I Can't See the Forest...

For the trees....

Yesterday at Witches, I started something that I meant to start about this time last year.

I got sidetracked and I couldn't find the lycopodium to do the job.

I want to get all of my mini Christmas trees covered with the greenery in question. I ordered it from HBS miniatures on line. 

It came in the mail and I immediately put it away with the green landscaping material and forgot about it.

It is $16.99 a bag, but you get a LOT of green stuff for your green stuff.

That bag that you see has covered several trees already and there is enough to do a lot more.

The method is simple if you can find plain green Christmas trees. You simply pull the lyco apart, put glue on the end of the branch and poke it into the tree.  After you get them all covered, they usually need a bit of a haircut. 

This stuff is the same thing that you sometimes see in fish tanks.  Unfortunately, that can't be used.  It needs to be dried and colored a dark green, before using on minis.

Anyway, I have three covered and another one half done.

Albert and Tessie managed to zap one to Albert's front yard.  I have a feeling that a few more are going to disappear as I do these. 

As the word spreads, everyone is going to want a Christmas tree.

This is going to be a fruitless venture.  As soon as one is finished, I imagine that it will disappear into somebody's house or yard. 

I'm going to let it happen.  That way, I won't have to do the decorating. They can do it themselves.

Back to stuffing green stuff into bottle brush trees. One branch at a time.  Then everybody gets a haircut. There is a more detailed blog entry on doing this.  Just push Christmas Tree Tutorial in the sidebar.

See you tomorrow.

Ho Ho HO!

Here we go again... I found a bottle brush tree at Walmart this morning.

I remembered that I have enough Lycopodium to make one last Christmas Tree.

I purchased  a large bag a few years ago from HBS.  I ran across what was left when I was cleaning out.

This particular bottle brush tree has white paint stuck to the ends of the bristles.  I cut those off.

Then, starting at the bottom, I cut down branches of the Lycopodium to two or three stalks and started gluing them into the tree.  At the bottom, I had the branches pointing downward a bit.  Then I started raising them as I went towards the top.

Here you see that the branches are starting, gradually, to point upwards.

 By the time that I got to the top, the branches were pointing more or less upward.

At this point, it looks like a pine tree with a bad haircut!

I am now starting to trim the branches into a Christmas tree shape.

I am letting it dry now.  After it is a little dryer, I will start putting the pieces that I cur off, in the trimming, into the holes here and there that need more pieces.

After I like the shape, I will put it away until it is time for Christmas decorations.  Then Tessie and Zar will have at it.  I have all kinds of Christmas decorations.

For now, I am going back to Halloween planning.

See you tomorrow.

Tessie Made Me Do It!

It's all Tessie's fault! I bought a new shirt at Walmart this morning.....We are twins now. How could I resist having a shirt that coordinated with her apron?

Now we match!

We went to see the new Harry Potter movie this morning. It was pretty good, but I hate it when they split a book into two parts. Now we have to wait until June to see the second half. By that time I will probably not remember the first half and need to read the book or see this one again before going. Maybe there is a method to their madness.....

I didn't have much time for minis yesterday, but now I can see the floor of the workroom and I did find a small project for today too.

Tessie dragged out some angel lace, bunka and ribbon. She insisted that the Christmas trees needed some Victorian style ornaments.

These are really simple to make.

You can do them with just about any tiny lace, needle and thread.

I simply took the angel lace and cut it down to half the size that I wanted the round ornament. Gathered one side of a 3" piece into a rosette and tied it off. Then I cut up some unraveled bunka for flowers and leaves. I glued the flowers to the center and popped them on the tree.

The other shape is a fan. Again, I cut down the lace lengthwise to half of the width that I wanted the finished fan. I gathered one side with a running stitch. I glued a small piece of gold paper to the center bottom. Sometimes I use a metal finding here. Then I put a red bow on this one.

There are all kinds of variations for decorating the rosettes and fans. I will make a few more tonight and show you tomorrow.

See you then.

I Found My Hat!!!

I am in for it now....Tessie found her witchy Santa hat. As soon as she found it, she proclaimed that Christmas was here! Maybe she will take it off and I can grab it and hide it again.

She insisted that we start decorating one of the trees. Yes, I said trees, plural. I finished fancying up four of them. I did put a string of lights on the first one. I am going to take them back off. Now that I see the photo, I don't like the shape of that one. It looks like a pointed barrel... Not at all what I wanted.

The gold on it is simply a double strand of unraveled bunka.

The two smaller trees on the right have the same tree bare and with branches so that you can see how different they look.

I started making a few simple ornaments with beads. I don't like trying to make tiny hooks and being limited to where a convenient branch is, to hang them...I came up with a simple method to fix that. I make the ornaments on a head pin then just bend the bare end at right angles to the ornament. That way, you can just stick them into the body of the tree wherever you want them.

The two colored ornaments that you see already on the tree are beads, topped with a very tiny flat silver finding that I found at Walmart in the beading section just a couple of weeks ago. They make perfect tops for the ornaments. The butterfly is a crystal bead that I bought to make earrings. I would probably never wear butterfly earrings, so they are going to a good cause instead of laying around in a drawer somewhere.

