OK, I know it’s really too early to start thinking about Christmas. Trust me, I feel less about myself for even bringing up the idea, let alone going down this path to actually start working on something Christmas related before December first… It happens, though.
Three years ago it was making wooden lights on a string that had a secret compartment in them to store mementos, like pictures of past Christmases. My intent was to make a string for each of the grandkids, so their mothers could save a little picture of each Christmas. Cute, right? I abandoned that when I realized if I made strings long enough for each grandkid to have 18 years of memories saved, that would end up being hella more fake bulbs that anyone (meaning me) would want to make, and that was when I only had one grandkid! Now that I have four grandkids, that’s four times more “ick” than I would want to turn. Love them to death, but, um, no! I think I have one string with 6 or 8 on it and a bowl full of the bulbs that still need to be added to the wire, but now there’s the delimma of what to do with them? If I put them on the tree, the kids will start claiming them. If I give them to one of the daughters, it will start a sister war that is bound to get ugly. If I throw them away, it will be met with wailing and dibs being called for the replacement string(s) I would be somehow expected to make.
Two years ago it was a family of snowmen. These little guys were around for the pictures and the website update, but then quickly put away as the girls started showing a little too much interest in them and started making cases for who’s tree they would actually match better. I don’t remember if they ever saw a tree branch or if they just got put “in the box”.
This year, the cycle has apparently continued.
When I was making the second honey pot, I was playing with the hot glue used to make it look like there’s honey spilling over the edge of the pot. (Bears, especially those in the Pooh family of bears, are notoriously sloppy beasts.) When I sat the pot down to let the glue cool, I happened to set it down next to a bird house that was awaiting a roof repair. As inspiration is prone to do, I instantly thought, “I wonder if I can use hot glue to make it look like there’s snow or icicles on the birdhouse roofs?
I fixed the broken one, then started turning a smaller version of the bird house that would be lighter. These would intentionally have long sloping roofs and little bitty houses. Then, rather than leave the wood natural, I used brightly colored paint to make them look all Christmas-y. I finished 5, in red, green, blue, silver, and gold. After wasting several hours on YouTube looking for a way to make icicles, I realized there wasn’t anything out there that fit what I wanted to do. I started playing around with the glue, trying to see what was possible. Putting the glue on and letting it drip was a disaster. The glue will drip so fast, all that’s left is an odd bump and a long hair like string coming out of it. Rather than looking like an icicle, it looked like something you should go to a doctor and have checked for cancer! Trying to control the temperature so the glue doesn’t run as fast didn’t work either. Making a “glue snake”, then trying to roll it into an icicle shape ended in burnt fingers and an icicle that looked cloudy, dirty, and more like rat teeth.
I finally tried making a flat line of icicles on a piece of wax paper that I could just wrap around the edge of the roof. Here’s a tip: hot glue will stick to wax paper, so don’t use it! I switched to a silicone baking mat that was supposed to have been thrown away after the kids used it as a cutting board and the process worked better. Much better! After a couple of practice runs, I ended with long strings of glue that had icicles “pulled” out of them with a toothpick. I was happy with the result, but when I glued them to the edge of the roof, there was this obvious line where you could see that I had glued the whole thing on. Kinda like putting a racing fin on a Ford Fiesta. You can tell people why it’s there, but even if they agree with your intent, it still looks stupid as hell!
Next up was how to add snow in such a way that it explained why there were icicles forming and to hide the seam where the hot glue strip of icicles was attached. I tried painting on regular acrylic craft paint, but at best it looked flat, at worst it actually accentuating the glue seam. I tried making big, thick globs of paint, but it quickly spread out across the glue crack into a sloppy looking mess that didn’t give the 3D effect I was hoping for. It also didn’t hide the glue seam. The last resort before a trip to Hobby Lobby was using white “puff paint”. That seemed to do the job for hiding the seam, but I’m not sure it has the look that I was going after for making fakes snow on the roofs. Either way, these are now good enough to be added to the yearly tree decorations. That means the race is gonna be on this year. One competitor is a team of my girls, fighting over who gets to include them in their Christmas stocking. The other are the cats, who are certain to get their little feline jollies breaking them within 6 hours of them being displayed.
Still contemplating if I should add little bitty birds to the houses or not…
