Saturday, December 7, 2013

The 2013 Ornament Revealed

Big drumroll.  Here it is finally.

They began like this.

Common Milkweed Asclepias syriaca

Milkweed

This is a Milkweed Pod…those fluffy things are seeds and in the Fall of the year the pods split open and disperse their seeds.

We collected the pods and dried them in the workshop.  Yes I helped some of them to fling their seeds in the air…and in my hair.

Milkweed pods

I had to bring some of them into the house to dry.  Some got moldy instead of drying.  Some curled up as they dried and were unusable.  Since we had never used pods before we had no idea what would work and what would fail.

IMG_3945

Some were dark looking, would the darkness bleed through?

Painted white santas

Here they are painted and looking like they will be okay.

Now for the “snow” for the cap and the beard.  Uffda.  I wanted them shiny.  I used a latex tub sealer..it took days to dry…several bit the dust when a pan was tipped over.  I tried a commercial snow product.  That worked better.  I had lots of time, so some of each were made.

Santas

I was seeing santas in my sleep.  Instead of counting sheep I was counting santas.

The table working on Sanats

The dining room table was my workshop.  Every time we wanted to eat I had to shove everything off to the side.  I had santas drying and curing all over.  I put a sealer(Modge Podge) on the front and on the back where I added names and the year.  I used a Dremel tool to drill a hole for the string…and managed to totally destroy only one when the tool went wild and grabbed the whole pod and flung it violently around and stripped off the backing and everything.

Santas

Finally they had eyes and a nose and a mouth and a string. Each one is a bit different.  Some are big and some are small.

Blog Reader Christmas ornament

Most have been mailed out and I will mail four more on Monday.

Big drumroll…and ..and are you ready!

The winners are:

Karen of Wyndson Farm

Marlu of Marylourambles

Cynthia of I’m retired..Wisdom for a simpler life

Kari Lucin  of Oh Look, A Shiny Thing! (the Area Voices winner)

Please contact me if I have not contacted you for your snail mail address.  I hope you will enjoy them on your tree!

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31 comments:

Henny Penny said...

The Santas are simply amazing! The fact that you could picture a Santa when you looked at the pods on the plant is amazing to me! Seems like the pods would be too small to work with. That Milkweed plant must be huge. Guess you can tell that I am impressed!!! You did a great job. I love them.

Primitive Stars said...

Hey Connie, you missed my name I see, kidding, those are so great. Love the Santa's out of the pods, very crafty......Blessings Francine.

DJan said...

They are great! I can see why Santas kept interrupting your sleep, though. Congratulations on finishing that huge project. :-)

Jenn Jilks said...

What a lovely project! Well done.
Funny, I wrote a post today about the monarch butterflies going south!

Travels with Emma said...

Neat Santas, but what a lot of work you did!

Anonymous said...

Really cute and very creative. Congrats to the lucky winners.

Patsy said...

Wow! you are so smart, how neat.

Karen said...

Oh thanks so much Connie, I'm thrilled to be a winner. I was reading through the post and wishing that I had collected some of the milkweed pods I see at Oliver. You can be sure that I will next year though:) Thanks again!

RURAL said...

You deserve a award for creativity, and thinking ahead during summer. Those are cute.

Jen

Anonymous said...

Great looking Santas! I can only dream about being that creative.
Kelly
www.crackerdogfarm.blogspot.com

Leah said...

WOW - you did great, very cool! No wonder you were concerned when you didn't see many pods around :) I just saw some the other day and thought about you.... You must start dreaming now of what to do next year ~ have a wonderful day!

Beth said...

The santas are beautiful! Great job!

Harriet said...

Connie....the Santa's are great. I have a milkweed pod ornament I bought years ago. It is simply the pod with gold--probably edging of some kind--glued around it and a small angel glued inside. I love the humbleness of this ornament. Sorry I didn't win but know those who did will cherish their Santa.

L. D. said...

They are really neat. I at first thought they were cookies. It was a fun recycle, repurpose project. I remember the seeds flying everywhere and up your nose too.

troutbirder said...

Oh my . How neat that Connie is super creative. We on the other hand are downsizing in the Christmas decorations department after years of spending the Holidays away from home in North Dakota, Colorado and now Arizona we'll be home at last. This inspired dragging out 2 generations (our and our parents) of stuff. Enough to decorate at least 2 houses and six or more trees. After much discussion and soul searching the decision was made....

Nancy said...

What clever ornaments - congratulations to the winners.

Red said...

Cool! You put an awful lot of work in these. I'm sure your're very satisfied with the result. You probably haven't seen me for a while. Somehow feeds are no picking me up. I'm still here and posting.

linda m said...

those are some pretty awesome ornaments. Congratulations to the winners.

Nancy/BLissed-Out Grandma said...

Wow. I enjoy crafts, but you take them to an amazing level. Very clever!

Phyllis Pritchard said...

So very amazing! I don't know how you ever seen a santa in a milkweed pod. Very clever indeed!!

Grandma Barb's This and That said...

Those Santas are to cute and you are so clever!

Jacqi Stevens said...

You have far more patience than I could ever dream of having--even if I counted Santas in my sleep ;)

Congratulations on your persistence and a lovely holiday creation! You certainly have done more than your part to spread that holiday cheer!

Anonymous said...

You are very talented. I would never have imagined such a nice ornament could come from some dried pod. Thank you for sharing the steps along the way to show us how you did it.

LindaG said...

You are so creative! How wonderful they are. Makes me miss the milkweeds of my childhood.
Have a wonderful Sunday! ♥

Sam I Am...... said...

Well, f you aren't the most talented Christmas ornament maker. How do you think of these things? Do you make it up all by yourself? Those are so cute and congrats to the winners! Lucky ducks I'd say! Also, love your Shiny Brites you talked about. Very interesting. I love vintage anything but I did not know that about the ornaments back in the day. I'll have to take a closer look at mine although I gave most to the kids. We got over a foot of snow and it was 9 degrees when I got up this morning! I was doing a happy dance! I watched it snow all day yesterday.....I think that was my Christmas present.

Anonymous said...

Eee! They are so cute! I can't believe I won! I've never won anything!

You can probably mail me at the Sun: 121 3rd St NW, Jamestown, North Dakota 58401.

Dreaming said...

I love your Santa's. They are so very creative. I really like how you experiment with things, like the latex tub sealer - ingenious (even if it took too long to dry!) Oh, but I didn't win one... sad day in Dreamland. Sigh. Maybe next year ;-)

Isobel said...

They are lovely. I know the winners will enjoy them as much as I enjoy the tree that I won last year. As a former carver who has worked with a Dremel I had to laugh as I read the part about the dremel grabbing the ornament and flinging it around...I have had experience such as this. How many of these did you make in total...do you give them all away? What a generous person you are.

Terry and Linda said...

You are stunningly creative!!! WOO HOO!!! Outstanding!

Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
¸.•*¨*•♪♫♫♪Merry Christmas ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥
˜”*°•.˜”*°•.˜”*°•.★★.•°*”˜.•°*”˜.•°*”˜”

Rita said...

What a brilliant idea! After all that hard work and experimentation these really turned out great! Kudos, Connie!! :)
And congrats to the winners, too.

Linda Reeder said...

Those are wonderful! What a job. I hope it was a labor of love.