus, we can tell whose is whose at our house now. sadly, husband won't let us do his, even tho' we promised to choose boy colors.

on the cord - i don't think they'll fall off, nor can you really see the cuts once they're in place.

my pattern was random, but sabin chose to do regular rainbows, all the same. both work very well.

it makes a  great sunday afternoon activity on a grey and rain day.