A Handmade Christmas - Week 7 {Button Snowflakes}

 This past week we got snow here at our place that I think will stay the winter. I am talking about real snow that Aaron has been diligently going skiing on every chance he can get (this morning he asked me if perhaps there might be a race he can enter)- inside however I have been having fun making some button snow. So this week I thought I would present to you two kinds of button snowflakes.
The first kind is very easy button ornaments for your tree or if you are like us and don't have a tree then you kind find all sorts of other ways to decorate with them. I haven't put them up yet at our house but I may hang them in windows, nestle them in greenery, have a bunch hanging from the light fixture over our table or hanging from the ceiling. You will have to check back later to find out. :-) They would also look very sweet attached to a gift.

  You may, like I, have seen this idea before using Popsicle sticks. I made one like that but realized we were nearly out of Popsicle sticks (we don't buy Popsicles and I have bought the sticks before - a couple of times in my lifetime- but Jonathan majorly depleted our stash when he was into making planes from Popsicle sticks ) so I worked at thinking outside to box to figure out what would work from what we already had on hand.

  For us that ended up being strapping that we had saved when it came on flower boxes. We simply cut it to the appropriate length and glued them together.

Basically to make the snowflake you need 3 strips, a ribbon or lace or something to hang it with and buttons and glue. Glue your strips together, glue the lace onto one tip and then cover it all with buttons. A very simple project that can be done with kids.

 The other thing that I thought would be fun to do is to make a snowflake with button art. I have been seeing neat button art - Initials, trees, cupcakes, etc- all over the Internet but I haven't seen a snowflake so I decided to give it a try.

 Though I think this design could definitely be improved on it was fun to try and I have it hanging up in the living room now.

 The project was a nice one because it used various items that I already had on hand.

 I used:

• An old frame missing its glass
• A piece of cardboard/poster board (repurposed from an old folder)
• Fabric
• Buttons - many of them coming off of old dress shirts of Ken's that I will use to make something else.
• Hot glue.

 My fabric was thin enough that I was able to draw the basic snowflake shape onto the poster board with a black marker and then be able to see it faintly through the fabric.

 I covered the poster board with fabric securing it in the back with glue.

 I just started gluing on buttons.

 After I got the basic shape done I still wasn't real satisfied (above) so then I started adding in more buttons - some on top of others for more dimension and I liked it quite a bit better.

 We enjoy snow outside and decorating with snowflakes inside here at our house. I am sure we will be doing a lot more of that before long (through the end of November the fall decorations will stay up however). We will be cutting paper snowflakes, quite likely making 3D paper snowflakes and I also think it would be fun to make some snowflake gift tags. You might be seeing more snowflakes around here before the year is over.

Have you been working on anything - gifts, decorations, etc at your house? I would love to hear!
Please tell me all about it in the comments! If you have posted on your blog about your projects I would love it if you would leave a link so that I and others could come visit your blog and see what you are doing!