Howling at the Moon

Because I live in The Netherlands, where people celebrate Sinterklaas, especially when they have children that still believe the saint is a real figure, trees are only decorated after Sinterklaas has returned to Spain, on December 6th. Most people feel it's definitely not done to set up the tree before that date. To be honest: I feel that way, too. So, just last week I bought a tree, it's my first real tree in years, and decorated it the same day. Most of the decoration are regular glass balls, but from polymer clay I made a couple of ornaments myself. 

When I was a child, in the village where I grew up were two schools. One was for Catholics, the other one was a public school, for all other kids. Kindergarten classes were all in the same building and maybe that was the reason the public school kids also decorated a cross for Palm Sunday. After the crafting part all kids together went in a sort of procession through our village with the crosses. Since Kindergarten I never saw decorated crosses again, but I thought it was nice to make them with my daughters last week. So my husband made three crosses, we made figures from salt dough and decorated the crosses with the figures, chocolate eggs and crepe paper. Do you know about this tradition for kids? Of course I know about the great processions, especially in Spain, but beside in my own village, I've never seen them for kids. On the first day of Easter I have duty in the OR, but the second day my whole family will come over for a brunch. While the salt dough figure...

For my DIY X-mas Tree I made some clay ornaments with embroidery.  www.betweennapsontheporch.net From some left over white clay I made little stars for the kitchen lantern, which gets custom made decorations every season or holiday. 

Our X-mas Tree this year. Just wanted something different this time. www.betweennapsontheporch.net

I was thinking about some decoration for X-mas and thought about crocheting stars for a garland, but since I have about a dozen crocheted garlands already, I wanted something else. While preparing for baking gingerbread cookies I found the star shaped cookie cutter (that is never used as a cookie cutter, but for cutting polymer clay for tags that I use for presents). There came the idea: polymer clay stars garland!   www.betweennapsontheporch.net And one to embellish a vase. 

Another thingy my youngest wants for her birthday, is a Banner Necklace. I saw this idea  here and thought it wouldn't be difficult to make with polymere clay. So I did.  www.betweennapsontheporch.net ~*~ Barbara from Busy Fingers, Busy Life featured two of my projects this week! My X-mas Ornaments And my African Flower X-mas Stocking My Crochet Basket was featured by The Cottage Market . Thanks, Barbara and Andrea! Nice start of the new year!  

Bought white polymer clay with sparkles and pressed it flat. Cut out stars and hearts with cookie cutters.  Pressed them on a cookie decorating mat. Punched a little hole in them. Put them in the oven for half an hour.  That was all it took. www.betweennapsontheporch.net