Belsnickles!

A few years ago, I made a lot of these little men, (they paid for my kids' Christmas for quite a few years) and this last summer my daughter asked if I would make one for her Christmas gift. I haven't made any for awhile because they are a lot of work and they are not a day project.  My daughter came to visit for Thanksgiving and so I have been busy trying to get this Belsnickle finished so she could take it home with her.

So, what is a Belsnickle you ask? These little men originated in Germany and they take their name from

Pelz-Nickolaus which means "St. Nicholas in fur."

In the German communities, usually a neighborhood farmer would dress up with furs, pelts and perhaps a mask made of papier -mache and chicken wire.  Then he'd make the rounds of the local houses rattling chains and throwing pebbles at the windows.  He carried goodies for the children in his sack, but he also carried switches and threatened to smack any children who hadn't been good.

 

These are inspired from the German legend of Belsnickles.

He has his bundle of switches.

I make the faces from clay and sculpt and paint each face. I have not been able to make the same little man twice, but that is half the fun, deciding what kind of wrinkly face each one should have.

This one has quite the wrinkles. I have made some of them with the beard from horse hair, but this one's beard and hair was made from wool.

His coat is made from real leather and fur. (Don't worry it has been up cycled.)

His little boots are made from leather and eyelets.

His belt was made from a tiny buckle. His clothes from up cycled wool and sweaters.

 I try and find little miniature toys and trinkets for him to carry.

Yes, they are a lot of work, but very rewarding when you get to see the finished project. I'm hoping my daughter will love them as much as I do and you know it isn't really Christmas without a Belsnickle in the house!

It is almost here!

I thought I would show you some of the last minute projects we have been doing for Thanksgiving!

We had a dinner on Monday night with some of my family who will be going to the other side of their families.  We decided to have a pasta night and then we made these darling pumpkins. They are easy peasy to make!

If you want to make one you will need to find some fabric and cut out any size circle that you want, the bigger the circle the bigger the pumpkin.  Then sew a gathering stitch around the edge, if you don't want to sew with the machine you can do a running stitch with a needle and thread. Then gather the fabric all around the edge and before making it tight, fill it with dried beans.  I did find that I needed to finish it with a needle and thread to make it tight.  Then go and find a pumpkin stem from all of those pumpkins you have lying around.  Pop off the stem and I decided to spray paint mine copper.  I then cut out some felt leaves and had some wire wrapped raffia to make the curly ques.

They were fast to make!

I will have to make some more of these next year because I can now see all kinds of possibilities.

For the special pasta dinner I made these cute little turkeys that I had see on KSL studio 5. They are made from those little stretchy gloves! These are super fast as well. Just put the one glove inside of the other and stuff the thumbs inside of each other, (this makes the head).  Then stuff the rest inside to make the body.  Fold the cuffs up inside so there is a flat place to make them stand upright.  Add a little cone beak from felt and I used a sequin and a bead for the eyes.  The gobbler is made from a strip of pinking sheared red felt.

Then tie a piece of ribbon around the fingers to make the feathers!

The stripes turned out cute!

Very Easy Peasy!

I then had found some 60 inch white fabric that I made a table cloth with. I wanted to start the tradition of writing on the cloth each year and everyone will sign it and say what they are thankful for! I can't wait until the cloth is totally full!

I think I will like this tradition!

On last Tuesday we had a fun activity with the Youth in our area and we had them all bring a treat to share. We then made up special plates with all kinds of treats and distributed them with this card on the top and some copies of the card to share with others.  The youth loved it and had fun ringing the doorbell and running so the recipient  would not see who it was that brought the yummy treat!  If you want to do this just click on the picture and save the picture to a place on your computer and then make your own copies.

Hope you all have a very fun Thanksgiving and a very thankful holiday!

It is so fun to make hats!

Cortney from Bouncin Baby photography sent me some more pictures of cute little babies. She used the hats that I made for her props and these pictures really make those hats and diaper covers look adorable!

Cute little pom-pom hat!

She also sent some more of the little visor cap I made.

I love this photo, he looks so absolutely peaceful!

You can kind of see the diaper cover that I made to match the hat in this photo! Thanks Cortney your photo's are adorable as always! Go check her out here!

Another cute baby hat!

Here is another cute hat on a very cute baby that I made for a prop for Bouncin' Baby photography.

If you have a new baby or know of someone who will be soon having one, you really need to check out her blog.

Here are some close ups.  These hats were made with a chunky tweed yarn and I used leather buttons to accent them! They were fun to make and they look so cute on the little newborns.

Here is one in a lighter tweed.

Guess what I got today! A brand new grand baby boy! These will look adorable on him!

My Thanksgiving table

Halloween is so fun to decorate for, but if you decorate for Halloween then you can't leave those decorations up until Thanksgiving. I have usually just decorated for fall and just left everything up until Thanksgiving was over but his year I went all out for Halloween! I sometimes feel bad for the overlook of Thanksgiving because there is just a few weeks before you then put up your Christmas decor. I love the fall and all of the colors associated with it and so I will share with you my Thanksgiving table.

Above the table is my Dining room light and I decided to hang acorns and leaves from it. It was hard to get a good picture of how it looks but I just used some clear thread and tied it to the acorns and leaves and hung them from the light.

I have these two metal pumpkins and decided to do a pumpkin inside of a pumpkin and then decorated with berries, acorns, pumpkins and gourds.

I used the two lanterns I had on my piano and thought they looked great on the sides.

I used a french country print tablecloth which made it stand out more than just the dark table.

I painted some more pumpkins white and speckled them with dark brown and dark red paint. I painted the stems silver. I really like the white pumpkin look!

I added a garland and lights to the mantle.

These are actually two garlands intertwined, I really like the sparkly leaves on the one.

Another view of my light.

Don't overlook this thankful holiday and hope all of you have a very great day full of gratitude!

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Fall Arrangement!

I had a special order to make a fall arrangement for a dining room table, so I thought I would share it with you and how I made it! First you need to decide what colors you want to have and the container you want to make it in. I didn't get any pictures of the container with the florist foam in it but you fill up the container so they fit tightly into your container. If you are afraid that the foam will show, you add some moss to the top of the foam. Sometimes if your arrangement is really full you won't need any, but I usually put some on the top of the foam just in case. Then decide how tall you would like it. I decided I wanted to have a topiary like effect in the middle,( I secured the three hydrangea's with raffia in the middle) and then I decided to leave the rest quite low to the container. I decided to do this so if you leave the arrangement on the table while eating you can still talk to the person across from you.

I then started filling in the bottom with berries, flowers, fruits and whatever fall you want to put in there!

Here it is finished and as full as I wanted it to be, (you just kind of know when there is enough or where you need more by moving the arrangement around and getting a good view from all sides.)

Here it is on the dining room table.

Another side.

The other side.

It kind of looks like fall, don't you think?

Here is a close up of the metal container, (I fell in love with it!)

By the way, the person I made it for loved it!  Good, I took some pictures before it went from my table to hers!