Crafty Christmas Countdown: 2

I've made a lot of puppets in recent years but my experience with marionettes is limited. I really wanted to try my hand at it this year and I settled on Scrooge as my subject. I fashioned a head and hands from some air dry clay.

If you look closely, though, you can see that as it dried, the head cracked. So I had to make a second attempt with a ping pong ball and hot glue. Given it's haphazard nature, I neglected to get any photos of the puppet in process. I formed the body from a chunk of foam, the clothes from scrap fabric.

The result is a bit rough but I think that suits Scrooge's character.
 

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 3

I learned, recently, about the tradition of the yule goat. As a huge fan of goats, I was instantly intrigued. Once I saw a picture I knew I wanted to try making one of my own.

Of course, yule goats are made of straw which I do not have. What I do have in abundance is packing paper so I thought I'd try making one of shredded paper with a paper straw framework.

The assembly was a bit haphazard, so I don't have any process shots but I do have one of the finished goat. It's a bit rough but I'm happy enough with the result that I'll probably try it again in future.

 

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 4

I have a thing about craft kits that have you make several identical items. I understand they're supposed to be used by a group but that bugs me even more. I hate the idea of a whole group of kids walking out of an event with identical projects. So when I get a kit of that sort I do my best to personalize each item. I loved these sloths and tried to use the pieces of foam in unique ways so each sloth is a little different.

 

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 5

Some crafts are big and involved. And some are little and dumb. And I love them anyway. There's just something about giving an unexpected figure a hat or reindeer antlers that makes me very happy. And that's what I've done here. I dressed a bird skeleton for winter and tasked a dinosaur with pulling Santa's sleigh. They'll be joining my narwhal, voodoo doll, and fruitcake (part of previous countdowns).

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 6

It's become one of my traditions to add to my Christmas farm every year. I decided to go low key this year, adding just pipe cleaner wreaths to the fence.

 

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 7

I found this snow globe kit at the dollar store a while back and picked it up on a whim. I've been trying to come up with a design ever since. Sorting through my random craft supplies, I settled on craft foam, a glitter tree branch, and a plastic figure from Hotel Transylvania. The result is equal parts weird and cute. So, right up my alley.

 

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 8

I have mixed feelings about nutcrackers. They can be very cool looking but also tend to be vaguely creepy. I dislike the mouth on this one. Its fur was also a bit crooked and dingy. Since I was making changes anyway, I decided to give it a complete overhaul.

It's much friendlier as Mickey Mouse.