By this time, it is probably dawning on you that you will have some short stems of lycopodium left after making the trees. Here's one thing that you can do with them. Find yourself some green chenille stems and bend them into scallops or a ring and make wreaths and swags.

The swags at the top of the Christmas Kitchen Island were done at least a dozen years ago....They are still going strong.

Tessie loves it when she has an excuse to climb on places that she shouldn't. I was hoping that she would take the hat off or lose it while climbing....No such luck. She is still singing Jingle bells and making a list for Santa...

I am biding my time....Sooner or later the hat is coming off and when it does, it is going to mysteriously disappear and things will go back to normal.....Well as normal as it gets around here with a tiny witch making up the rules as she goes.

See you tomorrow.

I Found the Trees!!!!!

OK....I didn't find them. Tessie did. She is anxious to start Christmas decorating now that she knows it is coming....The sooner we get the place decorated, the sooner she gets presents....At least that is her latest theory.

She was rummaging around in the workroom this morning. I didn't want to think what she was getting into. It just meant more straightening up for me. She slid onto the kitchen counter,as if trying for a home run and demanded, "Come with me! NOW! I found the trees! NOW! Drop the towel. NOW!" Then she jumped off of the counter and disappeared around the corner, assuming that I would follow.

She was right. As you know, I have been searching high and low for the trees. Evidently I didn't search quite low enough.

She was jumping up and down on the floor, in front of a chest of drawers in the workroom.

She wailed, "They're in there and I can't get them out!"

She was pointing to a box under the drawers. It was a Christmas box that I bought last year, thinking that I would get around to re doing the Christmas room with Santa....Didn't happen.... At least it was a good hiding place for all of the stuff that was in the tree last year, including the vignettes that I was missing.

"Tessie, why didn't you just zap the box?" I asked.

"Because I lifted the lid to peek in and then it wouldn't come out. Now get it out and stop asking inane questions!" Then she said....in a very small voice...."Please?"

I knew it was serious. She never says please unless it is really important.

She was right. The box was really wedged in and toward the back to boot. I finally got it out by twisting it and pressing down on the top. Sure enough. There was the tip of a tree sticking out under one side of the lid.

It took only a couple of seconds to whip out the box of lycopodium and we were on our way to tree making....

The box of lycopodium that you see here is the purchase that I made from http://miniatures.com/ months ago, with the intention of doing a new tree. It looks like there is enough greenery for a whole forest, but you would be surprised at how much of this stuff it takes for one.

OK....Here comes the tutorial.

All you need is a bottle brush tree of whatever size you want your finished tree to be, less about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch.(We will get to the reason for that in a minute.)

I had to cut all of the white ends off of this one(fake snow)because I didn't have a plain one the right height.

Tree, lycopodium, white glue,tweezers, and sharp scissors are the only supplies that you need.

You will be starting at the bottom and working up. Don't worry about trimming until you are at the top.

Glue the first course of longish branches to the bottom side of the bottle brush tree in a circle. They should stick out 1/2" to 3/4" past the bottle brush.

Cut more of the lycopodium into little branches. The bottom two or three rows can be 4 or 5 arms to a bunch. As you go towards the top, you will want less in a branch and shorter if you can find any. I usually cut only for the section that I am working on.

This is a messy job, so I advise working on a paper plate, on top of a tray or something else to catch the excess branches.

Put a puddle of glue on the plate. Start dipping branches into the glue

Here you see Tessie working on the first section. She is still working with the branches with the most arms.

Remember that the tree is going to get a haircut at the end, so try not to make them too long. What you cut off will be used to fill in spots that you missed the first time around.

While she was doing that, i took a piece of stem about an inch and a half long and glued it to the top so that about half stuck up above the tree. This is to put the topper on when you are decorating.

It needs to be put on early so that it will be mostly dry by the time that you get to the top. I did that with Aleene's Fast Grab. Make sure that it stays straight. Nobody likes a lopsided topper.

Don't expect to get this done fast. For a good looking, full tree, it takes at least a couple of hours.

As you go towards the top, start angling your branches upwards. That's how most trees grow. No wilted trees here. When you reach the top, your branches should be short and pointing up.


When you are satisfied with the fullness of your tree, keep turning it around and searching. You will find holes. Just poke some more branches in, with glue.

Now starting a little at a time, at the bottom, trim....You know the drill. Take off any branches that don't look like a Christmas tree. This will also take a little time. Remember, you can cut them off, but you can't put them back.

The ideal tree is triangular. Snip little ends off that aren't in line with the rest. Take your time.

After you have trimmed it, check again for holes. Tessie is good at this. She is down there close where she can see them. She plugs them up and I trim.

Here's the finished tree. Tessie is now whining and whinging about ornaments and lights. I am whining and whinging right back at her.....Enough for one day. Ornaments and lights will come tomorrow.

See you then.