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Crafts Asylum
Wildcrafting Christmas
Page 6
Susan Hawkins



 
I know you are tired of my birds ! But here is another, nestled with some yarrow blooms on a sideways Pinion Pine Cone.
Any of the short fat pinecones look best on their side.
This one has touches of copper here and there.

This years Potpourri Lamp
I make all my own potpourris and thisy Christmas one has been around for about 30 years. I pick out a new jar to use every year and different lamp chimneys. I really love this chimney the most so use it often. In my new house I will make many lamps for it.
This jar is one of those stoppered ones from the kitchen, if you use this type of lampchimney, just pick a jar that fits loosely since you have to put the cord out between the jar and chimney. If you use a tall type of chimney, you will need to have the chimney bigger than the jar opening so it will have the space you need.
No fire hazard as I feel the lights before I put them in, pick a string of 20 to 50 depending on what size lamp you make, feel the bulbs after they have been burning about 5 minutes, if they are only warm on your finger they are fine in the lamp. 
But the new LED lamps won't work except to look pretty, they don't put out any heat to dispurse the wonderful scent. By the way the type of light that is a little round frosted ball will look even better. I have some of those tucked back to make new lamps with.
 

Apple Sauce
Most of you have made cinnamon & applesauce Ornaments. 
If you haven't you should! Basic recipe, 2 cups of quality applesauce, I use Motts and 2 cups of cinnamon. There is some disagreement as to whether you need to add a couple of tablespoons of white glue or not. You can use homemade applesauce but it must have a lot of pectin in it, you can also make it from crab apples, they have a lot of pectin. The pectin is the glue that holds the cinnamon together and makes it become hard as wood.
They smell wonderful. I cut the shapes out and dry them on newspaper or parchment paper in baskets hung from the ceiling, you can speed it up by putting them in a low low oven for about 5 or 6 hrs. I like the drawnout drying. So so wonderful.
You can make them anyshape and can use them as a clay, most of my St. Nicholas dolls have had  cinnamon- applesauce heads, you can paint them after drying with acrylics.
I did these roughly, just rolled them out and cut them out without smoothing because I was in a hurry and didn't want them to be perfect anyway. You can smooth and shape your cutouts any way you want, if your mix is too dry and won't smooth, mix in some more applesauce and re-roll.

I made a lot of wreath shaped ones:


 

The ugly backside is left bare to smell good!
The front -photo right- is covered with some oregano blossoms that are really really old, they have lost their scent, but are perfect for this. I put some dried Possum Haw berries on it (Youpon Holly), they often just dry blackish. I wish we had some really good red berries that would last years around here but haven't found any yet.
I chould have dyed the green stuff -greener but love it the same. You can also use a paintbrush loaded with water color to touch up blah dried blossoms.

 
 

This cinnamon wreath is covered
with elaegnus leaves and berries from the rattan vine.

This is a little round graphic that was on a magazine page. I glued it to the cinnamon wreath and filled the edges with green stuff. The purple are petals from the Sea Holly plant that grows wild here.
This cinnamon horse is decorated with torn off parts from some fiber from a palm tree I met in New Mexico at a rest stop.  They are great for crafting. You could use grasses for the mane and tail or even dried apple peels. The white dots are 
"tapioca pearls", I can no longer eat them since I became a diabetic and put them to good use on my ornaments these days. I make sure and seal them with acrylic so they won't attract water and swell later. the backside of the horse is unsealed.

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